Miele Domestic Appliances

Miele is one of the oldest appliance brands being founded in 1899 by Carl Miele and Reinhard Zinkann and going on to produce its first washing machine in 1911. Today the company is still privately owned and mostly produces all its own appliances, one of the few remaining manufacturers to do so.

Miele have always been obsessed with the quality of their products, favouring quality over price reductions unlike most every other manufacturer in the industry although, recently, there has been some compromise seemingly being made on Miele's lower range products. Quite how true this is only time will tell but Miele do try to live up to their motto of "Immer Besser" or, "Forever Better".

As far as we know (Miele are very cloak and dagger on some things) the refrigeration range is actually produced by a company called Liebherr for Miele although Miele, again as far as we know, do not produce appliances for any other manufacturer.

Miele's fandom in the industry is almost legendry with many retailers and repairers swearing that they are the best machines in the world and, that is probably partially true. But, it is based largely on Miele's reputation and the fact that there is little competition out there in the same league as Miele in terms of quality. However Miele's Achilles Heel is on the servicing side where they fall down miserably on pricing and transparency.

Retail Prices

You won't get Miele appliances cheap, if you want a cheap machine then I'm afraid you will have to look elsewhere. What you will get is s superbly engineered appliance that is built to be durable and last, regardless of the type.

It is argued that it is actually a false economy to buy a poorly built appliance and, we would agree with that and urge you to look at it as an investment 

So on the whole, very well built with good performance, but servicing costs are where Miele fall down (see below).

Recently however Miele has been offering a ten year parts and labour warranty on selected appliances as a promotion. What terms or restrictions there are on this warranty we do not know, the guarantee is underwritten by Miele themselves.

Miele Spares

Spares for Miele products are just astronomical in price!

Typical examples are over £100 for a drain pump or a whopping £450 for a motor, control PCBs and the likes topping over £300. They may be good, but they sure ain't cheap to replace.

Of course this would be okay if they never broke down, but while they don't fail anywhere near mass market levels, they do fail. What you have to bear in mind and, what you take the risk on, is that nothing major breaks before the machine is 12 years or so old as, if you are faced with a repair bill of several hundred pounds when the machine is 8 years or so old, the temptation is to scrap it and replace it with something else.

There are several "compatible" spares available for Miele in our online spares store but the range is limited to very popular Miele spares. Many spares are made exclusively for Miele or in some cases by Miele themselves so there is no alternatives available and Miele will be the only source for these spares.

Miele Service & Repairs

As above many Miele machines can now only be serviced by a Miele service engineer with the appropriate diagnostic tools within a laptop that is only available to Miele service engineers.

So Miele can, pretty much, only be serviced by Miele and this has never been truer than on the current appliances. Since 1996 Miele have been using computer diagnostics and, without Miele's own servicing software and a laptop some servicing is just impossible to do. In some cases we are now being told that error codes cannot even be cleared (even if the fault is rectified) without a call from a Miele engineer. This would be okay if it wasn't for the price of Miele's service with most calls costing in excess of £100!

So, although they don't break down very often they are extremely expensive to repair when they do break down and, you have virtually no option to use Miele's own service which means that you have no choice as a customer.

Forget getting so much as a wiring diagram from Miele, they will not supply trade or public with any technical information at all. You have almost no chance of a DIY or low cost repair, your only choice will be to call in Miele at whatever they see fit to charge.