Why a Miele?

[supremewhirlpol]

It's unfortunate, but the "cheap at all costs" mentality of Americans is ruining the planet. By all means enjoy your 8 top loaders that waste gargantuan amounts of water and are made at the lowest possible cost using the lowest quality components. I'm perfectly happy with my Miele and the amount of money I paid for it. You see, I'm one of those people who prefers quality over quantity. It shouldn't always be about money - if it were, we would never make any progress as a society.


Some people just don't have the money to spend on a Miele machine. I have NEVER seen a Miele machine in person. Most American people just want a machine to wash their clothes. I personally don't see a point to spend that much on such a small machine, to which the machine itself is imported. Also cost of the parts and repairs is just out of this world. It's like having a Mercedes vs. a Ford both products provide you with transportation, except with Mercedes you pay several times more for parts, repairs, and the vehicle itself. If you are going to spend several thousand on a washing machine(as what the Miele costs) You might as well buy a REAL commercial machine. I like the TL too and I have a few. I prefer quality over quantity too, else why would I have Wascomat, Ipso and Primus machine as my daily drivers. Those are made FAR better than the wimpy Miele machines. And YES, boy do they use some water. NOT only REAL water, but lots of 3 phase 240V electricity. They make BIG Noises, and shake the concrete floor that they are bolted too. I guess that make me resource waster...SPLASH SPLASH, SO BE IT!! I HAVE CLEAN CLOTHES AND HEAVY DUTY MACHINES FOR SUPERIOR IN QUALITY THAN THE MIELE. Hopefully one day John(combo52) will come through for me with a Miele that comes in his shop because it's busted.

 

[lavamat_jon]

Lol. If you've never seen a Miele (or other high quality European brand) machine in person then how can you make the assumption they are wimpy? They may be a luxury item in the US but that is not the subject of this thread, and in Europe they are highly respected as a brand... That's like me casting a judgment on Speed Queen washers which I cannot do as I have no experience on which to base an opinion.

Fwiw, Miele sell their design in a commercial version, as well as specifically designed washer extractors so they are up there with others when it comes to laundry know how. Another nice thing about Miele machines that you wouldnt know seeming as you've never seen/used one is the ability to add water if one so wishes, which give rinse levels up the door not unlike commercial or older domestic machines. Scroll up and look at the pictures for yourself... Every single machine has a water plus button. Not that I use it too much - I can have a full load washed and rinsed in 42l of water and have the whites to prove it .

Yes, we know they are a rare brand in the US. And? Lets get back to enjoying and sharing which is what the thread is about, if you don't like the machines then simply don't post, and at least have valid reasoning before making incorrect points.

Take care,

Jon

 

[supremewhirlpol]

umm... Jon, I'm not saying that I don't like the Miele machines, I'm saying that they are big time over priced. Just by looking at the pictures of miele machines vs like SQ, Dexter, milnor and the such that the little dinky Mieles are just not made as good. Yes, I know Miele makes a commercial machine too, not talking about those. But....The commercial Mieles I have found to be MUCH more expensive than the average commercial machine too. For example I can purchase a brand new Wascomat W630 for ~$3,886 the equivalent(or near) Miele Professional cost somewhere ~$13,000. The Dexters, Continentals, Wasco's allow you to change water levels and programs too. My opinion vs. yours. SPLASH SPLASH!!!!!!

 

[peterh770]

If you like quality over quantity, then you wouldn't have an Ipso and a Primus machine!

 

Besides, you are talking apples vs. oranges.  You cannot compare a commercial hardmount to a domestic softmount.  Of course, they are made better!  But if you want to put a SQ home washer against a Miele, there is no contest.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

If you like quality over quantity, then you wouldn't have an Ipso and a Primus machine!

I guess I could say the same thing about you and those Wasco Dryers you have!

 

[ronhic]

Oh dear.....

Firstly, experience of a particular product is always preferable if being critical of its performance or build....

 

Secondly, car prices are not an indication of how much appliances cost...

 

A Mercedes of the same specification here costs approximately 300% of the cost in the US, yet I can buy a Miele washer for US$1700....

 

Miele are world renown for the quality of their products be they washers, dryers, cooking or floor care. You could ask people in every country to name what Miele make and most could name at least 2 items from the above. Ask about Wascomat and I reckon most would say 'a garbage disposal', not a washer/dryer/extractor.

 

Every house that can fit a 24" washer, can fit a Miele. Not every house that can do that, can fit a Wascomat....

 

Knowing that Miele have built their reputation as being a manufacturer of quality appliances, I'd be prepared to spend that money rather than replace 4, 5 or 6 cheaper machines....

 

I can't tell you how much I appreciate that Miele is STILL in the hands of the original family......over 60 family members of the Miele and Zinkann families are the shareholders. 

 

[Pingmeep]

You can compare commercial hard and softmounts to a Miele. Having looked at the commercial quality machines and almost ended up buying a Continental EH030. Forget the ugly factor because some commercial equipment is pretty good looking. Forget the softmount vs hardmount and weight issues (the Continental I had my eye on is about 780lbs) if we look at pure cleaning performance the Mieles would likely win.

Comparing Dexter's line (which is well built) spin and extraction speeds top out around 200Gs which is 760-850RPM. I don't mind having a commercial washer but losing all that water extraction means I would need a commercial dryer.

Their drum perforations are nowhere near as gentle as a Miele's honeycomb drum even at much lower speeds. Try running plush cotton towels and compare the results. The Continental is worse. If you have dress shirts and dress pants the Miele is probably a better investment. If you have silk and the like the Miele is the only choice till you go into gonzo specialized machines or price segments.

In cycle settings the Miele also wins. Now if I had a commercial laundry I would rather have fast washers but here at home I just want results. A good choice of cycles helps that.

As far as warranty goes I'm out $3500 tax and delivery included for a machine and 10 year parts and labor warranty. With my higher than average use I expect it to last between 10-13 years. That's not a bad investment. The Continental starts at that price plus additional for delivery. If I need parts I have to go through a dealer. Not so good.

Lets also not forget even with the smaller capacity Miele does make 27" models. Hope the do better than BSH who are gone from the 27" space. If you don't mind waiting you can get them over in Canada and probably stateside this summer. There is a backlog at the moment and existing customers get first dibs.

Miele is slow to release new models. This years release will be what the first really new North American model in four years? They have been slower to adapt new tech. Just this year they finally got a heat pump dryer. Their sound insulation can leave something to be desired depending on model. And the prices are at the highend of the market. But that's the segment they have targeted.

Finally yes they also make commercial machines and many of them have many more features and programmability compared to the competition. Miele's PW6161 blows the Continental EH030 out of the water. For the kings ransom they charge you would expect them to.

http://mieleprofessional.ca/ca/prof/products/33_13244.htm

 

[mark_wpduet]

I've always wanted one! Especially since the can be programmed to use more water. Oh well. I'll probably be sticking with WP since I get a discount from a family member.

 

[bewitched]

..."Those are made FAR better than the wimpy Miele machines"...

Supremewirlpol, you said you never saw a Miele in person so how can you judge about their quality? It's the same if one that never saw a Wascomat Ipso or Primus says they are unreliable...


This is not a race for the winning podium,isn't it?

 

[peterh770]

OMG!!!

Believe me, those Wasco dryers are a NIGHTMARE!!!  I didn't buy them; they came with the store.  I don't know why the President keeps saying that there is money available for small businesses, because NO ONE is lending right now!  Been rejected by 5 institutions now to get funding to replace them.  Still looking...

 

[hoover1100]

the little dinky Mieles are just not made as good

Actually, the Speed Queens in an apartment building I lived in, which were a couple of years old at most, broke down on an almost weekly basis under light commercial use (there was always at least one out of order, literally.) You could probably get more laundry into a Miele anyway, since you can actually use them at full capacity and still get clean, well rinsed clothes (not a chance in those Speed Queens.) The Miele little giant they had in the in the same room just went on and on, and was far older.

I would buy Miele because I know from experience they wash and rinse far better than ALL other brands I have used, are by far the most well made and are very gentle on clothing.

Even the commercial Mieles have proper wash cycles like a domestic machine, unlike most commercial machines with their pathetic 30min wash times which barely clean a thing

Mieles may be expensive and hard to find in the U.S., but they aren't TOO bad here. My parents bought one in January for £650, considering how much better it will be and how much longer it will last than the reast of the machines on the market, even similarly priced machines, it's well worth it IMO.

As for the styling, I think they are far more sophisticated and classy than most machines made today, the fact the styling hasn't changed much since the early 80s goes to show how timless it is, an LG or a Samsung or whatever will look very dated in 20 years (maybe it's a good job they won't last anywhere near that long!) a Miele will still look good.

Here is my parents W3204

Matt

 

[3beltwesty]

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.

 

[lavamat_jon]

3beltwesty

This thread is mainly aimed where Miele is an option, and has evolved into an opportunity to discuss Miele machines in markets in which they are available.  If it isn't available to you for whatever reason, then please move on.  I think we have pretty much established by now that you have no desire/facility/opportunity (whatever you want to call it) to own one, there is no need to continue making the somewhat tiresome point on every thread where 60cm washers (that is 24" to you) are mentioned.  This does not discount their credibility as a machine, regardless as to their availability or not.

 

The ironic thing is, Miele breakdowns are not that common anyway for there to be much hassle with repairing.

 

Have a nice day,

 

Jon

 

[mrb627]

Servicing

I wonder if it is easier to get a Speed Queen serviced in the UK than it is to get a Miele serviced in the US.

 

Just wondering...

 

Malcolm

 

[lavamat_jon]

I imagine as Speed Queens are sold commercially here, you would most likely have to get a commercial distributor to repair any Speed Queens installed domestically.  Seeming as here it is practically impossible for the typical domestic consumer to evenpurchase a commercial machine for home use (most distributors are strictly trade only), I imagine trying to get one repaired would be just as difficult.  Otherwise I would probably have a Speed Queen toploader in my collection

 

Take care,

 

Jon

 

[3beltwesty]

Mieles are available via mailorder, thus they are an option

Jon; The thread's title.

It is "Why a Miele?"

(A)Here locally they use them for reason #1 , a compact small quality machine on a multi millionaires luxury yacht, where money is no issue.

(B)Here locally they use them for reason #2 a compact small quality machine on a million buck plus oil rig service boat, where money is no issue.

(C)Here locally most normal folks do not use a Miele for many reasons, nobody has heard of the brand, no local store carries the brand, no local service place has seen any before. 99.999 percent of the Joe and Jan averages CAN order a Miele mailorder but choose not to. Probably one in 1000 local has even heard of the Miele brand before.

When one asks why a brand brand X is used, it opens up too why it is not used too since the usage is really nothing in some places. It may not be as easy to understand as why snow shovels are not sold in Miami stores.

Thus both cases were mentioned; ie "Why a Miele?" and why not too, to increase understanding.

The facts and reality of why Miele usage is higher and lower in places might be interesting to some.

For others case (C) might bother Europeans since it is reality and "low zilch numbers" are not what many want to hear about. ie the usages of Miele's is totally zilch in most places in the usa. There is probably one Miele in 1/2 million homes around here. It really has nothing to do with quality at all. Every Tom, Dick and Harry here has heard of the Maytag brand, this goes back many many generations. Joe sixpack and Jane SUV will buy a Whirlpool or Maytag over a Miele. Joe Japan will buy a Hitachi or National widget over some obscure brand name they have never heard of before.

Most folks here will not buy a washer brand that has no local repair knowledge base. Maybe in Europe the other case is true?

One can here buy a 24" Miele via mailorder/internet and have it trucked in, thus they are available. If it leaks in one week one has no local store to whine too. One gets into a ruckus with the truck line or mail order store 1600 km away as to is at fault. If one complains enough and used a credit card one might be able to void the transaction; and have the leaky hulk returned. Ebay is full of dented and as-is new machines ruined in truck deliveries due to returns of consumer items.

Folks in non usa places can preach 24" machines all they want to. You get to buy one locally and see them at a store. Your local service folks have actually worked on one before, or actually seen the brand washer before. You have zero risk compared to us.

Here I really have no clues of "why an XXX brand" is or is not used in place YYY unless I ask or do research. Thus if PLUTO is a great quality local brand washer here, I might wonder why the UK has few owners of these washers.

Those very few here locally who have heard of a Miele and can afford one still have no local service, and it is a machine in size small than most want. Multiplying these three factors means the "Why a Miele?" is in the parts per millions of users in most places in the usa. Low usage here has nothing to do with quality, it has to do with parts and service being about none.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Before I became a member here, I had NEVER heard of anything being made by Miele before. The reason for that is they simply don't exist in a normal store. Then after having to track down prices on the Internet, see why they are not as common in the US. Very high prices, parts are hard to find here and expensive too. Not only that, who will you find locally to repair it(at a reasonable price), without having the repair man to travel a long distance. I've read several reviews about the mieles, several a lot of people seem to like them, however after getting some close-up pictures of parts, such as water valves, wiring, electronics. I would have expected more in the parts quality area, since the machine itself costs several thousand dollars. When I actually find a miele and bust it open, my opinion of the brand of machine might change, but until then I don't consider them real commercial machines, I consider Wascomat, Continental, True Ipso, not Alliance Ipso, as having machines of better build and parts quality than the Miele. I even consider SQ's as having a leg up on the Miele's, now that's sad. Yes, the miele machines in the pictures above are little and dinky, but still cute. More like something I'd have to stick in a hallway somewhere, not something I'd take seriously for cleaning any type of real work. Over here ~30min is good enough, granted, you have proper amounts of water at the right temp., lots of agitation, a good amount of soap/agents to remove the dirt/stains etc. Nothing wrong with using ~30min commercial machines. What matters is how they are configured , what settings you have it on, what type and amount of soap and additives are used.

 

[ronhic]

Well.....

....you do have to ask why anyone would buy a machine for their home if they can't get it serviced should it require it.....

 

So here's the kicker.....

 

A Miele is known to be a hard working, beautifully built machine that, as a manufacturer, top the reliability feedback scores in the UK and here (and probably everywhere else they are sold)....

 

...but if you can't get it serviced without paying a fortune to bring someone from another area, then DON'T BUY ONE.

 

On another note: Paying $450 to your mechanic for Peugeot (505?) alternators when they could have been fixed is just silly.....

 

[jerrod6]

Good points are being made about the recognition of Miele within the USA.  A lot also depends on how close you are to one of the Miele display centers.  The closer you are the more likely you will know about the brand.  Living less than 50 miles from one helped give me the opportunity to learn about the brand. 

 

I bought my first Miele appliance in 1996.  Up until that time I had never heard of them.  Two years ago an older office building around the corner from me was turned into condos and each one has all Miele appliances, Excella DW's and 1215 or something washers(the 24 inch units).  My local appliance store carries Miele appliances, detergent, Persil....along with all of the other brands of appliances...but you won't find Miele anything(dishwasher, larger washer or smaller washer) at larger super stores like Sears, Lowes, and Home depot, stores that are common throughout  the USA. I can get service from Miele headquarters in Trenton or from a repair shop a few miles away, but  I think this still depends on where you are located in the USA 

 

Something else has also happened in the area of service.....now many washers of different brand names are made by the same company so essentially their mechanicals are similar. Service is now done by outside contractor companies that service all of these brands of machines....this works well...but it won't work  well  Miele because they have differences and they have the laptop computer interface used to diagnose a problem before the machine is opened  This software is not available to non Miele service companies, so they start off at a disadvantage.    If you can't get your Miele serviced  it is probably not a good idea to buy one.

 

 

[hoover1100]

I don't consider them real commercial machines

That would be because the machines we are reffering to are NOT commerical machines.

Personally, I have no interest whatsoever in commercial machines. I do not believe they wash or rinse well at all, and have yet to be convinced they do.

What we are talking about here is domestic machines, and in terms of domestic machines Miele are leaps and bounds ahead of any other brand.

Also, as has become apparent from other threads, these "cute little dinky machines" will hold more laundry, and wash rings around most oversized American domestic machines.

Matt