Besides, who just wants to "set it and forget it"? None of us would be here if we did. ;)

Like most Americans, I've used plenty of TL washers, including the older, sturdier ones that are much praised by aficionados. My Miele's washing performance is so much better than any TL I've ever used, that it's worth the extra money to me.

That said, if I had to buy a TL washer, I think SQ's build quality would make it the best choice, in spite of their evidently less-than-perfect quality control.

Speedqueens are one of the few that are still built like the maytag and other various tanks from 20 or 30 years ago...they used actual metal, yes, actual metal! and are constructed generally pretty robustly...

However, there are some misconceptions:
1: The speed queen units are really old technology...actually generally pretty garbage technology with basic flaws in design(I'm speaking of their TL). One could say 1968 chevy's were built like tanks but I really wouldn't want one now for my daily driver. On this front, Miele units are also built like tanks, all metal, but integrate a better design (FL) with thought about cycles and temperatures to actually clean clothes without damaging them...you will not get this out of the speed queen design although, like those old 30 year tanks, they might last very long.
2. The Miele complaints you have here seem to be pretty common of late. However, if you visit some of the many appliance forums on the internet for appliance repair (http://applianceguru.com/ as an example), Miele units are described as being in a different league to everyone else. My DW for instance is probably one of the best things I have ever bought (I'm comparing this experience to tv's, cars, appliances, etc...)...it's just plainly awesome. My mother in law in France had a Miele DW for almost 20 years and it looked like new(thanks to SS tub) and she only replaced it for replacing's sake...

What I do see is that Miele USA seem to have horrible service for some of you(not all it seems). For a premium product at a premium price, making the customer happy is really what it's all about. You are not going to please everyone...some people you just can't, but being in this price range you really need to up your game. I'm in Canada and I can only speak from my experience...up here Miele control everything...you buy your appliance from a dealer but the actual sale, warranty, shipping, CS and everything is handled by Miele. I was told this was to avoid problems they had with their service levels in the past (I'm also sure it had a bit to do with controlling everything as well).
Every interaction I have had has been pretty great...I've emailed them many times and always got a response the same day or next...no problem on the phone...even had a minor question about something and they offered to come to my house to help(free) if I could not sort out my question...I've also had good experiences from Electrolux in Canada but their products are not in the same league in my opinion...

I guess what I'm saying is that althought I'm a huge Miele fan, you seem to be a huge SQ fan, there are good and bad things about everything but to argue SQ are an overall better product because of a couple of pretty nasty email streams on a product forum is stretching it a bit...I will emphasize that I think SQ at least make durable products, more than I can say for the rest of the green/red/blue/orange/etc...marketing garbage being put on the floor in most appliance stores and home renovation stores these days...

I love HDTV and blu-ray discs, I love smart phones, I love modern automobiles, etc.

But I didn't love my $1500 Kenmore front load washer. Compared to the top loader it took forever, wrinkled the heck out of clothes and rinsed poorly. I bought into the hyped and was duped. Never again.

Anyway IMHO it is somewhat undervalued by SQ itself. It looks to me like a sort of "Angelina Jolie wearing an apron while vacuuming".

I mean the SQ FL has just a few coin-op style cycles. I agree that Miele is on the opposite side ( that absurd "beach towel cycle" or, worse, "stuffed/soft toys" in some EU models)
Anyway the SQ lacks of the "handwash cycle" and of a automatic prewash (both as part of a cycle and drawer compartment. They should allow more control on cycles (temp in heater models, spin speed, wash part timing).

That said, Miele 6 year average lifespan is a prank. Just google on you tube to see mid seventies machines still working. Mine are 11 (never serviced) and 26 y.o. (serviced just one time @ 15, carbon brushes ). Boots and hoses have never been replaced. Since then I have never had any flood episode (our previous washer had weak rubber parts ...)

I read the thread "my 9 y.o. Duet is still going strong".
Here a 10-15 year lifespan is (was) normally expected.
There are around plenty of early 90s Bosch Siemens and Zanussi (E'lux) machines

True that in the new millennium Whirlpool EU and Electrolux EU started the "who makes it weaker" competition. Bosch and Siemens are joining them with their BOL models. Not to mention recent italian makes .........

My Miele tech (we have other Miele appliances) advised me not to purchase an extended warranty. He said if something is not right with the machines it will more than likely go wrong within the two years of warranty that I have. (with the certified Miele install) He said that most people who purchase an extended warranty usually end up never having to use them.

curioushopper, Interestingly my new Miele washer was not much more expensive than your Kenmore.
Speaking as a former Kenmore top loader customer, (two sets) the last set which I recently replaced with Miele was far inferior than the first set. I never had one problem within the 10 years of ownership of the first, which I left with sold house. I spent enough money on repairs over a 7 year period with the second set to practically purchase a third set. Gauging from your experience with their Front loader, I assume the same shotty quality has been passed onto these machines as well. As for wrinkles, one thing I have learned over the past few weeks since using a front loader for the first time is that if you overload the machine and spin it at the highest rpm, it will wrinkle your clothes. I would assume that goes for any brand of front loader.

Yeh, unfortunately the 9 y. o. Duet was probably built much better than the appliances being built today. It's really tough to know which way to turn when purchasing a washer and dryer these days. (Heaven help our landfills) I only hope the Miele's are made as sturdy as the 26 year old machine!

With all this talk of "top loader verses front loader",...someone very respectable and experienced on this forum mentioned the following to me, which I find very interesting:

"The entire laundry industry, all brands and models, is moving to the HE design, so consumers soon won't have any other choice when buying a new machine. Manufacturers are making a huge effort to educate the consumer and tweak the machines because they also don't have any choice".

I'd love to know more about that statement but can't find anything on the internet....

But I didn't love my $1500 Kenmore front load washer. Compared to the top loader it took forever, wrinkled the heck out of clothes and rinsed poorly. I bought into the hyped and was duped. Never again."

Curiousshopper -- I found a huge difference between my GE frontloader and my Miele frontloader. IMHO frontloaders are not all the same, are not all created equal. I would prefer a toploader over a bad frontloader, but I definitely prefer a good frontloader over a toploader. Again JMHO, but I find my Miele has a superior and more gentle clean than any other washer I have used in the past and I am a convert! BTW I have a 220v unit without the super-capacity drum but still find it plenty big enough for us... two toddlers and all.

But I didn't love my $1500 Kenmore front load washer. Compared to the top loader it took forever, wrinkled the heck out of clothes and rinsed poorly. I bought into the hyped and was duped. Never again.

With that said, come on people! There are tradeoffs. You save a lot of water and electricity, but in exchange you need to tolerate longer wash times. While a FL will generally take longer to wash, you make up that time with a much shorter dry time given the high RPM spins. You need to look at the entire ecosystem, not just one half of the equation in a vacuum.

I would rename this thread to "Penny wise, pound foolish".

I never saw Miele when shopping locally, checking on their website the only places that are listed are kitchen remodelers/customizers as resellers in my area.

We have had every kind of problem with our Miele's (performance, support, service, quality, delivery, etc.). So our hopes are high for the new machines.

As a side note, after months of frustration Miele gave us a 100% refund. You just have to ask in a nice, but firm way. Our Miele machines cost $2900 and the Speed Queen will work out to $1300, a bit more than 1/3 the price but still quite a tidy savings. Really, I would have paid $2900 happily in it had meant having a good washer and dryer.

I will report back in a week or two with an update on how the new machines perform.

Here that washer costs round 830 euro = 1140 CAD while the matching condenser dryer T7644C costs 690 euro = 950 CAD

So 1140+950 = 2090 CAD in Europe vs 2900 CAD in Canada, meaning 810 CAD less :o

However, let's face it : they can offer a 100% refund cause they have a very low rate of unsatisfied customers, otherwise they were on bankruptcy.
Which other manufacturer could do the same ? Guess just Speed Queen

For us, SQ just isn't practical. If I'm going to spend that much money, I want my money's worth.

I am not sure who your European friends are, but I am German and know a lot of other Europeans here in the US who do not like TL's at all. I don't have a Miels, but a Bosch w/d set and I love them.

For the record, I'm in Canada and Speed Queen doesn't exist up here (someone else owns the name) so our machines are "Huebsch" branded but are identical in every way. I will call ours "Speed Queen" to help for people searching in the future. Our Huebsch modle numbers are: ZWN412 and ZDE3LR. Our Miele model numbers are: W1612 and T7634.

I cannot stress enough how happy we are with our new machines. Nor can I stress enough how poor Miele's service and support system is.

The biggest difference in machines for us breaks down like this:

Miele = Laundry all day Friday (7:30am to 10:00 pm) plus 2 loads Sunday evening (6:00pm to 11:00pm) = 19.5 hours per week of laundry.

Speed Queen = A return to "Laundry day" Friday, start at 10:00am (I get to sleep in) and done by 1:30pm (2:30pm every 2nd week for an extra load, I do 3.5 loads a week in the SQ machines.)

The quantity of laundry these new machines put out is staggering compared to our Miele's. More than double the capacity and less than half the time. A full load in the Miele's takes 4 hours round-trip. Speed Queen is 1.5 hours round trip AND the load is twice as big.

The quality of laundry that the Speed Queen's put out is in a totally different league than our Miele's. No matter what we did, 1/3 of the laundry came out of the dryer wrinkled. My fiancee has a couple of tops that were unwearable as long as we had the Miele machines. They were synthetic material with a little bit of stretchiness, not ironable and came out looking like they spent months at the bottom of the hamper. We tried lowering the spin speed, hot water, cold water, warm water, washing alone, washing with other items, etc, etc to no end and eventually just gave up wearing them. The Miele's mangled my boxers (smooth, stiff cotton like a high thread out sheet set), they would fold up any doubled over part (the fly and the leg openings) and crease them folded. I could iron these, but I'm not really into ironing. The Miele's just could not put out good laundry. After just 1 cycle in the Speed Queen everything started to relax. It took a few weeks, but pretty much all of the Miele wrinkle damage was undone.

What can't be undone is the damage that the Miele + Persil combination did to our wardrobes. I'm not sure if it was the high temperature of the Miele "Normal" wash or if it was Persil "Universal" powder having bleach in it but we lost many items to colour bleed. Before the Miele's (Whirlpool and Maytag TL's) I had ruined maybe 3 or 4 items. The Miele + Persil Universal combination bled colour out of or onto at least 2 dozen items, socks/shirts/pants/you name it, I ruined it. Miele told me this was normal. A single black sock tucked inside something is enough to ruin most of the other items in a load of colours. Heaven help you if that black sock gets into a load of whites. None of my other machines/detergents have done this. Many of our dark t-shirts look decades older, black having been turned to a faded navy blue and many of our white or coloured items are long since in the landfill.

Miele, through all this, just kept telling us that there was nothing wrong with our machines. Our first dryer wouldn't heat up and clothes came out still wet. Miele phone support said this was exactly how they were supposed to work. Eventually I got fed up and wrote a letter, I sent out 3 copies (local retailer, Miele Canada, Miele Germany.) The retailer didn't reply at all. Miele Germany replied with a PFO letter. Miele Canada's response was quite impressive, they actually sent the Western Canadian rep to my house. He determined that my dryer was in fact defective and had it replaced (repair wasn't an option as parts were months away.) This dryer worked much better and clothes came out only damp instead of wet. Miele said this was normal. The second dryer also seems to shed parts at an alarming rate. I picked 3 small plastic parts off the the laundry room floor over the course of 9 months. The rep that I talked to sent me the service manual pages on how to replace the parts inside the dryer (a job the local factory approved tech could not handle.) The quality of the machines and the support system are HIGHLY DUBIOUS.

I should note that, being Canadian, I have absolutely no "Buy American" prejudice. I would NEVER buy an American made car (universal crap), Canadian or Japanese for me. While the Germans have a reputation for high-quality, I haven't had great luck with their stuff over the years. I've had 2 older BMWs that were "OK" at best, a dishwasher and 2 vacuums that were pretty good (Miele's actually), and a newer Mercedes that was junk.

Alliance Laundry on the other hand (they own Speed Queen/Huebsch/Unimac/etc) are simply amazing. My dryer arrived with a small dent in the lower front panel. Normally I wouldn't mind, but since it was visible and since everyone we know has heard about our terrible Miele experience I felt we should have a pristine set of Speed Queen machines to show off. We picked our machines up on a Saturday (had to drive 13 hours to the nearest dealer) and first thing Monday morning I e-mailed Alliance using the "Contact Us" form on their web page explaining that we had a dented panel and didn't want to go back to our dealer because they were so far away. Less than 10 minutes later I had a reply e-mail saying that the part will be shipped out immediately and that I would receive another e-mail with tracking info shortly. That second e-mail came through as promised and the part showed up on my doorstep later that week! The service level at Alliance is something else. You really have to experience it to believe it.

If more American companies would take a page out of Alliance's book, I know I would buy more American made stuff. These things are built to last (unlike my old Whirlpool TL) and perform as good if not better than anything out there. These machines cost little more than the crappy, bottom of the line Kenmore/Whirlpools ($1100 for basic Speed Queen and $700 for basic Kenmore around here) but are vastly superior. AMERICAN MANUFACTURERS - IF YOU'RE WONDERING WHY THE IMPORTS ARE TAKING OVER, IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE BUILDING DISPOSABLE JUNK AND PEOPLE ARE GETTING SICK OF REPLACING IT EVER FEW YEARS!

When it comes right down to it, the Speed Queen/Huebsch/Alliance Laundry machines are superior in pretty much every way. If you're considering the pros and cons of these two brands, I wholeheartedly recommend the Speed Queen toploader.

Sorry for the long post and the "soapboxing"!

"What can't be undone is the damage that the Miele + Persil combination did to our wardrobes. I'm not sure if it was the high temperature of the Miele "Normal" wash or if it was Persil "Universal" powder having bleach in it but we lost many items to colour bleed. Before the Miele's (Whirlpool and Maytag TL's) I had ruined maybe 3 or 4 items. The Miele + Persil Universal combination bled colour out of or onto at least 2 dozen items, socks/shirts/pants/you name it, I ruined it. Miele told me this was normal. A single black sock tucked inside something is enough to ruin most of the other items in a load of colours. Heaven help you if that black sock gets into a load of whites. None of my other machines/detergents have done this. Many of our dark t-shirts look decades older, black having been turned to a faded navy blue and many of our white or coloured items are long since in the landfill."

Ghetterly ... don't wanna be rude, but the more you complain about your past Miele experience, the more it is evident the actual problem it's you, not the Miele.

Your own words say you haven't any basic clue about doing laundry :

1)Persil universal contains oxygen bleaches and optical brighteners so it is a detergent developed just for WHITE and FAST COLOURED laundry, NOT FOR DARK GARMENTS. You write you knew it ... no matter you used it to wash dark clothes and they bleeded. WHY ????? It does not seem a clever behaviour .... is it washer & detergent fault or MAYBE did you make a huge mistake ????

2) Miele W 1612 temperature selection - In the Cotton/Normal cycle YOU CAN choose : tap cold - 85°F - 105°F - 120°F - 140°F - 170°F - 203°F. It's not the machine that decides on its own, it's YOU that have to choose the proper temp according to the garments you're about to wash.
Can't believe you didn't know how to run the normal cycle on cold ......

3) Mesh bags to wash socks and stockings aren't rocket science .... if you forget a coloured garment inside the washer and start a white load it is not a machine fault, irregardless it's a frontloader or a toploader .... it's just YOUR fault

You're not being rude, I'm just not being clear enough.

1. Persil says Universal is "It is for all washable fabrics made from natural or synthetic fibers and their blends, except for wool and silk." That would suggest to me that it will work on pretty much anything. I think they're probably correct and Persil Universal IS universal!

2. A "Normal" wash comes up as 60 deg. C on my machine. Most of the laundry I do is "normal." I've never done a cold water wash in my life.

I suspect that a normal machine, with a normal cycle, with Persil Universal detergent would work GREAT! The Miele Normal cycle is way too hot for Persil Universal and dark clothes. But if you've never had colour run before and you have a new machine and new detergent, how do you tell if it's the detergent or the temperature? I went out and bought some Persil Color detergent and sill had the colour running problem, so then I started lowering the temperature until it worked OK. By this time, LOTS of clothes had been ruined. My crystal ball was in the shop that week! ;-)

On my new machines, like my old machines before the Miele, I just put in detergent (still using the Persil I had left over), clothes, turn the dial to a "Normal" wash and everything comes out better than it went in! That's the difference between Miele and Speed Queen.

3. I've never used a mesh bag for washing anything, I don't know why you would... I've never forgot or missed an item in the washer. What happens around here is, someone (not naming names!) manages to get her socks packed inside another item (say pants or a shirt or whatever) and one goes through with the wrong load. With my Speed Queen set, that errant sock and everything else comes out just fine! Why would the Miele be any different?

If everything is my fault, which is what Miele has told me every step of the way, then how would you explain the dryer dropping parts on the floor? Is it because I don't slam the door closed? Why didn't the first dryer dry? Why didn't the second dryer dry? Why does stuff come out wrinkled? My new machines seem to be able to put out smooth laundry. Why can't Miele support their products? I booked an appointment to have the Miele machines picked up and returned to Miele 3 months ago, I waited all day for them and I'm still waiting for them to get around to pick them up!

I'm not saying Miele doesn't make good products, since I bought these awful machines I've bought a Miele dishwasher (excellent) and 2 Miele vacuums (very excellent). What I'm saying is MY Miele laundry set is TERRIBLE! I'm sure yours is great, and I'm happy it is, but that doesn't do much for me!

I know this board is HUGELY Miele slanted, so I'll never "win" (although we all know what winning an argument on the internet is like), but what I'd like to pass along is:

I have had an exceptionally GOOD experience with my Speed Queen washer and dryer and with Alliance Laundry in general.

I set up my post on Thursday to compare my Miele experience with my Alliance experience. After going through what I've gone through, I've come to agree with bela1 and the original title of this thread, "Forget Miele, just get TL Speed Queen and have no problems!" I know there are other people out there like me and bela1, we may be few and far between but it was this thread that led me from Miele to Speed Queen and I'll never look back! I don't intend to try and sway any of the users here one way or another, everyone is fairly well dug in, but there are people out there searching for a solution to a bad set of Miele machines; I hope they find this thread and take heed:

Forget Miele, just get TL Speed Queen and have no problems!

It's up to the machine's user to be aware of temperature settings per the items being washed and make a selection accordingly. As HidroMan mentions above, even if the Miele "normal" cycle defaults to 60°C, there are options to run it at lower temperatures, less aggressive cycles. The Miele machine has onboard water heating, yes? A "normal" cycle of 60°F temperature will assuredly reach that temperature ... thus the danger of making a wrong selection. The "normal" cycle surely isn't an appropriate choice for everything you're washing, such as stretchy synthetic tops.

The SQ/Huebsch model you reference is a toploader. It's unlikely to have onboard water heating, or run at 60°C/140°F on the "normal" cycle ... unless perhaps you specifically select hot water and your household water supply reaches that high.

The Miele machine has onboard water heating, yes? A "normal" cycle of 60°F temperature will assuredly reach that temperature ... thus the danger of making a wrong selection.

If you bought whatever other brand of european frontloader, ***you would have had the very same issues no matter it were a Bosch, a Fagor, a euro made Whirlpool, a euro made Electrolux***.

In all of those machines having a LCD screen, when you select a cycle it comes up by with the most used temperature / spin speed by default. *** This DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN'T MAKE ANY CHANGE to the default temp and spin speed to customize the cycle to your needs ... It is not rocket science, you just have to read user manuals ....

Whirlpool Europe AquaSteam 6th Sense is a frontloader that also has a screen and it works in that very same way as Mieles
check it here

This is a Zanussi-Electrolux frontloader screen. You can see it is displaying 60°C and 1600 rpm ... but you can also see the "TEMP" and "SPIN" keys to customize each cycle
image taken from here

I guess you own and use an oven ... each time you use it, don't you set the proper temp according to the food you are cooking ?!? I guess so, then I can't catch WHY you weren't able to do the very same thing with a washer, to the point you had to switch to a dummy-proof "hot/warm/cold" SpeedQueen

Last words about your stretch tops : I bet you have always washed AND dried them on "normal" @ 140°F ... never read EASY CARE printed close to knobs ?? What's that for ?!? LOL

What can't be undone is the damage that the Miele + Persil combination did to our wardrobes. I'm not sure if it was the high temperature of the Miele "Normal" wash or if it was Persil "Universal" powder having bleach in it but we lost many items to colour bleed. Before the Miele's (Whirlpool and Maytag TL's) I had ruined maybe 3 or 4 items. The Miele + Persil Universal combination bled colour out of or onto at least 2 dozen items, socks/shirts/pants/you name it, I ruined it. Miele told me this was normal.

As others have said, every cycle has temperature options and you need to use your brain. If you are old enough to read, you know that Persil Universal is for colorfast laundry. If you didn't test your colored clothing for colorfastness prior to using it with Persil Universal, it's your own fault. This is clearly USER ERROR.

I should note that, being Canadian, I have absolutely no "Buy American" prejudice. I would NEVER buy an American made car (universal crap), Canadian or Japanese for me.

So in the first sentence you say you have ABSOLUTELY NO "BUY AMERICAN" PREJUDICE but then in the next sentence you say you would NEVER BUY AN AMERICAN MADE CAR. Which is it? Do you read what you write?

The quantity of laundry these new machines put out is staggering compared to our Miele's.

That's because your Mieles are small capacity machines. You can just as easily say the same thing when comparing your Mieles to the newest XXL size front-loaders or even Miele's own W4842 - the increase in capacity is staggering because you're coming from very small capacity machines! This has nothing to do with top-loaders having more capacity than front-loaders. Your comparison is flawed.

A "Normal" wash comes up as 60 deg. C on my machine. Most of the laundry I do is "normal." I've never done a cold water wash in my life.

And anyone with a brain knows that 60°C=140°F which is not appropriate for fabric types washable in cold, warm, or even very warm. If you can't comprehend that YOU are in charge of the temperature you select according to the fabric types you are washing, then you are beyond help. Is the machine supposed to be psychic and read your mind?

I went out and bought some Persil Color detergent and sill had the colour running problem, so then I started lowering the temperature until it worked OK. By this time, LOTS of clothes had been ruined.

So you ruined your entire wardrobe because you didn't want to or know how to change the temperature on your Miele's normal cycle? Instead of using basic common sense, or even following the directions in the manual, you went through two boxes of detergent and ruined your entire wardrobe before it occurred to you to change the temperature? Are you familiar with the song from Wizard of Oz called "If I Only Had a Brain?"

On my new machines, like my old machines before the Miele, I just put in detergent (still using the Persil I had left over), clothes, turn the dial to a "Normal" wash and everything comes out better than it went in! That's the difference between Miele and Speed Queen.

No, the difference is that the Speed Queen's default settings happen to meet your needs better than the Miele's. But anyone who launders based only upon the default cycle settings and expects great results regardless of what they are putting into the machine is asking for trouble. I don't mean for my post to be offensive, but come on! Ghetterly, your post is by far the most ridiculous one I have ever read on this forum. You have further lowered the bar.

Now it's evident that even a child would be able to change temp and spin settings ...

It has even a DARK GARMENTS cycle ..... and the manual says to use NOT universal detergent but LIQUID detergent for COLOURED garments

Anyway have to say I prefer the old style one-dial controls like this. Holly, don't you think so too ? It' s mistake-proof, one can't forget about setting the proper temp, even when he/she is in a hurry.

@hidroman: Does the W1612 have memory like the W4842? In other words, if you select "normal/cottons" and change the temperature or spin speed, won't the machine remember the change next time you select the same cycle? That is how my W4842 behaves. Once you determine your 'normal" washes need a lower temperature, making the change once will make it permanent. How could it possibly be easier?

"Select a temperature / spin speed
You can modify the suggested temperature and/or spin speed."

So the 60°C setting on Normal, apparently the default, is described here as a suggested setting. Well, if I'm a regular North American consumer, not a THS or automaticwasher.org reader, and I just bought this wonderful fabric-care machine, it makes perfect sense to accept the machine's suggestion. After all, it knows more than I do.

Oh, elsewhere in the manual it says

"Using the Normal 60°C program instead of the Normal 95°C program will result in energy savings of 35% to 45%. This setting is quite sufficient for most levels of soiling."

which makes it sound like 60°C is downright moderate and responsible.

Whatever current Miele has the "Memory" thing that can be switched on or off, depending on individual needs. As you know, it saves and stores every setting for each cycle, not only temp and spin speed, but also options like extended/short/prewash/soak/water plus.....

... which makes it sound like 60°C is downright moderate and responsible.

I would tend to agree with everyone that suggested that colour bleed is my fault. I think that's what Miele (and other Euro machines) intend to do with these hugely configurable machines - move responsibility from the machine to the user. It makes perfect sense from a support standpoint, it's never their fault.

Here, in Canada, in the past if you bought a new washer and dryer set and the laundry didn't come out good, it was the machine's fault. There were limited (less than 5 or 6) cycles and no real programming options. Laundry worked as a "magic black box" of sorts, you simply put dirty laundry in one end of the box and get clean, dry laundry out of the other end. If things didn't work out, you needed different machines. My parents have returned sets that didn't put out good laundry, and they made sure their friends and family knew to avoid those machines.

These Euro machines shift responsibility to the end user for programming everything. If your laundry doesn't come out nice, now it's your fault. Even if you sort the way they want (which I did), use the detergent they want (which I did), and use the appropriate cycle, there are sill dozens of variables that I didn't set (or didn't set correctly).

I strongly suspect that if you have enough if/then statements, and years of experience, you could get laundry AS GOOD as my Speed Queens, maybe slightly better.

You certainly could not get AS MUCH laundry out of the Miele's! I did an entire week's laundry yesterday, the first load started at 11:50 am and the dryer buzzed on the last load at 4:05 pm. It would have been 12 - 16 hours in the Mieles.

For me, it all comes down to this:

I am not a laundry enthusiast! I have better things to do with my time and energy. I don't care about water or energy savings. I just want to get laundry over and done with every week with a minimum of fuss.

I bought the Miele's originally for 1 reason only: lifespan. I was sick of throwing out Whirlpool TL's every 2 or 3 years after multiple part failures. The salesperson who sold me the Miele's said they would be as easy to use as my old machines, "Just put it on Normal and press Start." It's clear now that he was just trying to close the sale. The correct machines for me are the Speed Queen.

Hence forth I will be known as "Bean"!

Well said, roseark. I've enjoyed my Bravos set so much, I could easily start a thread which said, "Forget Miele, jsut get HE TL Maytag Bravos and have no problems!" Thus far, I've restrained myself from doing that, though I was sorely tempted when I saw the title of this thread. ;)

I don't think anyone here is saying that Miele is the best machine for everyone - it's not. As long as you're happy with your machine, that's all that matters. However, it's not easy to just sit idly by while someone lambastes an entire brand because he or she didn't now how to adjust the temperature on the machine, or didn't understand that 140°F temperatures may cause color fade and/or bleed especially when combined with a detergent that is clearly labeled to be used only on COLORFAST fabrics. Let's call a spade a spade!

While many machines have a "normal" cycle, everyone's definition of what constitutes a "normal" load of laundry is different. It varies from person to person, state to state, and nation to nation. That's why you can't blindly go by what's on the machine dial - you need to bring your brain into the laundry room as well. Then there is the issue of what it says on the fabric care labels. If your label indicates to wash in cold or warm, and you wash it in HOT because that's what your machine defaults to, then is the machine really to blame? How can a machine's default setting read your mind or know what types of clothing you are washing?

Some people are going to read this thread and think oh gee, top loaders are better than front loaders, or Speed Queens are better than Mieles. But that's not really the issue here.

I hear you. At the same time, there is an overwhelming bias here toward Miele -- also, toward frontloaders. And many (most?) posters do give the distinct impression there is nothing as good as a Miele.

I am really surprised the NORMAL default setting is 60C. That is SO hot. On my W4842 and my old W4840, NORMAL was defaulted to warm water (about 105F water). If one does not understand what 60C is, you can Google, iPhone, Yahoo, ask Jeeves, etc, etc and convert from C to F!

I think almost any newer machine lets you adjust water temperature, spin speed, pre wash, extended wash, extra rinses, etc..

I am happy that the new Speed Queen users are happy! This just shows that for some of us Speed Queen is best. For some it is Electrolux and for some it is Miele!

I wish happy & clean laundering for EVERYONE on our fanstastic Board.

On the off chance that the inquiry was genuine I assumed "shinier = brighter (as in not gray).