My Newest Addition, a Miele WMV960WPS

[servis-dream]

i went to the Harrods Department Store in London UK about a month ago and managed to find the only thing i went there to see, Miele's product display

the washers and dryers are fully hooked up to water, electricity, and drainage and i got hooked when i last visited in 2015

being either a smart (or slightly crazy) 17 year old, i decided to take a deep plunge into the best modern machines from Miele on Facebook Marketplace

during a hunt for their top of line models i stumbled across a beauty, it was £399

i messaged the company that was selling it and after paying an extra £90 for delivery it's here

delivered on Thursday with a WWI660 behind it in case i changed my mind about the WMV960

the delivery guy was incredibly helpful, and i even showed off my fully customised W916 to him, needless to say he was quite impressed with it, and the garage of machines as well

after he left i got into the settings menu and went to town, setting up every feature i'd need like TwinDos, the water plus level and changing the buzzer tone and screen brightness to my liking

then it was time to actually plumb the machine in and run it's first cycle, which was QuickPowerWash 60

it was like i was seeing miracles (i've probably seen a Miele W1 on a wash about 3 times in my life lol)

after the cycle was done i noticed some mildew specks in the drum, so i ran the "Machine Clean" cycle with 500 grams of Citric Acid, let's just say the water looked like sewage haha (it had been sitting for a while)

later i hopped into service mode, it turn out this machine had about 210 operating hours when i got it, for a total of £489 and an extra £40 for the TwinDos cartriges it's a bargain!

i also removed the heat shield because the reflection and glare was annoying (as i film them for my YouTube channel (Washing Central), so after about 20 minutes of absolute cluelessness i found the best way to take it out was to prise it out with a flathead screwdriver, a little bit of elbow grease and patience, and it was out

it feels like a fever dream having a Miele W1 in my utility room, and i told myself "one day i will own one of these".

7 years later, it's happened, and i couldn't be happier

below is a link to QuickPowerWash 60 in action next to a W916 (that was faster, but the WMV960 managed it more smoothly

 

[henene4]

SMH

How can someone dump such a machine for that kind of bargain?

Really happy for you!
I have a mid line PowerWash model and it's an amazing, very efficient machine.
Since it's my daily driver efficiency is important to me - I guess as a collector you don't worry about that much...
But I actually am awaiting notification that I can pick up its replacement - I also splurged and spent way to much!

It's also really interesting how few people appear to actually bother and buy the empty TwinDos containers.
First they included them outright, then they added a coupon to get them for free but now even that is gone from all models including the current TOL machine.

You could probably easily resell that for at least twice what you spent - given then current TOL machine goes for 2.5k with not even 500h on this one 1.5k wouldn't even be outrageous.

I know the programming in and out for my machine.

But I've got a question about this specific model.

Did you connect it to the app so that it can get any updates that might be available?
Either way, the new Miele machines with touchscreen appear to have one major addition my machine did not get yet.
Those machines can sense a small load (less than half I guess) on the normal Cottons 40C down to under 1:30h (something like 1:21h IIRC), my machine won't go any shorter than 1:39h with Quick selected no matter how small the load is. Without quick it's 2:19h.

Does this machine sense to such short cycles, or is the Cottons cycle below 60C without options locked to over 2h like mine?

Here's an example:

My machine would have sensed that load with the same settings to 2:19h

Hope you have lots of fun with this battleship of a machine!

 

[derrick352]

Did you connect it to the app so that it can get any updates

LOL. Like the update to fix the prewash/soak/add item "Coming June 2022". The update feature on a Miele W1 is pure bogus BS. They cannot even fix the problems let alone update a W1 using remote update feature. Now the newer models don't even dispense bleach. The prewash/soak/add item issue for a lot of people's W1's will NEVER be fixed. They continue to sell defective machines delivered new, and then act like they never heard of the issue when consumer runs into a known issue. To buy a NEW machine that has a pre existing issue for 2 yrs or more is truly SAD!

 

[henene4]

This machine has the water diverter, so it won't be affected by the water path issues even if they would be in the updates for machines that never had that issue.

My machine for example had an issue fixed by an OTA update.

So don't see what that has to do with anything here?

 

[derrick352]

Miele June 2022 Update Ready...

Hoist a flag. Amazed somewhat.

 

[iej]

What’s the water diverter? Did they get rid of the complex flow path thing?

I know my machine seems to sound like it’s moving a stepper motor during the fill.

 

[henene4]

Water diverter

That's what you mean by "complex flow path thing" I think.
It's basically a small synchronous motor moving a small arm diverting the water flow direction - it's not actually a true stepper motor, just the same kind of motor as in a timer with the position being encoded by a small switch system.

That means the machine could go to 4, 5 or even 6 different water directions with only 1 valve (or 2 in case of hot fill option "AllWater" machines like this).

Now, many machines up through the line oy have the typical 2 valve set up know from machines of most makes.

As long as the machine only has a pre wash, main wash and softener compartment, that set-up is somewhat cheaper.

As soon as you go hot fill and/or with the steam care option, the machines still use the water diverter as far as I know.
The washer dryers don't necessarily go with a diverter - they don't have WPS hoses and use the WPS valve as the dryer condenser valve from what I understand.

The issue is (and/or was, from what I understand) that they did not rewrite the software completely.

On machines with water diverters, the machine will move the diverter to the correct position, and as soon the machine reads the correct position, it allows the valves to be opened.
The diverter will be moved to certain positions as needed at certain times in the cycle.
For example, on many cycles, after load sensing is done, the diverter will move to a specific position even if no water is loaded afterwards.

The way the machines without water diverter are set up is that the machine always thinks the water diverter is in the correct position no matter what.

In turn every fill step has been rewritten to activate either one valve, the other or both PLUS the valve in the WPS hose if equipped.

BUT not every fill step had been rewritten correctly meaning that many of the fill actions just called for one valve to open even though it technically need to call for at least 2 valves - and the valve it called for might not even been a viable "adress" so to speak.

And since all these machines have flow meters, they go straight into a fat state.
The machine thinks it has opened the water path, but actually hasn't. Since it can't know the difference (it can't know that the it's an internal valve not being opened and not the tap it's connected to) it just says the tap is closed and proceeds accordingly.

That's why the US for example has such a huge issue (you guys have hot water fill machines meaning more water kath options) and why EU TOL machines never appeared to have issues what so ever.

 

[iej]

Interesting. There are some hot water valve versions of those machines sold here, mostly as solar heating options.

Hot / Cold fill machines were very normal here in Ireland until the sometime in the 1990s. The vast majority of older machines had both and most houses still have hot / cold connection points for the washing machine.

The designs probably also date from the days when 60°C washes were considered normal for cottons and when machines were much deeper fill. Older front loaders weren’t all that water efficient and often did the wash with the water filled to half way up the glass door.

We had a 1980s Siemens machine branded ‘Washmeister’ which were actually some kind of special version sold exclusively through a retail chain network. It actually ran the hot water for about 10 seconds and then did a pump out to purge the line of cold water automatically before beginning the fill. I don’t think it used any kind of thermostatic sensing or anything like that, just a cam controlled fill cycle that just did the same thing each time.

There were also some fairly automatic top loaders sold here - niche but not that unusual until the mid 90s. Hotpoint sold one in small format, but you could buy Australian Simpson machines and Whirlpool and Maytag did 230V 50Hz versions of what were essentially US machines. A bit like the way Miele sold machines to the US market without very much modification, Maytag and Whirlpool did similar.

Top loaders were very popular at one stage in B&Bs and light commercial context and it was pretty common to find commercial top loader agitator washers in launderettes certainly saw a few around. Nowadays you’d struggle to find a launderette, never mind a top loader. The only laundrettes I can see around are those outdoor machines that sit in supermarket car parks or gas stations. They’re entirely unattended and just dropped in as a unit with 2 washers (larger and standard ) and one or sometimes two dryers. Seems they’ve now got about 378 locations around the country - most commonly on gas station fourcourts. They seem to mostly get used by tourists, hikers and occasionally people washing over sized items like duvets that are too big for residential machines. They’re kinda expensive though €4 for 8kg washer €8 for the 18kg machine. Although everything is expensive here. I got an iced coffee and prepacked wrap yesterday and it was €12!

 

[iej]

I take that back … inflation… spotted one of those laundry units today and it’s now €5 for 8kg and €10 for 18kg!