My Excella was installed this past Friday and I love it! Our dishes have never been so clean. It also dries very well. So quiet, too. I didn't really look at the Optima (LONG story), but my advice is if you think you want the Excella, get it, because if you get the Optima, you may use it for a little while and wish you had bought the Excella (if you are thinking NOW that you like the extra features). Our appliance salesman said that everyone in his family has Optimas and loves them, though. I really don't think you can go wrong if you are looking at the models from the Optima on up. Good luck, you will love the Miele.

Berry Farm, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to respond. I will probably go with the Excella and your post has helped me think objectively. I'm just feeling a bit irritated that Miele left out a sensor wash and an Economy wash with hot water in the Optima(two basic cycles in any other higher end brand DW). In fact the Economy wash with hot water is included in all the other models except the Optima. I was so surprised that I called Miele to confirm and it is true. Go figure. But thanks again,
PQ

I opted for the Excella as well after going back and forth between it and the Optima. For my main dishwasher I wanted the extras.

We have the Excella, but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. I choose it over the optima because it is slightly quieter. I'm not sure that all the different feature washes are necessary. I did have a chance to use a lower end miele for a couple of weeks over the summer and it was perfectly quiet. You probably would be happy with either, but it you are set on the economy wash and or sensor wash go for it.

We are very happy with our Optima. Not sure if the Excella has any features we really need, or even want--maybe the Sensor cycle would be neat to have. I use Normal cycle 99% of the time, if not more. I've used Pots and Pans, but don't know if it was even necessary. Most loads we do are a mix of dishes, flatware, and glassware.... No matter whcih Miele you choose, you pretty much can't go wrong IMHO! :-)

Why does the Excella even offer normal (whatever that means) if it has a sensor cycle?

Decades ago KitchenAid had rinse hold and full cycle. As time passed they added more cycles even those that were "fuller" than full cycle but you still would find full cycle on all models. I think Normal is one of those that you will find on most Miele models even though there may be other cycles that take more advantage of newer technologies. Normal seems to be a universal one that is intense enough to do most tasks. The sensor economy, cheese, starch and other cycles take more advantage of the machines capabilities with technology and can use less water, take less time,and still clean a dirty load, although I don't think any Miele DW uses a lot of water to begin with. I think normal does a good job but I don't like the fact that it does 2 pre-washes before the main wash - one is good enough - I mean the rest of the cycles only do one with no problems. Normal configured for other global regions only does 1 pre-wash. The Excella and Laperla also have automatic load recognition so these models will match the water fill amount to the size of the load.

One feature on the Excella and LaPerla that doesn't get too much attention is the fact that you can remove the middle rack and wash only in the bottom along with the cutlery rack. There are two cycles that do this, only difference between them is the water temperature; one uses hotter water than the other. This is good if you have tall items and since you can wash glasses in the bottom I guess you could do a mixed load that way if needed.

In 1996 when I bought my first Miele there were two models to chose from and both were at the highest price point. Now they are offering more models at different price points so I guess that is why there is a difference between cycle offerings, washing and drying methods, water usage and sound.

Once again, jerrod6 and the rest, thank you for taking the time to help me. Your explanations/comments were excellent. One last question if anyone else looks here, can a Miele clean completely dried on cold cereal off a bowl? I always have trouble with that. Ha Ha Ha
PQ

patryqueen, I'll do you one better :-)

Our Optima cleans dried on oatmeal completely 99.9% of the time (every once in a blue moon I'll find a stray oat stuck inside or on the outside of a bowl). We really stack the bowls in the DW, so there's not much room for water to reach each one--I'm amazed that we don't find more stuff stuck to them, more often. Also, DH eats his instant oatmeal like paste, literally! Just enough hot water to wet it, and no added milk. We don't even run the DW every day, so sometimes those bowls sit in the DW for a few days!

Like Cat Mom says it can clean dried on oatmeal and dried on oat bran. I used the Economy cycle(low wash temp of about 115F) with a full load of dishes and it cleaned two corning sauce pans that were used to cook oat bran cereal. The pans had been sitting in the DW untouched for two days(weekend). So if you use the normal cycle or other cycles with a higher temp they are gonna clean it too.

I also use that Cheese cycle to completely clean a glass casserole that is used to cook and store(leftovers) potatoes Au gratin. No rinsing just scraped except for the burned on stuff and placed into the machine. I would post some pictures of it, but I forgot how to do it. oh well.

So yeah they can clean.

Thanks again folks, looks like I'll be doing a lot less hand washing in the future.

We just started using our Excella this weekend and like it so far. Very quiet. Quieter than the old Miele Incognito we have and much quieter than the "quiet" Ge Profile we had. Cleans well, though I have not dropped my lifelong habit of scraping and rinsing before loading (I know I'm not supposed to do that, but...). Same drying issues that we've always had -- water pooling on tops of mugs, glasses and in plastics. Not sure there's much you can do about that. I will say the Miele fits noticeably less than my prior GE Profile DW but now I just don't wait three days to run it (I can justify almost anything at this point). I will experiment more and might have more helpful comments over the next few weeks.