I have the KUDE70 which is rated at 41db versus the KUDE60 which I believe is advertised at 46db. No one in my family can hear it running, all we ever hear is the gurggling of the water in the sink when it drains. The installer had to open the door to make sure it was running when he installed it.

I agree with your comments on the cutlery tray, it is laid out odd. Some of the spaces I find unusable. I still haven't quite figured it out myself. We have had a few issues with getting the dishes clean, and have had some residue on plates, bowls and silverware. We are making sure we run the water and get it hot before starting the DW and it seems to help. We always used the delay start on the old one (a 12 year old Whirlpool that never needed a single repair) due to the noise level but with this one we can run it anytime so we just heat the water and then turn it on. We have a "great room" concept with open kitchen and we can sit 10 feet away from the DW, which is installed in the island facing the family room, and still can not hear it running at all.

How can you like the Miele better overall if it is pointless because it does not actually clean dishes?

Why didn't you choose the KA Kude 50 with food grinder?

Dee, as I mentioned above, I am disabled. The Miele, with its top silverware tray, easy to slide racks, and easy to open door, was much more user friendly. However, it did not clean the dishes.

As I also mentioned above, I have an open concept home with a great room and replaced my previous KA because it was very noisy. Buying another one with a food grinder did not seem prudent.

Oh goodness...now what do I do?!!! I had decided (not bought yet) on the Miele Optima, now I have no idea what to do. It disturbs me to spend so much money on a dishwasher and then hear the Miele service is so awful too. Thanks for posting warmfridge.

Sammie,
Since there are apparently many happy Miele owners out there, I believe that I just got a lemon. YMMV. One of the threads that I linked is about Miele service.

I tried that thread but obviously I'm doing something wrong because I can't get it to work...so, did Miele take it back with no problem? I'm so tired of trying to figure out everything and was happy I finally chose an Optima....I'm still re-thinking it now...I live in Western Canada and when I asked the Miele showroom how many service people they had for our area, she said 3. Kinda makes me worry too.

ATTENTION PEOPLE

No dishwasher is silent or anywhere near silent. Do not believe your friends or neighbors, or GWebbers or the sales or marketing people. That product just doesn't exist.

The new generation of dishwashers especially the Europeans are very quiet. That is not silent. Do not take what someone around here say literal: "I can't hear my dishwasher when it's running" They really mean: it's very quiet and "I can barely hear it" and "compared to that GE Potscrubber I had it darnnear sounds silent"

Not really the same as silent.

Fridge had a poor experience with Miele service, no one is perfect as these companies employ humans and all of their frailaties. What people gush about around hear is that Miele generally makes really good products and responds well to service. They do make a shoddy item once in a while and have some turkeys working for them but odds are favorable you'll have a good experience. Besides , who else gives you your money back because you don't like a dishwasher 3 months later?

Other brands don't have as good of odds, but even so you can still get a unit that works well for 20 years or finds a gem of a customer service rep should you call on them too. Nothing is absolute or lasts long term. Look at Toyota, they pretty much owned the car industry at the turn of the century, lead everyones top 10 list and were lights out with J.D. Powers. Got a bit too big for their britches the last 2 years and things have changed. It's NO GUARANTEE , just ask the folks that bought a Prius recently who reasoned "it's a Toyota, it'll be great, perfect , and lovely for ever, and if it breaks they'll hold my hand and ply me with hot chocolate and I'll feel all warm and fuzzy again."

samie - western Canada is very large and sparsely populated, how many svc. techs would make you feel good? A better question to ask would have been " My DW is broken, how long before you can get to my house to look at it?"

antss..I live in a major city and was just surprised that there were only 3 trained Miele service people. Sorry I didn't clarify also that it could take 1-2 weeks before they would come out if there was a problem. I guess I just expected 2-3 day service.

I have been very spoiled with a dishwasher that has lasted 27 years and although the whole house can hear it when it's on, it's music to my ears! I don't care about the noise just that it will do the job well. Just trying to figure out also if it's worth spending the kind of coin for Miele if their customer service is horrid when there is a problem.At least that is the impression I get from reading lots of complaints about U.S. customer service anyway.

I agree with Antss... I had a friend once tell me their DW was so quiet you couldn't hear it run... Ummmmm...I could hear it just fine on the other side of the kitchen...but I didn't hear it in their FR unless it was draining and even then it wasn't that loud. Bottom line...it was quiet, but not silent. (I kept quiet, there was no point in saying anything.)

As to cleaning dishes...my KA only cleans dishes on the "Heavy Duty" cycle...so KA DWs aren't perfect either. (I wanted a Miele b/c of the raves here, but my DH does the majority of dishes & he wanted the KA b/c it was less expensive...KUDS03STSS for $736 on sale, originally $1099, and b/c it had the "cool blue light" on the front so you could tell when it was running. We got what he wanted...and I got what I wanted elsewhere.)

buehl, do you have the Architect series KUDS03FTSS? I couldn't find anything under the exact model # you listed but this was the closest. Your post about your underforming KA is very interesting to me - I have a similar model, the KA KUDS30IVSS, and have found it to be an excellent DW. I wouldn't have thought there would be that much difference in performance - I use the ProScrub option rarely for baked-on cheese-crusted casseroles, for example, but otherwise just regular cycle for almost everything.

We paid full price so sometimes I think I should have waited for a sale or close-out, but if it performs so much better than the model you purchased, then maybe we did okay after all. We've been very happy with ours, although I don't think it's as well built as the Mieles, which were sturdier but didn't fit our dishes, unfortunately.

I have a Miele La Perla and am thrilled. Everything cames out sparkling clean. Even my mom, who has a Bosch, commented on how clean the dishes were.

About 2 years ago, I bought a Miele Advanta, which was the lowest Miele model at that time. We had it for a week and it did not work, I think it was a lemon. The appliance store took it back immediately and I bit the bullet and bought a Miele Excella (which was one down from the La Perla). This dishwasher is amazing and I cannot say enough good things about it. You have to get used to loading the cutlery tray, but it is so much better than the silverware basket. It cleans dried on food, I rarely rinse, but always scrape off food chunks.

As far as noise, it is not SILENT, but I usually have to look to see if the red indicator light is on to see if it is running!

My mom has an old Kitchen Aid, and it also cleans her dishes very well. When we were looking for DW a couple of years ago, I DID want a KA, but did not get one b/c I wanted a completely built-in DW. KA did not make a fully-integrated model then. (I also did not want the food grinder and heating element at the bottom.)

What also helped me was we bought the Miele from a local appliance store that have their own repair techs and they keep Miele parts in stock. I live 10 minutes from this store, but if I lived more than 1 hour away, service could be a problem.

Five years ago we put a kitchenaid dishwasher in our new house and I absolutely loved how it cleaned and how it sounded. (it was pretty quiet) But when we built the current house, I looked at the Kitchenaids and they looked different now and not as good. I am wishing I would have gotten one anyway. I got an Electrolux which is truly almost silent. We stand in front of it and can't tell if it is running or not. Both of us have opened it thinking it wasn't when it was! Noone could ever hear it from the other side of the room. BUT although it does a fantastic job of cleaning, the loading configuration is terrible. Things just don't fit well at all. Just my two cents.