Why a Miele? also why NEVER to buy one is some places!
Here where I live I consider the total cost of ownership of the items I buy. Maybe this is a "foreign concept" to many on this thread.
To buy a small 24" frame Miele W3033 FL washer here via mailorder would be 2049 via mailorder via AJ Madison. A typical person then would have to pay somebody to pickup their dead washer. If one wants to really follow the tax laws too one is suppose to pay the state sales taxes too on this out of state purchase. Thus the total cost is really 2200 to 2300 bucks for a small 24" washer that will not wash an american comforter.
If the Miele has issues at some time, no local repair shop has ever seen one. Thus one would have to have a repair chap from New Orleans or Atlanta vist.
I already went through "repair hell" with our oddball 1972 Hotpoint 1200 buck dual oven electronic (microwave) rig. Local folks had never seen one; a repair chap from New Orleans vist was 100 bucks back in the late 1970's. It got to where we stopped repairing the 945 Mhz microwave portion since repairs required somebody to vist from New Orleans. One needed to own an oil well to pay for all the repair and travel costs.
Thus in the wastefull ways of some here, one could buy a little 24" Miele here for 2300 bucks. Then one could several times a year travel to the laundromat to wash comforters and large items. One could after several years have somebody vist from New Orleans for 300 bucks just to arrive at ones door for a repair.
With the local shipyard that services yachts or oil rig service boats, they just pull the 24" Miele if the unit has issues and replace it with a brand new one. The 2300 to 2500 bucks is peanuts in their scheme of things, and they know nobody local can fix one. They might too pull the unit out and drive it 160km to New Orleans for repairs, if the yacht is laid up for hull repairs for awhile.
A lot of high end oddball foreign freak consumer items that are not normally bought here are junked once a major problem arises. It use to be like this with foreign cars decades ago. To keep one running via repairs was super expensive. Thus locally folks do consider if the machi9ne is serviced locally; or is one buying some freakish brand nobody has seen of before. Folks do not care a rats rear if the "Quality" brand is cheap to repair 10,000 Km away across the ocean, the are concerned if there are buying a repair total boondoggle, one that will be a total nightmare in parts and service costs. Here in the usa, some of use consider the TOTAL cost of ownership. If about all the tractors in Anywhere USA are Fords, most sane farmers will not buy an imported Yugo tractor or Miele Tractor if nobody for 160km has worked on one before.
Miele in this area is a brand nobody really has heard off. No local service folks have seen one either. If one self services, repair clinic.com has about 27 brands of washers listed, but no Miele.
Thus it really does not matter here locally if Miele washer parts are on every street corner in Europe and they are free and the government has free repairs!
. We wonder if that so called quality is like the other oddball freak poor purchases we made. ie that Peugeot car that went through alternators every year than cost 450 each. Thus one started self repair, the blown diodes can be pressed out and ones from a NAPA store were only 2 bucks from a GM alternator. One gets into self repair due to frustrations of being raped with high costs in fixing the freak oddball item one bought.
The title of this thread is : Why a Miele?
Less Mieles are sold in areas where the units are sold via only mailorder, where no local home owns one, where no local store has one, where no local repair man has seen one in his life, where no usa parts house like repairclinic.com carry any Miele parts.
Buying a Miele here is only done by the local shipyard for small yachts and oil service boats. If the washer lasts 5 years and leaks, they just buy another one for 2300 bucks and the old one goes in a landfill.
If one asks "Why a Miele?" one might get answers of why many folks will never buy them. It is just an darn expensive small machine that costs 3 to 4 times what a normal machine costs, that nobody locally will work on. Thus the confidence factor is low. ie feel better buying a 400 to 600 Maytag, Whirlpool or LG and having it last 5 years. The 2300 buck Miele too might last 10 to 20 years, or one might spend 1000 bucks in repairs via 300km round trips for small things and go broke.
If I decided to build a commercial coin laundromat or buy a washer for a house in Supremewhirlpool's town, I would ask him what machines he has worked one before and what he likes to work on. If he has never seen a Miele before, only a total fool would buy a Miele. The repairs and service do have a bearing on many folks purchases.
