I received my Miele pair in February and really LOVE them. I hope you have such a good experience too! This is what I found on Henkel's site re: megaperls 1994 - Persil Megaperls Pearls instead of powder. Another milestone in Persil's history: the development of a laundry detergent that offered even better washing performance, and with very much smaller doses of the product. For five years, Henkel researchers worked to develop a method that would allow such high concentrations of the active ingredients. The breakthrough was achieved with a completely new production technology - and a new generation of laundry detergents: Pearls instead of powder. 290 milliliters of classic powder could be replaced by 95 milliliters of the new laundry detergent. Persil Megaperls - offered in a lightweight 1.6 kilogram pack with a window gave Henkel a substantial edge in innovation. Patent were filed across Europe for this new laundry detergent technology. I personally find the scent of regular Persil products too much (or I just don't like the actual scent). I do, however, like the Persil Senitive options which have much milder scents. I also use oxygen bleach with my white loads and they are always white and bright. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: Persil - History

Well I will give it a shot, the power doesn't need to be on for it to get fried during a thunderstorm. Sounds like the control got fried due to a voltage spike during the storm. Put your washer on a surge protector to avoid these types of issues in the future. If the repair man doesn't have the board in stock plan on a couple of weeks without the washer. I know you don't want to hear this but it's impossible to stock every component for every machine out there. The fact that you can't get it into diagnostic mode is definatly pointing towards a fried control board. It is a good thing that you have the extra warranty, control boards are expensive. Hope this helps.

We are choosing a new washer/dryer set and would like to buy something in the mid-range. I had a Miele set in our previous home for the last 15 years, which I absolutely loved, but think that for half the price I might be able to get something that works well enough. There seems to have been a lot of changes in the mid-range since I last made a purchase. I'm considering either the new Maytag Maxima steam set or a Whirlpool Duet steam set. I want to have something that will do a good job on delicates (something that Miele does extremely well) and will also sanitize my micro fibre cleaning cloths. Any comments or suggestions?

Regarding the frequent dryer replacements. Are you cleaning the vent run periodically? And are you cleaning the dryer vent beyond the screen that comes out. I vacuum as much as I can in the area were the screen is held, using a very long flexible crevice tool. I have recently purchased an auger/brush like tool that hooks up to a drill with 12 feet of extension. I hope it works to clean out my vent run so I don't have to unhook the thing like we do now.