Which Miele W1?

[littlegreeny]

Thanks Launderess and Henrik!

I ran another but smaller load of towels with the same settings and watched the cycle. It managed to do all the interim spins but they were really short and slow. I haven't figured out the RPMs yet but I'm guessing the interim spins were only 600-800 and lasted less than a minute. The final spin was limited to maybe 800-1000 so the towels were pretty wet and I spun them again at 1600 and I believe it made it up to speed.

I forgot to mention I had the spin set to 1200. My towels haven't been feeling soft and fluffy and I thought maybe it was because of the 1600 spin speed so I've been spinning most loads at 1200. Now I think they felt that way because they haven't been getting properly rinsed.

And I think there's a programming bug with the towels cycle. The manual says it has two rinses. But when you add an extra rinse, the cycle time doesn't increase like the other cycles and it still only does two rinses. I tried selecting extra rinse in the app and it didn't add any extra time either.

Henrik, I'm very curious what table you were referring to? I'd love to see it if it shows interim spin speeds or other information that isn't available in the owners manual.

I think I might need to try using the normal cycle for towels because I really want them rinsed three times like all my other loads. Thanks for suggesting the extra white and baby clothes cycles but they are too intensive for my lightly soiled towels. And the quick intense wash does a really short spin between the wash and first rinse but doesn't spin between the first and second rinse. And you can't select extra rinse either, so that's out.

 

[henene4]

Table

It's just the cycle table in the manual.

While over here most Miele cycles are unique, there are certain "flags" that indicate which cycle is based on what.

Rinses are one. If it's 2-5 rinses, it's based on Cottons.
If it's 2-3 it's Easy Care.

And Mieles OOB gating is just something known from the Novotronics that I assume has been transferred through the lines by observation.
They usually have 3 levels of sensing. And that can be switched around to their pleasing.

My guess why the higher end machines tend to be more finicky is that these *might* have the true acceleration sensor.

In the service menu (the on accessed via the 5 start button presses after closing the door) there is *usually* setting to choose the balance sensor type.
There are 3 settings I think. One using only tachometric data, one using both tachometric data and the specified sensor and one I don't remember off the top of my head.

The higher end models have the additional sensor for smoother operation.
That might make them more sensitive, mine only has the tachometric sensor has spun almost everything.

 

[jerrod_six]

I don't know how the towels cycle works on your model but on mine, it is one of the cycles I never use for towels. When my model was released the website described the towel cycle using the terms" great for removing sand" as if it was intended to be used for beach towels. I tried this cycle several times and the reason I didn't care for it is that the interim spins are just too short for me - more like burst spins. Mine did do 3 rinses but the interim spin is so short that I didn't think it would remove enough of the detergent. I wash all of my towels on the baby clothes program.

Also on mine using the baby clothes program, if the spin after the wash is not accomplished, yes it will say rinse, but the time remaining will move up to a time before the wash had actually ended and I will end up getting an extra rinse. Since Baby clothes default to 3 rinses I get four rinses and the rinse added will use the max rinse level for its fill. On my W1, the interim spin at 1200 is the same speed as 1600, only the last spin is higher at 1600 rpm.

 

[littlegreeny]

Thanks Henrik and Jerrod!

I'll need to go back into the service menu. I believe mine had two things selected under the balance sensor. It does seem to be very sensitive to OOB loads.

I'm not going to use the towels cycle any longer for precisely the reason you mention Jerrod, the interim spins are way too short. I think I'll just start using the normal cycle instead. I've used baby clothes a few times and actually saved it under my favorites renaming it to "Cottons Intensive."

Does anyone know what speed the interim spins are supposed to be? I assume they vary depending on the cycle selected, correct?

 

[hippo]

@littlegreeny

I'm sorry to hear about your issues with the Towels cycle. I have not had much of a chance to use the Towels cycle as I have always gotten excellent results using the Extra White cycle for my full loads of towels. I do understand if you feel that cycle is too long and intense for your needs, however, as it washes for about an hour before the first rinse. The spins are superb however and I have not had balance issues with Extra White. While I rinse most of my loads three times I get perfectly acceptable results (even with our naturally soft water) with the default two rinses for towels with correct detergent dosing.

I have also noticed that the Towels cycle does not extend its time when an extra rinse is selected, however the machine does increase its estimated water consumption. I haven't had the chance to observe cycles with both options to see what it actually does.

I find the OOB management of this machine to be one of its biggest mysteries. On some cycles, particularly Normal, Extra White, and Baby Clothes it seems quite insensitive to imbalance and willing to spin even with a good amount of drum displacement. The Drain/Spin cycle also seems very insensitive and willing to spin just about any load. But some cycles, namely Dress Shirts, are absurdly sensitive to balance. I often wash a small load of about 4-5 button downs and the machine will, every time, attempt to balance for a full 5 minutes per spin (adding 20 minutes total to the cycle) before giving up and spinning "out of balance" even though the resultant drum displacement is far less than would occur in a large Normal cycle without complaint or delay from the machine. You seem to have discovered a similar over-sensitivity in the programming of the towels cycle, unfortunately. I do occasionally find that the machine has rejected the last spin and left a large comforter soaking wet on the pillows cycle, but selecting Drain/Spin has always fixed that. I don't begrudge the machine the latter as much since those are much heavier than a large load of dress shirts.

Many thanks to henene4 for the interesting notes on the balance sensors and cycle logic. Please let me know if you discover anything useful changing your balance sensor settings, littlegreeny.

I think you are on the right track to use Normal with an extra rinse for your towels if you want a good, but not extremely intensive wash, and excellent spinning between rinses. If you want a faster cycle (and aren't using 1600 rpm anyway) you might also give Table Linens / Drapes a try. I wash microfiber towels and 100% cotton sheets with that cycle and it provides a quick cycle time but aggressive cleaning and rinsing action with a high water level in the main wash. The manual says that Table Linens/Drapes has two rinses but I find that it does 3 normally and 4 with extra rinse.

I don't know exactly what the interim spin speed are supposed to be. I know that if I select 0rpm that there will be no intermediate spins, but beyond that I always use the maximum spin speed available and haven't had any issues with stretching or wrinkling.

I agree with you that QuickIntenseWash doesn't rinse well enough for towels. I find that cycle rather puzzling. Miele says it is not for heavily soiled items, but it spends nearly the entire cycle aggressively washing and then just a few minutes rinsing and spinning, clearly to maximize the wash time. It spends longer than the Normal cycle in the wash phase so it would seem that it would be intended for more heavily soiled items. Perhaps the design of the cycle only really makes sense on Euro cold fill models where the very low water level in the main wash and devoting the vast majority of the cycle to washing allows the QuickIntenseWash to hit temp in the shorter time.

 

[launderess]

Refresh, Intense, Quick...

Pretty much all boil down to same thing with European front loaders one finds. A cycle of about 30 minutes (give or take) where major portion of time is spent washing (rather aggressively IMHO), followed by one or two rinses, then short (but fast) series of final spin cycles.

On my AEG Lavamat the "Refresh" cycle is meant for small loads (< 2 kilos) of things that are lightly soiled, such as being "only worn once".

Find this cycle works well when doing a few jumpers made from microfiber. Machine washes the heck out of them (recirculation jet on entire time), then rinses and spins. If find things want a bit more rinsing reset to "Rinse" only but cancel spin. When cycle is over put set machine for "Short Spin".

At only about thirty mins (give or take incoming water temp), this is one of fastest cycles on my Lavamat. Perfect for when one just has a few things but doesn't want to wait an hour or more for any of other cycles.

 

[launderess]

Could short and slow interim spins have anything to do with how machine copes with sudden rush of water? That is more water than pump can manage, so machine slows down extraction speed in order to cope.

Know with my AEG washer when doing very absorbent loads washer will slow down spinning. This and or just stop extraction and do a series of on/off with pump to get out excess water from sump.

 

[hippo]

@launderess, your comments are very applicable to Miele’s Express cycle which is intended for lightly soiled laundry only and features a cycle time of 30 minutes or 20 minutes with the “Lightly Soiled” option selected.

QuickIntenseWash is a little stranger. It clocks in at 49 minutes and spends all but the last few in the quite aggressive wash cycle. Over 40 minutes of washing are performed, which is more than Miele’s Normal cycle on this machine. The two rinses and spinning is almost comically compressed into the last few minutes. For the higher water level first rinse the water starts draining nearly immediately after filling stops. The strangeness for me about this cycle is the extreme degree to which Miele prioritizes wash time over rinsing quality and getting a good spin, yet doesn’t market the QuickIntenseWash as for anything more than “moderately” soiled laundry. While ostensibly a 1600rpm spin I’ve never seen the washer hit that on QuickIntenseWash and the duration is so short that the laundry retains more water than it would with a 1200rpm normal spin. One would think that trading off a minute or two of spinning for a significantly longer added drying time doesn’t make much sense for a cycle where speed is the priority.

I would speculate that QuickIntenseWash does make more sense in cold fill markets since prioritizing washing time (along with the very low water level) allows the cycle to reach up to 60C and have effective enzyme and/or oxygen bleaching action from a decent temperature holding time. With USA warm fill the cleaning power of shorter washing durations is significantly enhanced and many cycles are quite a bit shorter reducing the relative benefits of the QuickIntenseWash cycle. While the Normal cycle on this machine is 1:26 (up to 50C) the Cottons cycle on many European market machines can be 2:30 or even over 3 hours long. Other parts of the world are also more likely to hang-dry their laundry which also negates the drying time penalty from the suboptimal final spin performance in QuickIntenseWash.

 

[hippo]

@littlegreeny, you should make sure your drain hose is not too far down your drain pipe and that it is zip tied to maintain its height. While this machine does have excessive OOB sensitivity on some cycles, a Miele tech told me that many spinning delay issues are caused by backflow/reflux on pumping caused by the drain hose being positioned too near the bottom of the drain pipe. If this is part of your problem there should be related code(s) visible in service mode. Correcting it did help my machine but it still suffers from the ridiculous OOB behavior on the Dress Shirts cycle that I described above.

 

[littlegreeny]

Thanks Hippo and Launderess!

The default imbalance sensor settings are tacho + EZU which I think I'll just leave alone. I do feel like it's programmed to be more sensitive to OOB issues on certain cycles like towels. Speaking of which, the manual says to use that cycle "for linen or cotton towels used for personal hygiene."

It seems to run best and have the least issues with balancing when you run full loads, especially if it contains heavy or absorbent items.

I also wish the quick intense wash was better at rinsing and extracting. I've been using that cycle set to 140F for my light, thin Ikea kitchen towels and it does a great job getting them clean. I just use less detergent to compensate for the poor rinsing.

The drain hose is properly installed. I made sure to check that when I read about your issues with installation, Hippo.

 

[logixx]

QuickPowerWASH

They don't call it that for nothing. Miele made a fairly big deal out of that cycle when it was first introduced here. We even had flyers in our store.

The idea is to have a cycle that achieves "A Class cleaning performance in under one hour". Previous quick cycles were usually just that - a quick cycle to more or less refresh clothes, without attaining that A Class cleaning rating. I suppose rinsing and spinning were never the primary focus. Basically every manufacturer has since followed and introduced their own 1hrs. cycle, sometimes with similar so-so rinsing and spinning performance.

My "European-cycles" Duet also has a Daily Wash cycle that takes 60 minutes. Each rinse tumbles for three minutes once filled, there are interim spins and the final spin lasts 15 minutes. Washing only lasts for 30 minutes; especially when connected to cold water only, this is hardly enough time to heat to 104F when using the stated capacity of 6KG. It's also only meant to tackle lightly soiled clothes.

 

[henene4]

Poor rinsing

It is a shame they don't allow an extra rinse to be added.

Though the EU version has been reworked several times, rinsing has been ok to meh depending on load since day one.
I use it only with new clothes or if I need something actually that quickly.

The most current EU version is 49min for loads up to 4kg. That only does one interim spin after the wash. This uses the PowerWash style heating.
In theory, with a load greater that 4kg that should take 59min and run with a normal "deep" fill wash.

If you take off the Short option it takes 1:15 with an additional interim spin after the first rinse, longer final spin and a few more minutes of washing.
The main wash is about 40-55min depending on setting.

The setting "tacho + EZU" should be what incorporates a sensor on one of the PCBs.
Idea is that if cabinet movement is to high it cancels the spin aswell.
Changing that wouldn't be problematic per se, but since you are in warranty, I wouldn't risk it.

 

[hippo]

@henene4, I have also seen my USA model add the additional time. It makes sense now that you say it is for heavier loads, although I didn't think the loads it was doing that with were so large, maybe a couple pants and shirts. I haven't used the cycle enough to get a great feel for its behavior, however. The extended time for a large wash doesn't seem necessary with hot fill but they probably didn't want to go to the trouble of reprogramming the cycle for hot fill machines.

Do you know what EZU stands for? And does it cancel or delay the spin if the only the cabinet movement is too high? Or drum movement as well?

 

[hippo]

@henene4, I forgot to mention, there is no short option on any cycle on USA machines. It seems to be the default here due to the hot fill.

 

[launderess]

"for linen or cotton towels used for personal hygiene."

One supposes to distingish between other sort of towels, such as microfiber used for various cleaning or other purposes.

"It seems to run best and have the least issues with balancing when you run full loads.."

On average H-axis washing machines have less issues washing, rinsing and spinning when loaded to full capacity. That of course would vary by cycle chosen, but for "normal" cottons or linens it seems to make a difference IMHO.

My older Miele washer is certainly happy doing full loads. Far less problems with balancing and so forth.

Modern AEG washers what one considers a "full" load versus machine's computers is another matter. Times when drum is barely one-half to three-quarters filled will give out load sensing reading of "100%". This is usually with very absorbent things like towels, etc....

 

[littlegreeny]

I ran a huge load of towels tonight on the normal cycle, 140F, 1600 spin with extra rinse and it had absolutely zero issues balancing or spinning and the towels turned out great. It took about twice as long but I had properly washed, rinsed and spun towels. And even with the normal cycle, the door got nice and hot.

The lesson is run full loads when washing towels.

 

[launderess]

After a while of owning and using your new washer you'll sort out what cycles are best for what. This versus the others which may sound wonderful, but often either are rubbish or just surplus to requirements.

Modern computer controlled front loaders have a vast and bewildering array of cycles. But truth to tell most households find only a handful useful on consistent basis.

 

[chachp]

My cycle usage:

 

The cycles I use:

 

Extra White – I use this for our T -Shirts and it does a great job.

 

Sanitary – I use this for hubby’s white socks and all and cleaning towels, dish towels, etc. and always get great results.

 

Sportswear – for our exercise clothes those that are spandex type clothes.

 

Dress Shirts – I use this for all of my casual shirts, think Hawaiian type shirts.  The shirts come out with practically no wrinkles.  I hang dry them.

 

Towels – I used to use this for towels but based on all the discussions here I have modified and am happy with the results.  I have used the Baby Clothes with Extra Water and an Extra Rinse.  My Rinse level is permanently set at the higher level.  Very happy with the towels.

 

Baby Clothes – this has basically replaced my use of Normal which I was using for a number of things.  I have never watched it for a complete cycle so I have no idea what it is doing but I will say given the same temp and same amount of detergent the clothes feel so much softer out of the Baby Clothes cycle.  I don’t know if it uses more water, more rinses, who knows I just know it makes a real difference.  They are very soft but not the kind of soft you get with a fabric softener which I never use just really very soft.

 

I do use the other cycles occasionally depending on what I am doing.  If the washer has a cycle for that item, I will try it and adjust as necessary.  The exceptions so far have been replacing the Towels cycle with the Baby Clothes cycle and replacing Normal with Baby Clothes pretty much.  So, even after two years I am amazed at the versatility of my W1 machine thanks to all those here who have shared their experience and testing results.

 

[littlegreeny]

Thanks everyone!

I appreciate everyone's responses and your suggestions. I've been experimenting with the cycles myself and am still deciding whether I like the baby clothes or extra white cycle better for my sheets. I have very oily skin and my sheets are dark gray so they show the oil and it's easy to tell if they're clean. The last few times I used the extra white cycle, 140F, prewash and the allergy setting with success. I have a feeling they'll get cleaner with each subsequent wash as hidden buildup is removed.

 

[derrick352]

Technical Service Bulletin

Keep in mind if your machine does not exhibit this issue and receives an "update" with new software... It may be the software that has this issue. Therefore your W1 will now have same problem as some already have. Miele has made NO attempt to stop updating machines with this errant software. New units just introduced also have this issue depending on model. Germany decided to load errant firmware on these new models knowing the software was flawed to begin with.

There should be some type of notice given to dealers and passed down to consumer before purchasing a W1 machine. Do not count on this issue ever getting corrected. Time frame for spring 2022 software to correct issues will make it approx 1 year when Miele became aware of this problem, if not more time than that. How could it take this long is beyond me.