I was comparing two Miele washing machines and the only difference between them seems to be that the more expensive model has Miele's honeycomb drum lining.
Their claim is that this helps prevent wear on the clothes' fibres while they're being washed but I always thought most of the wear and bobbling caused by machine washing comes from the clothes rubbing against each other as they spin round, and that isn't going to be affected by the drum lining?
Does this honeycomb drum really make a difference or would I be better off saving £100 by buying the cheaper model?
I get tired of clothes long before they wear out. Either way Meile is about the best you can get but I'm not sure that I would spend the extra £100 just because clothes wearing out has never been an issue!
I think the important thing is to get a model with the 5 year warranty. Also look around as some companies offer things like 12 months interest free credit which makes it a bit easier to pay for.
We have a Miele with a honeycomb drum but only because that was the lowest model with the 5 year guarantee at the time. I wouldn't be too bothered if it didn't have a honeycomb.
Although if it's a choice between having a model with 5 year warranty at a price of £N , vs. a model with 10 year warranty at £N+100 , then honeycomb apart, that is worth considering even with Miele's legendary reliability and QoS.
"Andy Hall" wrote | >I think the important thing is to get a model with the 5 year | >warranty. | >We have a Miele with a honeycomb drum but only because that | >was the lowest model with the 5 year guarantee at the time. | >I wouldn't be too bothered if it didn't have a honeycomb. | Although if it's a choice between having a model with 5 year | warranty at a price of £N , vs. a model with 10 year warranty | at £N+100 , then honeycomb apart, that is worth considering | even with Miele's legendary reliability and QoS.
Especially as, given Miele's legendary reliability and QoS, one might have a good chance of still enforcing statutory rights 5.5 years after purchase, outside the guarantee but within the statutory limitation. (If the retailer is still in business of course.) The 10 year guarantee, unlike most, gives something significant additional to statutory rights.
If every domestic appliance had to have a 10 year guarantee by law, we might have much less of a fridge (etc) mountain to dispose of.
The Premier 500 has a 2 year warranty, 1200 spin... approx £470 The W526 has 5yr, 1400 spin...approx £570 The W2203 has 5yr and honeycomb, 1200 spin...approx £610 The W2240 has 10yr and honeycomb, 1400 spin...approx £670
It all comes down to money in the end. I would be tempted to spend the £670 rather than £570 if you have already decided on a Miele.
For your reference, this time last year I paid £600 for a W504+ on interest free credit with two bathrobes thrown in. This had the 5yr warranty and honeycomb, but I couldn't persuade SWMBO to spend even more for the 10yr model.
We had a two week wait for new stock from Germany. Make sure you check delivery dates as some companies have big back orders. Be prepared when it arrives - they are heavy. The controls are dead simple.
If it's going under a worktop with units either side then get it levelled before you slide it in. All depends how much access you have to the levelling feet. Levelling is essential for smooth operation. We have a suspended wooden floor in our kitchen so I also screwed a large sheet of wood to the joists so the load would be spread. The manual we got had a good section simply on how to install it properly on joists or concrete.
Don't know - hard to tease the marketdroidspeak from reality sometimes.
Oddly enough I've never bought a washing machine (inherited one on buying last flat, now rent house with one included). But having bought a dishwaher, tumbledryer and hoover in the last 3 years I would recommend Miele (hoover) and Bosch (other 2) over any other makes.
The Miele hoover just seems to have attention to detail all over it. It does exactly what it claims better than I thought possible. And it has lots if little things about it - like the way that the heads clip on to the pipes rather than randomly falling off mid-hoover like my old Vax (stupid little thing but really annoying).
The Bosch machines basically do what they say (I went for the higher end Logixx in both cases - money well spent). The diswasher broke down under warrenty - but it was a water valve coil, forgivable knowing how fine the windings are. Only complaint there is the first "engineer" wasn't trained properly so replaced some other random part. The second experienced bloke knew what it was before he got the covers off. I kept the random "failed" part as a spare and mostly forgave them.
So if I were in your shoes I'd get the Miele if I had the dosh. I've learnt not to be cheap about these things - it usually doesn't pay off in the long term (not for me anyway).
Big recommendation: get it online if you know exactly what you want - I knocked 100 quid off the hoover compared to local shop prices - and still got it in under a fortnight. Check with the supplier though before ordering, had to wait ages for the dishwasher.
Just as an aside we previously had a Zanussi washer/dryer which lasted
10 years, then the Hoover washer/dryer replacement was the biggest pile of cr*p we have ever bought. Don't skimp by thinking you can buy two Hoovers/whatevers for the price of one Miele.
Agree - actually one of the washing machines was a Zanussi - simple, old but worked and never went wrong.
First tumble dryer I got was a Hoover auto-sensor (a feature I particulalry wanted). Total rubbish - clothes came out wet. Many visits by fitters and random implausible excuses from the helpline like "did you open it whilst it was doing it's first ever cycle - oh well, that upsets it" (WTF?) One fitter even told me it wasn't going to do what I expected of it (you what?)
Told them to take it back at their own expense and give me 100% refund on trades description grounds - which they did after I found the right supervisor to growl at. Before they did I had a good look and I could not for the life of me see any sort of sensors that could possibly make it work as claimed (I even had a panel off out of curiousity).
Well, we went for the base model from john lewis that had the honeycomb drum simply because it was the first in the range with a 10 yr warranty. It was a 100 quid more but we say that as 20 quid for the extra five years and some free extra features.
BTW, check out john lewis. I spoke to miele a fair few times for various reason and several times they told me that JL are the biggest miele dealers in the uk and that they have special models produced just for them. Makes comparing prices tricky as they are unique but worth a look. We found that several of the features we wanted from the higher end machines were available on the cheaper JL only models.
Had it for 4 weeks or so and very happy so far :) BTW, when they warn you that it is heavy they are not joking. I reckon it must be twice the weight of the hoover machine that it replaced!
Also, don't do as a friend of mine did and use your knee against the glass door to push it when trying to install it under a worktop. And if you do the doors are in stock and reasonably priced ;-)
Ah, yes I noticed slight differences in the model numbers from the John Lewis range and other stores & the Miele website.
The model I was looking at in John Lewis was the W2440 but I can't find this model in Currys or Comet (not that I'd actually buy from either!). I checked the Miele UK website too but that only listed a W2444, which is the same apart from it spinning at 1600RPM instead of 1400. I thought John Lewis were selling an older model.
I suppose having their own models means that I'm not going to get a bargain. The W2440 is £800, which is more than some places want for the W2444. Most of their Cannon cookers were around £80 more than Currys/Comet but at least those are all standard models so I can get JL to price-match.
Thats the one we ended up with. Confusingly, John lewis actually refer to it as the "Paragon" model and don't use the number at all.... If you look at the form to fill in from Miele for the extended warranty it also doesn't mention the W2440. It does mention the paragon however :)
You won't. Its a JL only model.
Can't remember what the differences between the 2240 and the 2440. We wanted to buy from JL as we had a load of vouchers. Saying that, I would have been tempted to buy from them anyway even if it meant a bit more cash as their delivery guys are great and really helpful (they deliver and unpack to the room of your choice...currys wouldn't carry it beyond the hallway).
That surprises me. I've bought a couple of fridge freezers, 2 TVs, a dvd player and a laptop from them and they have always been as cheap as anyone else on the highstreet. My digital camera was 2 quid cheaper in Argos. I mentioned this to the guy at the till and he knocked it 2 quid off - by the next day I noticed that their website price had dropped to match argos. Probably a coincedence :-)
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