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Have you tried to see if the store will refund or replace as I believe your problem under 'sale of goods' is with the store not themanufacturer and they are sympathetic. Adverse publicity usually works and I can remenber trying to reason with a store for several weeks and they would not do anything but 2 mins on local radio consumer program and was replaced within the day. Same can be said of threatening to write to consumer or 'woman's weekly' magazines etc nobody wants their product dragged through the mud. i use the term 'womans weekly' not in a derogatory sense but it does work.

Am sure someone out there can correct me but when we were looking for cooker/fridge etc Bosch, Siemens and Neff we were told they are all produced by the same company though not sure which order they came for quality

Not quite answering your question but we all probably use our machines in that way as the maximum spin speed may not be an available option on the programs we use most. Our machine is 1400 max but only available on cotton or express wash the regularly used programs are 1200 or less.

We had similar experiences 10yrs ago and would not go back to a washer/dryer unless it was completely unavoidable. In the end we gave up on the dryer side after very few uses. The points made on the main site cannot be emphasised too strongly. The max wash load needs to be halved to dry effectively so you need more time per load. We could not access the drying cycle until it had finished completely or gone through the cool down process otherwise the drier temperature cut out would be activated and it was no easy job to re set it. Luckily we did not dispose of our old Servis dryer and it is still going strong after almost 25 years continuous use. Having bought a Miele 3240 earlier in the year with a 10 year warranty we cannot fault it. Most washes complete in about 70 mins, the only sound is the water sloshing around. It does not have a lot of extras (no timer delay) but unless you actually need them most of the additional features you pay for are rarely if at all used they just look and sound good in the brochure.

Is the machine fitted with adjustable legs, has the lock arrangement come loose which will start to loosen even more when the vibration starts.

assuming its a hot and cold fill might be worth checking that the taps are fitted correctly or the taps themselves are not the wrong way around. i.e. your hot tap is actually connected to cold supply.

I have looked in handbook for our machine and it quotes between 40 and 70 litres for the various washes, the delicate wash is 69 litres so as you say if you are reading your meter correctly your machine is normal. From the Miele web site you can download pdf of each machine and consumption data is provided there for the various washes. We have been on a meter for about 15 years so the shock has worn off but most opinion is that unless you are single or a couple, families suffer badly on meter compared to the old method of billing. Have you compared meter reading over night or when nothing (you know of) is being used? I don’t know what the chances of having a faulty meter are but if you are seriously adrift in consumption it could be worth checking. Similarly read meter and measure out 50 or 100 litres from a tap and see what the new meter reading is and how it compares. (Of course you now have to use the measure out water in an environmental fashion, save the planet etc.)

When you look at older machines in action the water level is about half way up the door whilst most modern machines leave you wondering is there actually any water inside at all. We had a Zanussi over 10yrs ago that when the machine pumped out it did not fill a 2 gallon bucket from just the wash cycle so I don’t think our new machine can save significantly on that. You don’t say how the water level appears in your machine but you would have to go back along way to find machines that were using almost a quarter of a tonne during a complete cycle. It is surprising how much water is wasted (if you have a conventional hot water cylinder) just waiting for hot water to reach the tap you are using. Now water is metered the water companies are not bothered if you waste any as it has passed through the meter and are now paying for it. An example of this is modern toilets with no overflow to the outside so you don’t see any wastage instead it just overflows into the bowl and probably not noticed. I would be tempted to look hard at other usage around the house for leakage between meter and house before your machine is blamed.

We use Persil non bio and now follow the instructions to the letter regarding dosage so for a hard water area this is normally three tablets. OK this is now one more than we used before (who reads instructions anyway) and in the opinion of Lever Brothers should give a clean wash and prevent limescale build up. The extra tablet probably equates to buying a water softer but if I use a water softener do I drop back to two or one tablet as the water is now "soft" Either way the cost is probably roughly the same. Personally I will stick with the Persil theory rather than add a softener, will post the results in 10 years time.

Having had the machine for a while now I thought it about time we made a posting of how it is performing. I spent a lot of time trying to obtain noise levels of various machines with limited success and thank you to anyone who posted on this site any information. So having been in search of decibels I have to make my posting in adjectives. The machine is easy to operate, just turn the dial (in either direction) to the description of the wash you require. The temperatures available for each wash are passed as the dial is rotated, no need to press another button. Options can be selected should a programme permit by using a combination of three buttons Soak, pre wash, short /Water plus/Spin speed to below that of the maximum of a programme. Even the sound of the dial and buttons been operated is sublime it just seems to ooze quality, not unlike the difference in the sound of a luxury car door closing compare to a normal one. So far we have not used any of the above just selected a programme and “wash and go”. The results have been fine, clothes clean, no marks or traces of detergent. The “automatic” programme is used most and takes 1hr 13mins to complete. Whilst washing the only noise are the clothes sloshing around in the drum. Spinning and pumping seem to be fairly quiet, (certainly quieter than the dishwasher next to it). Most noise on spin is probably caused by the fact the machine is sat on a tiled floor laid on tongue and groove floorboards. Had there been enough space under the worktop I would have used a wooden board to give a more even surface for the machine to stand on. No one as yet has complained about the door opening the “wrong way” and we have put a couple of strategically placed clear plastic stops to prevent the door being opened fully and possibly marking the front over a period of time. To summarise great machine, would recommend it to anyone, similarly local Miele dealer - fantastic.

Is it a coincidence that all the machines with the 10yr warranty are of the traditional design? A move to sell their older stock and concentrate on the newer design?

Our Miele 3240 gives following times all for 40 deg wash Auto 1hr 13min Denim 1hr 13min Express 32min Minimum iron 1hr 19min Cotton 1hr 55min these were obtained just by selecting on the dial without altering any available options

My Sister had similar experience (but is quite hard to intimidate), but providing it is explained clearly and in a polite manner then there should not be a problem. This I suppose arises out of call outs for problems that could easily have been checked before hand from the manufacturer’s handbook – blown fuse, loose wire, blocked pipe etc though some people may be prepared to pay £90 for these to be checked. Sisters problem was blocked outlet pipe which she managed to fix without calling anyone out. Unfortunately intermittent faults are obviously the hardest to fix especially if not there when the engineer calls. As Andy said gather evidence, record noise, photograph display. It is very worrying when this happens close to the end of your warranty period so its worth calling and reporting saying the fault is intermittent. Ask for a reference number so that should the fault reappear again you have a claim history that relates to the warranty period

I don’t know if this was a lime scale problem or residue from washing at low temperatures but our old machine had grey deposits trapped in the door seal and also in the filter. These were not very hard and crumbled when you tried to remove them. When mentioned at a Miele dealer they said they were probably caused by low washing temperatures and advised as per the Miele handbook to wash at 70deg C or above with a powder detergent every 6 weeks or if you dont use this high temperature then use detergent only on a Cottons 95deg C setting Further investigation found these deposits were also present at the 90 degree elbow to the outside drain to such an extent that the pipe was almost completely blocked together with a large amount of it in the drain itself. Rang Persil customer services and was told that all their products contain limescale protection and water softener, so no need to use any additional product. The only rider to this information was that the correct amount of dosing should be used taking into account your water area, how soiled is the wash and also if you have a large capacity machine 6/7kg or more you may need to add more product. (this I posted in the Calgon Forum earlier)

We received our Domestic and General Policy back after approximately 1 week, just have to put it somewhere safe and hope it doesn’t get lost. QUOTE "Breakdown: the cost of repair to the equipment following a mechanical or electrical fault which stops the equipment working properly." Does this mean if it starts to leak because of faulty door or door seal you are not covered? Am also trying to think of other faults that could appear but wouldn’t fall into mechanical or electrical category.