I've had both KA (but not the model you indicate) and Miele, and yes, Miele is definitely the superior machine IMO.

Besides longevity & service, the KA is the American style with food grinder & exposed heating element. The KA description implies that the grinder is what will allow you to not rinse dishes. We scrape but never rinse our dishes for our Miele, and we find very little in the filter after months of use. The grinder adds noise to a DW.

Having an exposed heating element means that the contents will be baked dry, but you risk some items being deformed or melted. Because Miele & other European style DWs do convection drying, we can put any item anywhere in the DW, maximizing capacity & eliminating damage risk. Yes, occasionally there will be some wet spots on the underside of mugs or some plastic things, but we let those drip dry in the rack or on a towel.

A Miele uses less water than KA.

Every Miele has flood protection: it senses any overflow & shuts the machine & the water off. We had this triggered last month, & Miele service was prompt & professional (& under warranty). Turns out it was triggered by soap bubbles accumulating from a family member using the Short cycle with a quantity of detergent appropriate for a normal cycle, which is much longer & has enough time to remove the detergent. I'd rather have the flood protection than not.

In our area, an airgap is required by code, but Miele's are exempt because the airgap is built in.

The Miele cutlery tray gets our flatware much cleaner & doesn't take up space the way a typical basket does. We never get stabbed anymore & it's not hard to load/unload.

Finally, the Miele is so much quieter. We only hear an occasional gurgle, and could eliminate that if we remember to put the stopper in the disposal drain.

We've had our Miele for over 3 years and it is worth every penny, for all the reasons given above by Gizmonike.

-Babka

I'm on my 2nd Kitchenaid and would not want any other. The machine is very quiet, holds a lot and can accomodate odd shaped utensils, casseroles, pots, pans, dishes, glasses and silver.

Make sure you take some of your stuff for a test ride before comitting to any machine. I learned my lesson a few years ago with a Bosch.

The Kitchenaid is energy star rated and uses 4-6 gallons of water. Thats what my manual states. Don't think the others use less. The sensor determines what it needs to use by load size and dirtiness of the load.

Yes the element is fitted to bottom of the tub, but no matter, Tupperware type plastics are safe in either rack with the drying heat on, so no "baking" going on, yet the entire dishload is thoroughly clean and dry.

The machine is simple to use. No picky adjustments, measuring granules of detergent or filters to clean. It just works with little fanfare. Like a Coach bag. Not Louis Vuitton!

Charly

We recently purchased a Kitchenaid and it cleans great. I only scrape my dishes, I do not rinse and they come out spotless every time. It seems to run very quiet. In fact a couple of times I have opened it mid cycle not realizing it was still running. There are some KA dishwashers that have the cutlery tray at the top of the dishwasher. The cutlery is laid flat. We did not purchase that one however. It is an option if you do not like basket option.

We did require a service call because something was caught in the drain pipe. Not sure how it got there. It was a tricky problem to figure out and required the service people to call KA to figure out what was at the root of the problem. But when the serviceman came to the house he fixed it promptly and we have not had any problems since. I would not hesitate to purchase another one.

My understanding is that the Miele uses high water pressure to pulverize most food pieces caught by the filter. I check my filter every month or so, there is never anything inside except for a few tiny little items which wouldn't cause problems anyway. Using water pressure to blast food particles is superior to using a "food grinder". It's quieter, more efficient, and more environmentally responsible.

I have a Miele, my sister has a KitchenAid. I've heard enough about her KitchenAid, when faced with these two options I would always pick the Miele hands down.

We have to replace our Kitchen Aid dishwasher after only 4 years. Would not buy KA again

After giving it some thought, we went with the Miele. When we originally shopped for our other appliances, all brands seemed to have both good reviews and bad reviews. In the end, we just picked one. For the dishwasher, it seems like there were very few negative opinions on the Miele units whereas there were mixed reviews on the other brands.

I am having to replace my 6 year old top of the line kitchenaid because the integrated panel went bad (which I replaced) and now the logic is bad leaving water in the dischwasher. the heating element is coated with a calcium like substance probably from operating with water in the dishwasher. I also have soft water.
Kitchen aid was NO help in trying to get this resolved.
I will replace with a miele. i have talked with several appliance dealers who carry both and most say the miele is a superior product.