Large Front Loaders & The American Market
One of the reasons Miele and other front loaders never sold well in the United States was the capacity issue as compared to the dominate top loaders.
American housewives have largely kept to the old ways of saving laundry for one day per week or so then having to wash mountains of laundry. For that you want a washer that holds allot of laundry and process it quickly. Most home front loaders have very long cycles (compared again to top loaders) and were preceived as not holding the same amount of laundry.
Depending upon load size a standard 11lbs capacity European front loader should be fine for many American homes, but apparently the market demanded differently. Thus you saw the introduction of Whirlpool's Duet, Maytag's Neptune, Bosch's Nexxt and so forth.
There is also the thing that American homes wish to wash large bedding items at home such as comforters, duvets, quilts and so forth. Given the average bed size in the United States is queen or king and even within those ranges bed linens are getting larger to accomodate the rising depth of mattresses (all those pillow topped/plush jobs), you're going to need something larger than say an 11 pound front loader.
Being as all this may our Miele salesperson echos what one has heard elsewhere, the 48XXX series was not a huge seller. Many customers felt it was too large versus the 30XX series and that that latter was better built and or provided more value for money. This could be one of the reasons why Miele is pulling the plug on the 48XX production.
One of the reasons Miele and other front loaders never sold well in the United States was the capacity issue as compared to the dominate top loaders.
American housewives have largely kept to the old ways of saving laundry for one day per week or so then having to wash mountains of laundry. For that you want a washer that holds allot of laundry and process it quickly. Most home front loaders have very long cycles (compared again to top loaders) and were preceived as not holding the same amount of laundry.
Depending upon load size a standard 11lbs capacity European front loader should be fine for many American homes, but apparently the market demanded differently. Thus you saw the introduction of Whirlpool's Duet, Maytag's Neptune, Bosch's Nexxt and so forth.
There is also the thing that American homes wish to wash large bedding items at home such as comforters, duvets, quilts and so forth. Given the average bed size in the United States is queen or king and even within those ranges bed linens are getting larger to accomodate the rising depth of mattresses (all those pillow topped/plush jobs), you're going to need something larger than say an 11 pound front loader.
Being as all this may our Miele salesperson echos what one has heard elsewhere, the 48XXX series was not a huge seller. Many customers felt it was too large versus the 30XX series and that that latter was better built and or provided more value for money. This could be one of the reasons why Miele is pulling the plug on the 48XX production.
