We purchased a Miele G4205SC from State Street Discount in Portsmouth, NH for $1000

This is a black Classic Futura with cutlery tray.

It is hooked up to a cold water supply.

The water is soft and acid.

State Street Discount was processional, their hours of business were very convenient (open late, open 7 days a week), flexible (I picked up the DW in my truck, they loaded it). They had never ordered a black one before and although the right one arrived there was some confusion when I called them but it did arrive promptly. Later that day the sales person called me and told me.

Packing: If you are into green the packaging was amazing.

If you are into mechanical engineering the packaging was amazing.

It used the absolutely least amount of packaging that was needed of the highest quality to assure that the product arrived safely, that their was minimal waste and that was left could be recycled (I'm keeping the micro pallets, carton, and sticks !!!)

Installation: Make sure you measure accurately and use a flashlight. I missed a structural member in the top of the rear which made things touch and go.

The instructions call out the attaching points on the sides. The ones on the right can't be used because we have an adjacent rotary cabinet so I just put them up top (but this isn't documented).

The pictorial instructions require you to use you imagination. After I found the instructions for leveling the dishwasher I asked my wife to find them. It took me quite a while, it took her a while.

tools: you need a torx 15 screwdriver. do not even think about using a cordless drill.

leveling: the rear is adjusted by using a torx 15 bit.

the front they recommended using a flat screw driver.

don't.

use a channel lock piers.

much faster.

The door latch: the latch does not appear to have any adjustments, if you screw the top of the dishwasher into cabinetry it displaces the latch slightly (the tub is bending) and it tends to jam.

This is the source of the jammed catch problem which appeared at the two Miele appliance stores that I visited.

If you spaced the steam shield slightly lower this problem would go away. What happens is as you tighten up the top screws you warp the tub. It's not a problem if you take it easy, and you can reverse it by backing out the screws.

Loading the dishwasher, all the dishes that didn't at the appliance store now fit.

Let me say it again, we tested loading the dishwasher several times on several models, and even the previous model year.

Our large American Correll ware bowls did not fit, and our Corelle ware pieplates didn't fit well.

We are now finding it easy to get the bowls to fit, the pie plates don't need to fit perfectly as we only have 2 left and they are now used for pies anyway.

In the lowest rack first slot of rear plate areas is missing a post so if you use that the bowls they like to fall over.

In the other slots seating of the bowls seems very tentative, but it is sufficient unto the purpose.

The bowls do not flop over.

Similarly the fold down cup platforms on the center rack do in fact accept mugs with handles and although they seem tentative, it seems to work fine. Hint, slide the cups until they find a centering point on the vertical members of the rack, it's not much but it doesn't need much.

First loads: I used a cascade jell without water softener.

The dishes came out clean but sticky. I redid them without detergent and it started to clean them out. I subsequently used only a small amount of the power to do dishes and this removed the problem.

The smell: the dishwasher has a sump, it pickes up smells and I think it picked up the smoky smells of some kippered herring cans washed in it.

If you let the water stand for 2 days it of course gets worse.

If you do a rinse cycle it tends to freshen it.

I think the whole idea of the sump is to to rinse the dishes using old water to save some water.

If you disagree with this concept do a rinse cycle.

I also tried the sanitize cycle and it helped a bit.

I purchased the Miele Conditioning agent from Amazon.

I've yet to use it.

The reconditioning agent is more for scale than for deodorizing.

I think the smell is slowly going away.

I blame the cascade gell for providing too much detergent.

This same capsule worked perfectly with preheated water on our 20 year old kenmore.

Detergent: I was getting tired of opening the Cascade jells to get some detergent and then having to dispose of the rest of the jell, so I purchased some Miele detergent off of amazon.

I'm figuring we get 3 or 4 washs per tablet.

This is a tiny amount of detergent.

Cleaning the strainer, there was nothing in it !!!

I don't know where the stuff goes.

The strainer is much bigger than I expected and seems very well made.

Water temperature: we are running on cold water.

2 of the cycles do not heat the water, the economy and the rinse. The other cycles heat the water just fine. The cycles are long enough so that they internal heater does it's job. Winter's cold water is colder than summers so this might change somewhat.

The cold cycles are handy for things that might not like heat.

The drain line: it's 7/8.

If you have 5/8 you might want to replace the fitting.

Home depot only has 5/8 drain tailpipe fittings.

but they have an adapter kit.

Lowes has 7/8 drain tailpipe fittings.

In my case I needed a really short fitting and when I cut it down I discovered that the diameter has larger when the drain pipe was near where the 7/8 drain was.

So I spent 30 minutes sanding the reinforced area so that I could insert the tailpiece into the rest of the drain.

It all worked out ok.

We are a home of 2 (and a miniature poodle) and our dishes are pretty clean to begin with. Usually.

Failures: the first load a tiny bit of vegetable fiber was on two utensils. I took it off. Hasn't happened again.

A corelle pie plate had a little bit of crust left on it.

The $10 Walmart slow cooker ceramic pot cleaned up except for a couple of spots which needed a scrubby pad to clean up.

The door is slightly harder to close than it was before installed it.

It might be thought that any variance from perfection is a source concern.

It isn't.

We would buy this dishwasher again in a heart beat.

We thought about getting the more expensive models and we had a really good price on the previous model year's top of the line but we wanted a black one and I didn't want a whole bunch of useless complications.

When I discovered we really had soft water I didn't even want the water softener.

Larry