Thread Number: 90139  /  Tag: Modern Automatic Washers
End of ownership review - Miele W1 PowerWash & T1 EcoSpeed 		[Down to Last]

automaticwasher.org's exclusive eBay Watch:
scroll >>> for more items --- [As an eBay Partner, eBay may compensate automaticwasher.org if you make a purchase using any link to eBay on this page]
Post# 1147171   4/22/2022 at 14:45 (880 days old) by henene4 (Heidenheim a.d. Brenz (Germany))        

Models in question are WWF360WPS and TWF640WP respectively.

TL;DR: These machines would certainly give 95% of consumers a decade or more of very good performance.
The build quality is still very good, they are fast, efficient, quiet.
What ever you throw at them, with very little fuzz, they will take care.

The reason I'll swap them out is mainly because I can.
There are certain things that these machines just can't do - most won't notice them. But I do.



Now to the long and way more interesting story:

After all the tideous money transfers, dozens of E-Mails and a lot of questioning my decisions today I got confirmation I'll be abled to pick my new set up on the 7th of May.
Still a lot to go wrong, but I'll be getting them here somehow in a few weeks time.

So, I'll give my thoughts on these.
You can still get similar machines over here though both models have since been replaced and no exact match exists for either anymore.
But I'll break my thoughts down more into the features each machine has and say what my recommendation in the current lineup would be as a result.

My main motivation to replacement was on one hand I had some money laying around that wasn't immediately needed.
I was abled to get a cheap financing deal so while I had the money to pay upfront I financed the new pair - I get better % on my money staying where it is than I pay on that credit. I'll still be spending a pretty penny out of pocket due to the circumstances - that will make more sense once you see the new set.

On the other hand the new set you'll be seeing by the end of May (probably, depending on how my schedule develops) has a few features that make it way more flexible yet the efficiency is a bit better still, which is hard.




The washer I have now is a Miele WWF360 WPS.

This particular model was very interesting to me.
It was a special line "Modern Life" model meaning it was cheap, yet had certain features. The "Modern Life" part is the WiFi connectivity which I rarely used - best part about it was the over the air updates (more on that later).

But I was mainly interested in it specifically because it has the very attractive DirectSensor UI together with 1600rpm, the full size drum and PowerWash.

DirectSensor is actually the entry line UI.
It has a dial and selections for temp, rpm and options you can directly tap.
So no scrolling, just like a push button would be used - just touch sensitive.
My previous Miele had the one line display which offered more options but was more convoluted to use.

1600rpm has become a TOL feature here in Germany.
1600rpm brings between 10% and 15% of savings over 1400rpm - in drying time and energy on a "compact" FL.
Which used to be very important when dryers used 3kWh+ for a load.
Now, very few models exist in 1400rpm and 1600rpm and comparing similar models from manufacturers, and calculating in our insanely efficient dryers, you rarely will ever see a return on investment for that upgrade.
But it still is one feature a washer has to have for me - the difference is noticeable and it's just a no brainer a washer today should be as efficient in every regard.

The full size drum is Mieles "new" drum with the rounded lifters that used to be the only kind used in W1 washers.
It's nice and large (64l), very good at lifting both water and clothing giving great results even with the default very low water levels.
The newer, smaller drum used on some washers has the old style triangular lifters. It's probably just as good, but it is noticeably smaller.



And then there is the debated PowerWash.
Formerly "PowerWash 2.0".

Look, a lot of people don't like it. And that's ok.
Just don't say it doesn't work - cause it does.
It takes a lot of suspension of beliefs for one to wrap ones head around it, but once you stopped looking for the difference, it's hard to notice it.

PowerWash takes a typical wash cycle and splits its functional parts that used to be more or less unified into seperate parts.
First you distribute water and detergent through the load. Then you heat the load. Then you dissolve the dirt. Then you flush the dirt out of the fibres.

Yes that means you clothing isn't completely saturated for the majority of the wash cycle for the most part.
But in return, on partial loads, you can save anywhere from 10% to 50% energy.
No additional time. No reduced temps. No more wear.
For almost all loads, in almost all cases, there is literally NO downside to the wash system.


So, yeah, most loads I ever washed in this washer were run through a PowerWash cycle.
And rarely if ever I felt any problem with that.

Now, unfortunately, it's an almost never issue. ALMOST.
And if the new set wouldn't offer the same efficiency I wouldn't trade that in.
On certain soils, certain items, certain loads, you just HAVE to know how to work around it.
Bulky, absorbent items like duvets or pillows just don't work with PowerWash.
On the other hand, items that don't absorb at all like shower curtains or outdoor wear also just don't work. Fleece and microfiber do, but "flat" synthetics don't.
If you have heavy stains or large amounts of soil, you want to work around that aswell.

Now, to get actually good tools to work around that quickly, you need to go an MTouch machine - there you can use Water plus, extra rinse and the respective cycles in conjunction or alone.
On this machine - and the one line display machine - you'd have to reprogram water plus every time.
Combining functions just isn't possible on the one line machines.

One thing you don't realise and Miele never mentions ANYWHERE is that if you want to use pods, you can't run PowerWash.
The pods don't properly dissolve reliably during the saturation process.
So another thing that kinda limits you.


Further, my machine was one of the first of Mieles new water path design.
That did away with the motor driven diverter which saved cost and part count, but introduced new control systems.

And these were and still are problem laden.
The hardware is perfectly fine - they are just valves.
The controls haven't been properly ported though.

Now here in Germany, the only real problem was the cooldown function for washes over 60C.
If you had the cooldown set for these washes, the washer would fault into an water intake fault when doing that optional cooldown.

I had a technician out when my machine was new.
He did a software update that did nothing.

But a few months later an OTA update via Mieles servers fixed that issue.

However, in other parts of the world, Miele did not yet resolve these issues and they a far deeper.

Having such issues that are very simple code issues on a machine in that market segment is just not acceptable.
Fixing them via updates though slowly is more than many manufacturers can say of themselves.
But there, I usually pay half for a similar machine.



But, despite that, as I said:
All these things that exist that bother ME, someone who studies engineering to construct these kind of machines one day himself and that has been doing laundry as a hobby since he was 5.

But - if you aren't like me - this machine would probably be the best bang for buck you'll be abled to get today.

Spending just about 1k on a washer that is build like a tank, washes that efficiently, quiet, quickly, flexibly and consistently is very much something I can only encourage everyone to do.
Most people will never realise these issues.
They will totally forget about the washer until it breaks in a decades time because it performs beautifully basically every time you ask anything normal from it.


It's weird to have so many niggles about a machine I can so whole heartedly recommend.
All the things I don't like about it are things no body who uses a washer like a normal person ever realised.

If you'd give that machine to a "normal" household they won't notice anything special.
And I would be happy since they would still save something like 20% of energy without even knowing it.


However, Miele has raised their prices.
And with the current pricing, line up and developments of their machines, I can't recommend spending the money on an MTouch machine.
At 1500€ they were still recommendable, but at 1750€ they just aren't.
Spending 1k or there abouts on a simple 1400rpm PowerWash machine is still OK IMO, but I still think at that price 1600rpm should just be given and not a feature you have to upgrade 2 or 3 models up to get.




Now the dryer had one thing it set it apart that made me buy it in a hurry.
It had Mieles Jeans cycle. On heater based dryers that cycle was amazing since it tempered way down but extended the dry time so that everything including thick areas were dry.

On a heat pump dryer that just doesn't work the same.
But that cycle still hits a good balance between not running to long and thus getting to hot but still getting most things basically dry.
Unfortunately, that cycle has been pushed off of most models in the 1k price range in favour of the WiFi connectivity.

But despite some unfortunate programming decisions like the behaviour when a load drys to slowly (basically, if there isn't enough progress after the first estimated drying time has elapsed, it just defaults to a max time and never resenses), it's still a Miele.

It drys spot on every time.
Once you have it set to your desired drying level, it hits it every time.
It is pretty fast - rarely ever more than 90min for even quite full loads.
It is very gentle.
And cleaning the lint filters is so easy. There is a reason Miele gets too marks in any test for that.

And that filter system is just superior.
Yes, it had a sponge filter you have to clean once a month and eventually you will have to replace that - I would estimate every 5 years or so from how mine has behaved in the 18 months I had it.
But my condenser is clean as on day one.

Unless the electronics or compressors on these turn out to be problematic in a few years time, I don't see any reason these can't run 20 years consistently.
As far as I understand the one thing that used to wear out Miele dryers - the carbon brushes for the conductivity sensors in the drum lifter and the drum respectively - have been replaced with a different system that has less friction.
So I can see these T1s actually being a way bigger booster for Mieles reputation than the washers.

Now - you can get cheap, similar performing dryers for half the price.
You can get dryers that - from a pure drying perspective - actually slightly outperform these for cheaper.
But I don't see any heat pump dryer performing as well, as consistently AND as long as these.

If it's wort spending 1k on a dryer is debatable.
I wouldn't buy a Miele that isn't EcoSpeed - so non of the A++ machines.
They are cheaper, but given you will be having this dryer for a decade, the 100 bucks are easy to get back in savings.
They aren't any quicker, or any less to go wrong.
Now I don't see a point in going up the line from the simple A+++ models.
Yes you get more programs, more drying degrees. And getting the Jeans cycle is something very nice IMO.
But neither worth 500€. Once you set the drying the way you want, 75% of time, you'll just be using Cottons cupboard dry - either with or without low temp.





So yeah.

This pair is really a killer price for performance.

And I can't recommend Miele enough.
For any normal person, these washers and dryers will do everything they need as good or better than basically anything on the market.
They will last a very long time, they will perform very efficiently and just as one asks them to.

I don't see any way these could be considered a bad investment for both the person buying them and the environment.




Post# 1147180 , Reply# 1   4/22/2022 at 17:05 (879 days old) by Rolls_rapide (.)        

So, does that come to a grand sum of around €3,000 odd for the two machines?

I think an awful lot of folk will just not entertain these prices.

Post# 1147183 , Reply# 2   4/22/2022 at 17:21 (879 days old) by Hippo (Oregon)        

henene4, I always enjoy reading your posts and learning from your expertise, thank you very much for your detailed post.

Your feelings on your Miele set are very similar to my feelings on my WXR 860 washing machine. While I would recommend it for just about anybody there are a surprising number of things to bother the enthusiast, particularly in the software, as I've posted elsewhere on this forum.

I find it interesting that in your machine's programming that PowerWash takes the same amount of time as a normal cycle. On my machine it usually adds about 20 minutes depending on the cycle. I agree for normal soiling the results are good and I've come to enjoy using it on small loads like dress shirts.

I am terribly curious as to which new machines you have decided to go with over the Mieles discussed here. Do you care to share your new choices?

Post# 1147197 , Reply# 3   4/22/2022 at 21:51 (879 days old) by henene4 (Heidenheim a.d. Brenz (Germany))        

The machines I have retail (ed) for 1099€ back then.
I have DirectSensor models, not MTouch.

I had an employee rebate back then, so with the 10 years warranty (8 additional years) and the offers I cought on both, plus the stacking kit, I paid just shy of 2500€ for the set.

An MTouch machine over here used to be 1500€ - that's the far more flexible full touch line with TwinDos.
So a little over 3000€ for the set.

Miele did raise the prices recently.
My models now retail for 1200€ and I haven't seen any offers of them since.
The MTouch machines jumped to 1750€, so 3500€.

The pure machine prices of my new set came to just above 4060€ after money conversion and that's the TOL models.
Mieles TOL set now goes for 5000€.
Though Mieles top end dryer includes a voucher for a free drying rack, I had to buy it seperatly for another 90€.



On the topic of PowerWash times.

Keep in mind these are EU machines.
So my Cottons 40C (104F warm) takes 2:39 for a full load, 2:29 partial load. Extra rinse would add 15min here.
With "short" selected it's 1:39. Extra rinse adds 10min here.

At 140F the cycle is 2:29 and 2:19 respectively.
Short cuts off 30min to 1:59 for a full load and 1:50 for partial loads.
Extra rinse is the same.

If you select a prewash the main wash automatically becomes a normal wash and dosen't change time wise.

Normal main wash is 90min, short is 60min, regardless of load size.



This post was last edited 04/22/2022 at 22:15
Post# 1147244 , Reply# 4   4/23/2022 at 18:10 (878 days old) by lakewebsterkid (Dayton, Ohio)        
PowerWash

 Can’t you disable PowerWash in the settings?

Post# 1147288 , Reply# 5   4/24/2022 at 10:24 (878 days old) by henene4 (Heidenheim a.d. Brenz (Germany))        

Not directly.

In the normal, user accessible settings you can't on any machine.

In the service option menu you can indirectly.
You can deactivate "guided energy usage" which is needed for PowerWash to run forcing every cycle into normal wash mode.
That also increases energy usage by purely heating by temp instead of also monitoring how much energy has been used for heating (something the machine can opt to do depending on cycle and conditions).

But on this line of machine, since there is no clear text display, you run the danger of changing a wrong setting and that can worst case brick a machine.
So, no.


Forum Index:       Other Forums:                      


Comes to the Rescue!

The Discuss-o-Mat has stopped, buzzer is sounding!!!
If you would like to reply to this thread please log-in...

Discuss-O-MAT Log-In



New Members Click Here To Sign Up.



                     

automaticwasher.org home
Discuss-o-Mat Forums
Vintage Brochures, Service and Owners Manuals
Fun Vintage Washer Ephemera
See It Wash!
Video Downloads
 Audio Downloads
Picture of the Day
Patent of the Day
Photos of our Collections
The Old Aberdeen Farm
Vintage Service Manuals 		Vintage washer/dryer/dishwasher to sell?
Technical/service questions?
Looking for Parts?
Website related questions?
Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy
Our Privacy Policy