We had exactly the same problem, I spend the whole morning reading the manual and calling customer service with no success, they called me back in the evening with a suggestion to unlock the child safety knob , nothing worked, till I put the question to google and found this page, tried the STUPID solution and it worked immediately, me and my wife spend the next 10 minutes laughing and off coarse unloading the shiny dishes

The drama continues. This morning I made the builder understand that the dishwasher has to be flush. The cabinet guy came and put the necessary wood support to the sides so that the dishwasher can be pushed in enough to be flush and then still be screwed in on the sides. I had to go to work after I explained all this to the plumber in addition to the details about the supply and drain hoses. My wife went by later and took pictures of the installation. I just took a look at the pictures as I had to work late and I am pissed!!! Check out the following pictures You can clearly see that they forgot to raise the level of the dishwasher. There is a big gap between the top of the dishwasher and the granite! Every installer knows that this has to be adjusted. To make matters worse, one of the plumbers installed the toe kick (the black one that has the long adjustable depth rods) with the dishwasher being so low to the ground and another plumber opens the door and breaks off both of the rods. They throw it away and say to my wife the toe kick is not needed. What a bunch of crock. They also screwed in the side screws obviously at the wrong level. I have to ask them to come back and raise the level of the dishwasher and rescrew in. I am really annoyed as my builder assured me these plumbers knew what they were doing. I should have just gone with the Miele authorized dealer that I bought the dw from. They do the installation for $150. I thought I was saving that by letting the builder do it! In addition to this, one of the plumbers was a wise crack and was behaving in a less than polite manner with my wife. The builder is going to get an earful from me tomorrow. I hope that the process of opening the DW door and breaking off the toe kick rods did not damage the door itself. Otherwise I have to get the builder to pay for the damage. I bought this myself and asked him to install it. So, I don't know if I can make him liable.

I had a large 120 count of Cascade Action Packs, so those don't let you measure the amount of detergent used, as each pack is the same amount. I guess you could open them up and use less that way, but it would be a bit messy. I've only got two of them left, so will be going by the Miele store this week to buy their detergent tabs. There are 60 in a box, but each Miele tab has a line in the middle, so you can break it in half to use (which would give 120 loads). The person at the store gave us a couple tabs a while back to try out, and we only used half in the Normal and Pots/Pans cycle, and they worked fine. So to answer your question..... When I used the Express Wash with or without the Turbo mode, I also used the pre-measured Cascade Action Packs. When the Turbo mode was off, everything was clean. With the Turbo Mode On, it lowered the total time from 20 min to 15 min, but there was some bubbly detergent left the bottom of the unit. I think this is because there might have been too much to begin with for such a short cycle, as the Cascade packs are all the same size, and that the short wash and rinse cycle didn't have enough time to rinse all the detergent away. But when using the Normal and Pots/Pans cycle with or without the Turbo, it is fine when using the Cascade packs, as there is enough time for it to wash and rinse away at the end. Just to add, I've noticed that over the 3 months using the Diamante with the Cascade packs, that a few of my 10-year-old steak knives are starting to wear down around the three rivets on the center (the rivets look like they are breaking apart on the sides), and that my very old cast iron skillet looks like there are now a few rust spots on it. I'm not sure if this is because of the Cascade detergent being too harsh, or because I use the Pots/Pans cycle most of the time since we do a lot of cooking. Once I get the Miele detergent tabs, I'm going to just try the Normal and China/Crystal cycles to see if that cleans my cookware as good.

My DW was installed by a Miele-certified installer, and has been seen by a Miele-certified technician. In a nutshell, my dishes are dirty. This includes stoneware, glassware, Pyrex, stainless bowls, baking pans, stainless flatware, you name it, from the top, middle and bottom racks. The residue is food, not detergent, that did not originally reside on the dishes where I find it at the end of the cycle. For example, this morning I had to SCRAPE tiny food blobs off the interior and exterior of a water glass when I removed it from the DW. Oddly, the things that are most apt to come out the cleanest are the things I would least expect, like casseroles with baked-on cheese and really yucky saucepots. Before I even called Miele CS, I tried a little, a medium amount, and a lot of Cascade powder (enzyme kind), as well as a half or full Miele tablet, all with and without RinseAid, at the normal, pots and pans, china, and express settings, with full loads and part loads, loaded in umpteen different ways, double and triple-checked to make sure the spray arms weren't obstructed. There is salt in the DW and it's set to the right number for my water hardness. All these permutations produce dirty dishes. I have gone from scraping to rinsing to nearly washing everything before I put it in the DW. Other than the fact that I don't want to leave dirty dishes in the sink, I don't know why I'm bothering with the DW at all. I've emptied the bottom filter many times, and there's rarely anything in there. I have had multiple phone conversations with Miele CS and Tech Support. Every time, I get different suggestions. For example, one person told me to use the P&P cycle, the next person told me not to because the hotter water could damage my dishes, and the next person told me to use P&P again. They finally decided that I needed a service visit. I went around and around with the service dept and no one would return my calls or schedule a visit. I finally called the salesperson where I bought the DW and he intervened to get me a service appt. The service person came without any knowledge of the multiple lengthy phone conversations, didn't listen to anything I told him, ran diagnostics which did not disclose the source of the problem, spoke to someone else on the phone, they decided to turn up the sensitivity on the soil sensor and turn up the water temps to "see if it would help." No parts were ordered. I think there might be something wrong with the drying function now too, because recently when the timer runs down to zero, the green light doesn't flash and the dishes aren't dry at all. Please note that I previously had a KA that washed dishes much better than this but was unbearably noisy in my open-concept home. I didn't have to go through all these mental contortions to try to get the DW to work properly. This Optima is quieter, but not as quiet as the Miele hype led me to believe before I bought it. During my last call with Tech Support, I was told that "maybe turning off the salt dispenser would help." And to go back to using the P&P cycle again. (This is after the tech visit where the temp on the normal cycle was supposedly increased.) I believe that the plan for the next tech visit is to disable the salt dispenser. I've run out of things to try on my own. And I don't think any of the people that I've spoken with have a clue as to what's wrong with this DW. I can't begin to tell you how upset I am at both the DW's performance and Miele's customer support.