Thread Number: 5602
To the person who said Mieles are quailty vacuums..................
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Post# 61932   3/8/2009 at 10:14 (5,499 days old) by kirbykid1 ()        

Well I had to show you this. This is my Miele S5 Pisces. Now think about this I wouldnt take these pictures or even do these if I knew my Miele wouldnt break. I can hold the machine up by the cord which in a Tri Star or any other cleaner would come right out. Check that out.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO kirbykid1's LINK


Post# 61933 , Reply# 1   3/8/2009 at 11:07 (5,499 days old) by brandon_w_t ()        
I said

I do respect miele based on the youtube videos I have seen. Before, I saw a crappy demonstration, by a guy that knew nothing about vacuum cleaners as he was the sewing machine sales guy.


Post# 61946 , Reply# 2   3/8/2009 at 15:06 (5,499 days old) by danemodsandy ()        
Evan:

I'm not sure what holding a machine up by the cord has to do with anything, but my TriStar CXL passes that test, no problem.

Brandon, if you want to get a Miele, you really need the power nozzle, which doesn't automatically come with all models. Mieles often come with an air-driven turbo brush instead of a PN, and I am here to tell you it is not adequate for an average American household, especially one with pets. We had a Miele White Star for a time, and I sold it because the turbo brush was so woefully inadequate, and I was not about to pop for the extra money for a PN on such an expensive vac. My other half was the one who bought the thing, getting talked into it by a very aggressive salesperson. The need for a real PN was never mentioned at the time of sale; this woman obviously figured she'd get us back for the add-on sale, which she didn't.

Miele lovers should not get me wrong - I thought the White Star was very high quality for what it was, but for the money, not getting a PN was a little ridiculous, and the turbo brush's performance was dismal. The salesperson way oversold that machine; it wasn't Miele's fault. Had she said that a PN was a necessary add-on, we could have made a much better, more informed decision.

I can see where the Miele turbo brush would be fine for a little old lady in a condo, where nothing ever gets any real dirt, or for fine Oriental rugs.


Post# 61952 , Reply# 3   3/8/2009 at 16:02 (5,499 days old) by kirbykid1 ()        

I vacuumed my neighbors house using the Miele with the turbo she has to rooms of High Plus and Low commercial and oriengtal......no problem. YOu dont have to have TOL. All S5 has the same amount of power. If you would ever decide to update you can buy a electric hose,wand and power nozzle. Its no problem.

Miele cord winders are pulled out and retracted 300,000 times. Tom and I figured if you vacuum once a day for 100 years you may wear out the cordwinder. THat hose is industructable

Sandy-
Your white star was from the old range. They only had 1100 watts. The new ones have another 100. Mine will suck the paint of the wall. If I dont keep the parquet twister moving I have to open the air valve and then use it because it seals itself to the floor.
Strittmatter


Post# 61953 , Reply# 4   3/8/2009 at 16:03 (5,499 days old) by kirbykid1 ()        

BTW she has 2 long haired dogs and 1 short haired cat. I think it cleans very efficently.

Post# 61955 , Reply# 5   3/8/2009 at 16:34 (5,499 days old) by turbomaster1984 (Ripley, Derbyshire)        
Your white star was from the old range. They only had 1100 w

turbomaster1984's profile picture
an extra 100 watts?

Which equates to how many air watts?

100 watts hardly makes any difference.

It means it uses more elctricity but wont neccessarily mean a noticble difference in cleaning power.

R


Post# 61958 , Reply# 6   3/8/2009 at 17:39 (5,499 days old) by danemodsandy ()        
White Star:

Hi:

The suction with the White Star was never the problem. As you say of your Miele, it would suck the paint off the wall.

The problem was that the turbo brush was too slow-spinning and had too soft a brushroll to do the job we needed done. We have 32-ounce ivory plush carpet, and we have a tuxedo (black-and-white) cat. The turbo brush was not doing even a passable job of getting up cat hair.

I know that Miele sells PNs that can be added to any of their models, but my point is, for the price charged for Mieles in this country, they should damn well come with one. Mieles cost two to three times here what they do in Europe, and American machines costing a third what Mieles do come with a PN standard.


Post# 61962 , Reply# 7   3/8/2009 at 18:09 (5,498 days old) by aeoliandave (Stratford Ontario Canada)        
To the person who said Mieles are quailty vacuums...........

aeoliandave's profile picture
Person? I think you mean the overwhelming majority of Persons, plural...who do not need convincing and hardly consider hanging a vacuum by it's cord or hose valid tests of anything related to performance or build quality. Even crumbling rotted cords will hang on for dear life by the copper wires until swung in an arc or dead dropped. Try that with your S5, ok?

"I can hold the machine up by the cord which in a Tri Star or any other cleaner would come right out." Utter hogwash.

"Miele cord winders are pulled out and retracted 300,000 times."
Not every single Miele cordwinder off the line gets this treatment - it's a standard R&D fatigue test and random assembly line quality check performed by any manufacturer of consumer goods.

Enough with the baiting pronouncements and exaggerations, please. Show us a video of your S5 actually sucking dried paint off your own walls...that'll tell us more about the condition of the underlying plaster, moisture content and cheap paint than suction. If you'd like to do the suck test with wet paint you can then lecture us on how quickly the Miele bag pores clog up...

lighten up, Boy, lighten up.

Dave



Post# 61971 , Reply# 8   3/8/2009 at 19:02 (5,498 days old) by xraytech ()        

Holding a vacuum up by it's cord or suspending it by it's hose is a poor way to demonstrate the quality of a vacuum, they will all do that, but in time they will all break because NONE of them are ment to be used and handled like that.

I also think it is a HORRIBLE way to treat a vacuum of any caliber wheater it is a $39.99 Blue Light Special, and even worse if it is an expensive vacuum.
Even most people who don't know anything or care about vacuums know better than to treat a vacuum, especially an expensive one like that.
As for the cord winder being tested 300,000 times, that is just a QC check on a random sample that gets pulled, every company does that with every product they make. It also dosen't mean that every item produced is going to last that long, they are just saying it can possibly last that long.


Post# 62005 , Reply# 9   3/9/2009 at 07:22 (5,498 days old) by magic-clean (FL-GA)        
I'm

going to show the cord-reel demo to my 80 year young mom. She is going to need her 2nd replacement on their 7 year old White-Star.

The cleaner is not abused or overused. Only used as a straight suction cleaner. Just seems she got a bad run of cordwinders.

Sandy is correct about the powerbrush price. Too high in the U.S. You can easily get a decent upright for the going rate of a Miele powernozzle.

The cord-reel on my 1999 Platinum failed after about 5 years. We upgraded to a Red Velvet and thankfully it has been fine.

Leslie



Post# 62029 , Reply# 10   3/9/2009 at 11:45 (5,498 days old) by vacuumfreeeke ()        

Well, Mieles are certainly quality vacuums.... I think the debate is usually are they worth the money. The cord winder on my Miele Plus (which isn't even made in Germany, it's made in China) is very strong. It's the only vacuum I've met that doesn't need any help slurping the cord up like a hungry person would a string of spaghetti. Many cord winders stop if they encounter any reisistance... or stop at the last 5 inches or so of cord and it must be manually pushed in by the user. Not the Miele.... you step on that pedal and you know that cord is going to go flying back into the machine... and don't stand in the way unless you have a fetish for being whipped by vacuum cords!

As to longevity, time will only tell, but for now it seems like it's good quailty because it works!


Post# 62065 , Reply# 11   3/9/2009 at 17:53 (5,497 days old) by edgar (Belgium)        
the cost of a miele

edgar's profile picture
hi,

The problem is that a miele cleaner is made for the european market. If I look at the prices over there than I have to say that I would not by A miele over there it is insane.

In europe it is the trend for a lot of years now that there are hard floors in the house or verry low profile carpet. There for it is not standard to have a power nozzle and a lot of other brands do not even have a conection fot a PN.

The Miele Cat an dog over here is delivered with an air brush, A PN is an extra option. TH cost price of a standard Miele over here is 140 euro up to max 400 Euro that includes the PN.

If you buy an american machine over here it will cost like 3000 euro it really is absurd and you will get boxes full of things you will never need (if you are not an collector lol).

What I mean to say is different countries different needs, and different prices i quess.

edgar


Post# 62068 , Reply# 12   3/9/2009 at 18:50 (5,497 days old) by kirbykid1 ()        

Very well said Edgar.

Post# 62071 , Reply# 13   3/9/2009 at 19:12 (5,497 days old) by petek (Ontario)        

It's really only the same marketing ploy that's used to sell Mercedes and other Euro things. They keep the price high and limit the models to create a bit more of a snob appeal.
Like Mercedes do not sell most of their models in the US only the higher priced or fully equipped ones, never the plain janes. It appears that the same happens in reverse over in Europe where American made/style appliances are sought after pricey items.


Post# 62156 , Reply# 14   3/10/2009 at 11:03 (5,497 days old) by rugmaster37 ()        
A LONG thought on Miele Vacuum Cleaners...

After selling and repairing the Miele line of vacuum cleaners over the past 10 years or so, I can see some of the comments here being very insightful, needed, helpful and sane, and others just being plain blather and over dramatized from several standpoints.

First off I would like to say that many of these issues that y'all have brought up would have been properly circumvented had you had a salesperson with half a brain. Many salespeople probably more that I would like to truly find out are crappy,idiotic, useless and uninformed in all sales outlets for all things marked salable, NOT just in vacuum cleaner sales.

They sell on agenda only, or do it to pay the bills, or whatever. They aren't the cognoscenti like most of us feel we are...LOL. These person do not do their customers any service during or after the sale. Or like Brandon's visit, where he was dealing with primarily someone who deals with another type of product. It saddens me that this person wasn't cross trained properly to handle both the sewing and vac parts of the business. Because in many cases they are...you just had a misinformed salesperson who was trying his hand at vac sales.

That said,if you felt like you were not getting the full banana, or being sold less than what you needed you should have asked around to see if someone who did have a light on up in their coo coo clock on that may have know a thing or two about vacuum cleaners, especially Mieles, their options and the "Proper" things that you would need it to have to fully satisfy your needs. .

However, coming away from a bad sales experience is NEVER the fault of the manufacturer, or the products therein. It's the fault of the dealer and his or her salespeople. We just like to blame those at the top..It's cool, we as a society have done it for centuries.

Miele vacuums are to me a tad on the overpriced side, but then there are hundreds of thousands of people who spend twice as much of Mieles top model on the common door to door machines that may or may not do just as good a job for their prospective purchasers.

A good salesperson would have asked you a host of different questions in light of finding out what machine would have properly suited your needs. You would then have had the option to purchase that model or models and you would have been a far happier camper than you are now. Aggressive salespeople irritate me, and I am not one of them. I've had people come back months later so they could save more to buy the proper vacuum cleaner I've showed them, Miele or not.

As to Mieles quality, I wont even argue with a one of you. If I could , or had the time to do a yearly study of what gets repaired most, I can tell you that Miele is probably the least repaired machine that we see come in followed by Kirby and Filter Queen. The lower priced brands get the lions share of that light, names unimportant. We as collectors and vacuum guys know who they are. That said, no product Miele or otherwise can claim complete clairvoyancy in quality and lifespan. They do make it longer than others , and if that weren't the case, you would not see as many of them as you do out there in the field.

Also, in 8 times out of 10 when it comes to Miele, at least up here in my market, many things that break are simply caused by human error. Plain and simple. Getting too excited, using improperly, storing improperly, and finally picking up improper things usually cause a Miele to go down. Sam said it best..it doesn't matter if it's a $39.99 blue light special or a $3,000 Silver King (which I personally think is ludicrous) If ti's used improperly or handled so by its owner(s). That your fault not the fault of the machine.

Yes, years back Miele did had some issues with the cord winders on the old 500 series machines. Why do you think they test them all now. And for those who don't think they do..you're dead wrong. I've seen MANY power point demonstrations where they take us DIRECT to the factory floor in Germany via the great internet and real time display and show us the machine that does this very operation of testing ALL cord reels before they enter a unit. It's not just an R&D experiment. You're not there, and clearly have not seen these films that I would find it hard to believe they just FAKE for old times sake, or they would waste their time to lie to hundreds of thousands of salespeople.

Even Maytag , who used to hang it's whole sales angle on how long their machines lasted even said in their advertising "We can't say that ALL Maytags will equal that record", "but lasting quality is what we TRY to build into every Maytag" or like wording. Miele is the same way. Yeah they had a bad run a while back of cordwinders...so what. Show me any lesser brand who did or do NOT have the same issues. 9 out of 10 Kenmores I have brought into me have broken Cord Winders, followed by Hoover then Eureka. Inmy book only the OLD Electroluxes had the best cordwinders, but their long gone, and the new stuff ain't any better than most, mainly becasue it's a Eureka.

The price of their powernozzles if not included in the purchase price of the machine is quite high. That is why it's up to the salesperson to attempt to get you to purchase one WHILE your in the store. If he or she does her sales demo right you'll most likely go home with one. If you have to ( and many of you don't) or you wouldn't even be looking at a Miele anyway..buy on price tho, and skimp, your decision is your own peril. I sold a Pisces to a lady who refused to spend one more dime for her vacuum. I warned her that with her needs she may not be haoppy with the full performance of her unit. I showed her our Simplicity Canisters, as well as a Royal Procison 3050 with Pwoernozzle which wer cheaper in some forms and in others not, but SHE wanted a Miele becsue her sister had one and she liked it.

Guess what. she was back in a two days, and asked to purchase the next model up which was the Callisto, so she coul dhave the electric power brush. I helped her out, and because of that, she has recommended it to several friends who have bought that same model or higher from me. If you are given both the pros and the cons to each model, do your homework and look up things, and ask around...And even goto a different store..whatever you choose take home is no longer the fault of the machines, the company or the salespeople. It's your choice that you made...plain and simple.

Unless you have a gun held to your head, or what have you, no one EVER forces you to do anything. If again you feel like your not getting what you want, or your being pushed into something to buy...walk away. Again if YOU do the choice fully without any other notions being presented, than it's your fault for choosing the wrong thing, or being cheap or whatever.

Finally wattage is so unimportant as is amps. Mieles airflow is 140 Cu.ft. of air a minute. Only a central vac has higher suction. However even suction isn't all that important. It's a combination of proper agitation, suction and filtration that make a good rug cleaner/ vacuum cleaner. A decently trained salesperson knows this.

I never resort to BTW even when I'm running out of balls to pitch the stepping on the machine, or holding it by the cord those demonstrations show that your more into they hype than the features that will be most beneficial to the customer . I do however show them the hose trick. Hoses in replacement cost are VERY expensive usually. To show the customer that the hose will never kink, or split or what have you is a real asset. It takes away a fear many canister customers have from possibly purchasing the machine.

Again nothing is perfect, mechanical or human and salespeople in some very unfortunate cases don't know their tit from their tat. Neither of these reasons should make someone denounce a company or it's products. But we do that, and sink them all the time... It's kinda sad..


Chad


Post# 62158 , Reply# 15   3/10/2009 at 11:17 (5,497 days old) by petek (Ontario)        

Great post Chad....

It's almost pointless dealing with most salespeople in most department stores anyways. They don't know what they are selling.. I mean take our Sears store for example. Every 6 months there is an ad in the paper "Sales Person Required for our Sewing and Vacuum department. You think the girls and ladies who take that job are going to know everything or anything about all the vacuums that store sells let alone all the sewing machines.. They don't and it's obvious if you go there and see them trying to demo one to a customer, especially the Dysons. Most of these saleswoman don't even know where it turns on or how to set up the attachments, it's laughable. They're hired because they know how to sew on a sewing machine, at least the one they have at home. They like sewing more than likely and probalby not vacuuming but unfortunately the vac and sewing depts are tied together LOL Stand around and listen to what they say to the customer, a bunch of malarky because they don't know what they are talking about and will say just about anything. Last one I overheard the customer sort of mentioned the high cost of the Oxygen bags. The saleslady told her "but you only need to change them every 6 months" and she was serious.


Post# 62159 , Reply# 16   3/10/2009 at 11:42 (5,497 days old) by andy (Boston, MA)        

Chad,

I've been hemming and hawing for a couple of days on how I was going to reply to this thread. I don't need to anymore because you said it better than I ever could have myself!


Post# 62161 , Reply# 17   3/10/2009 at 12:02 (5,497 days old) by andy (Boston, MA)        
By the way...

When I had the store, I also had the experience of people buying turbobrush Mieles
in order to save money, only to realize that they really did need to upgrade to an electric powerbrush. I am of the opinion that the turbobrush has a very limited application. One thing I did notice though, was that it seemed more powerful on the full size Pisces than the smaller Antares. I'm not sure why that is as both machines used the same motor.


Post# 62166 , Reply# 18   3/10/2009 at 13:44 (5,497 days old) by petek (Ontario)        

The only turbo brushes I've had have all been weak. I was very surprised when Dave brought over his old polish-aire and one other old type, all metal construction, how powerful they actually can be. Metal instead of plastic makes the difference it seems.

Post# 62168 , Reply# 19   3/10/2009 at 14:19 (5,497 days old) by danemodsandy ()        
Chad:

I very much agree with your assertions on salespeople. They should be approached with caution, and their claims taken with a grain - make that a carload - of salt. The problem in the instance I mentioned was that I- the family skeptic with knowledge of both vacuums and retail - was not along on that trip, and by the time I learned of what had happened, it was too late - the deed was done.

I remember whan retail was a profession, and salespeople had to know their product (and competing ones) right down to the ground. Unfortunately, the Harvard MBA model of management so popular with corporations today has seen to it that only burger-school dropouts are hired by most stores and chains (there are a few - pitifully few - exceptions).

The saleswoman who sold that Miele White Star to us was doing exactly the opposite of what you recommend. Instead of being honest and upfront about the probable need for a PN, and factoring it into the total price of the sale, she was opting for sort of a "bait-and-switch" tactic. She swore up and down that the White Star was the greatest invention since the wheel, to close a sale immediately, figuring we'd be back for the add-on sale of the PN later. Major didn't work, because we felt poorly advised in the first place and somewhat scammed in the second.

I can't say that I agree about Miele's pricing here in the States. It is my feeling that pricing is too high for what you get, even though the vacuums are of very high quality for a plastic-bodied vac. None of my comments on this thread should be construed as a negative comment about Miele quality, but at Miele's price point in the U.S., I expect - and I think most consumers expect - a real, honest-to-Pete power nozzle.



Post# 62210 , Reply# 20   3/10/2009 at 18:46 (5,496 days old) by sleepdoc (St. Louis, MO)        
Andy

sleepdoc's profile picture
That's an interesting question. I have one guess: some difference in the design of the two series results in less airflow in the S4 than the S5 with the same motor. It could be the smaller bag chamber in the S4 - that would be my first guess. The hoses are slightly different, aren't they? You could answer that question by placing a flow meter at different points in the flow on the different machines, namely the canister inlet and the hose inlet; everything distal to that is the same.

Post# 62212 , Reply# 21   3/10/2009 at 19:01 (5,496 days old) by andy (Boston, MA)        
Patrick....

Now that I think of it I'm sure your right; it has to be the larger bag chamber on the S5. The hoses are the same. I remember using an airflow meter at the store to compare the two machines. The S5 with the electric hose would register about the same as an S4, but the S5 with the non electric hose would read greater. The electric hose is slightly less conducive to airflow.

For those who own Miele's with powerbrushes and powerhoses, I've always advocated getting a non-electric hose to use when you are doing heavy attachment cleaning. It's much easier to maneuver and pulls a little more airflow.


Post# 62236 , Reply# 22   3/10/2009 at 22:09 (5,496 days old) by sleepdoc (St. Louis, MO)        
One more thing

sleepdoc's profile picture
When I said everything distal to the hose is the same, that's assuming all other things being equal. The electric wand may have a smaller diameter than the non-electric. I think you're onto it, though, Andy, as usual.


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