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.

Thanks for your review :) KA was the brand I originally was going to buy but got side tracked by the Bosch. But, when I saw the smaller capacity and the lack of tine configurations, that was a deal breaker for me. Quietness was also top of my list. The KUDE60 that I purchased is rated at 46 dB where as the Bosch was 45 dB. It will be installed on Sunday. I'm going to miss the "time remaining" (in a cycle) readout out that my Maytag has but I'm sure I'll get over it :) GTK you're happy with yours! Monica

We, too, had a workhorse KA dishwasher. I fairly wept when it gave its swan song after 20+ years of washing dried on cheeses, tomato sauce and other malodorous gunk. We purchased a new one, bought the extended warranty and had a service call within two months. Control board went. Frustrating part was that Lowe's told me that no matter what died, it was covered. Well, it was covered, but I couldn't get anyone to come out. I'd make an appointment, and the company would cancel the night before. Finally, I called Lowes, told them about it and they sent someone right out. Currently, the little happy chime doesn't signal denoting the end of cycle .... probably signaling another service call. Sorry to corroborate your experience, PKguy. I've become so cynical. I hear energy savings, it only uses a teaspoon of water, blah, blah, blah and I just put up my hand like a traffic cop, thinking "Please. I'll be replacing this in just a few years." Cathy in SWPA

Hi Asolo, How are you liking your new machine? I agree that it's probably too much detergent. It was all I had on hand at the time and also the sample that came with the D/W. How is your drying with your plastics? We use a lot of the rubbermaid refillable 20 oz drink containers (instead of buying bottled water) those came out dripping wet both on the bottom and the top racks of the D/W. Hi Fiddleddd, I was just thinking about you, wondering if you had decided on a D/W. I did take some pics for you of the D/W, just hadn't gotten them posted yet. Probably will need hubbys help with that since loading the pics onto the 'puter is always a pain. I can tell you the vent on the side does appear to be a vent. You can feel warm air coming out, and when I put a mirror up next to it, it fogs up. It's venting during the washing cycle. I didn't notice it yesterday, as when I held a mirror up to it, it was not fogging up. Perhaps it only happens at parts of the cycle. I really don't know what to think of this, as all the newer higher priced (quieter) K/A D/W's are moving to this system. It doesn't make any sense to me to vent towards the cabinets. There is also vent is on the bottom of the door, it's rectangular shaped, and blows the air straight out, not down at the floor. It does blow out the air during the drying cycle, and does NOT stay closed for 4 hours as they told me. they don't seem to know much about this model at all. But I can tell you that the air blowing out of either vent could not be seen, meaning it didn't look like steam, and felt fairly "dry". I know you were wondering about the depth of the unit, our cabinets are 23 and 5/8 deep, and the D/W sticks out 1.5 inches from the base cabs (not including our doors, they stick out about an inch) so it looks ok, but doesn't sit flush. The D/W is very quiet, but I can definitely hear it. I do have pretty sensitive hearing though. Please let me know if you have any further questions, i'd be happy to help if I can. I'll work on getting some pics posted for your ASAP. :o) Hi Warmfridge, thank you for the info. I let them sit for a few hours and then opened the door, and most were dry except the Rubbermaid drink containers. Perhaps they are a difficult shaped item to dry. I was trying to respond to this thread earlier, but I was getting a login error.