geguymw wrote: "Not all China-made vacuums are bad." I know this is an older thread but I wanted to say that it's not about quality any more - it's an economic issue. You can find good and bad quality made in every single country but we have a ridiculous trade deficit with China and many other countries. Every dollar we spend on a product made in other countries with which we have a trade deficit is a dollar that never comes back to this country. This is not a sustainable model and is economics 101 - if you spend more than you make, you go crash. But regarding the vacuum, Simplicity's uprights are made in the US but I really need a canister. They have a new story from a few years ago on their flash page that says they were planning to bring manufacturing of the canisters back home from Korea. The sales person at my local shop said the canisters are assembled here but I got home and the box says Made In China so back it goes. I've emailed Simplicity and I'm going to call the shop and see what I can find out.

I recently purchased bilateral hearing aids from Costco.....loved that the hearing specialist is not on commission and that I can try them for 90 days and get a full refund if not satisfied. I tried getting aids thru the audiologist and the price was $6000. For the newest technology and comparable aids at Costco I paid $2000. I love them and cannot imagine being without them.....and I have only had them for ten days. I go in Monday for a recheck and will have some fine tuning done is necessary. I have also had really good service from the optical department. I have had my last two pair of glasses made there even though I used an opthmalogist instead of their optician.

Digdirt, wednesday morning and sleevendog, you bring up very good points and all are something to take into consideration. All the comments and advice are greatly appreciated and exactly why I'm researching, asking questions and considering every option at this stage. I'm taking about a year to research and plan as much as I can and looking at every angle. I do all the what ifs, what I would like, what do I need , how would I use them, what might be possible, no matter how outrageous they may seem at this point. I have made the mistake in the past, not to consider every option and then once we have completed a major renovation, turned around and said. well, why didn't we include this in the renovation, And the answer is because we didn't look at everything we should have and kept our focus too narrow. I love getting all your points of view and finding things I may not have thought of. Thank you. Wednesday morning, great idea about using the canning jars for more options.

Do you see a red tag because I don't. These appliances usually all have a warning tag on them. It is quite possible your dealer removed it before delivery. There is a lot of extra shipping material for some of these things. When I ordered my True refrigerator, one of the dealers actually wanted to charge me about $100 to completely unpack the thing, because it is so much work. Fortunately, I found another guy who did it for free. I just got a bunch of new appliances from several vendors. I didn't explicitly check all of them. But I do vividly remember that several of the appliances had prominent labels all over the appliance. On the other hand, it's also possible that Miele messed up and you received an oven that didn't have the warning label. Mistakes can happen. And now it's too late to tell. Evryone knows that you can "NEVER" Attach metal to glass without a rubber grommet! Not so fast. While I tend to lean towards putting grommets into any place where tempered glass is penetrated, there are lots of different factors to consider. Only a mechanical engineer could tell you for certain, whether it would be appropriate in this particular situation. There are pros and cons to grommets. The downside is that the handle can wiggle more; and combined with right-angle edges, that can actually cause more rather than less damage. As for directly attaching metal to glass, I have a dining room table that has stainless steel legs glued to glass. That thing is a monster. It survived multiple moves and several rambunctious kids -- and it still looks like new. I also have a table that has chrome-plated legs glued to the glass. Big mistake. After a few years, the chrome ripped off from the base metal. The chrome plating is still firmly attached to the glass. But the legs came off. So any slight bump of the handle NOT A LIFT can fracture the glass. That's not the experience that others have made. But you are correct and there have been some reports of the glass shattering. It's impossible to tell why, though. As far as I can tell, this is tempered glass. Tempered glass is funny. It's super strong -- until it isn't. And even a tiny scratch or hidden manufacturing fault can make the entire thing shatter to tiny pieces. So, while I don't necessarily agree yet that there is a design flaw (we simply don't have enough data to tell either way), I do agree that Miele should have covered this problem under warranty. A certain amount of breakage simply is expected any time you use tempered glass. And that shouldn't be the customer's problem. There is a metal frame around the door.? Why not make the handle longer by a couple of inches and attach it to the frame! That's certainly a valid point of view. While I am still undecided on whether this problem happened because of Miele's mistake or because you manhandled the appliance in a way that the installation manual tells you to avoid, a design change could conceivably have side stepped the problem. It also affects the look though. And apparently, people are willing to pay for this more modern look. Maybe, that's not a good thing. I know an appliance dealership that got rid of their Miele displays because they hated their poor customer service. That's what they are telling you. More likely than not, the dealer got rid of Miele, because of Miele's direct-sales model. The dealer simply doesn't get enough of a cut when selling Miele appliances. They mostly sell Miele, because customers expect that a good dealer can get them any brand the customer asks for. But a dealer would much rather be able to pick up the appliance from the wholesaler and then sell it directly to the customer. Having said all this, I do agree with you though that customer service is important. I can overlook all of the perceived technical flaws, if only customer service comes through in the end. The fact that they dropped the ball in your case is really the most discouraging bit of news. At this point, your best bet would probably be to contact the credit card company that you used to purchase your appliance. They can either still help, because the transaction is sufficiently recent, or they might be able to help because there is extra warranty coverage as part of your benefits. Of course, that depends on how good your credit card is. Let's hope that you picked one that has good customer service.