I own the Wolf Steam Combi CSO024. Save yourself a headache and DON'T BUY IT! This oven gave us problems from the beginning. Sometimes steam wouldn't come out. The controls didn't always respond. After being installed for three months, it completely died. Over 3 months later, it's still broken. The Wolf certified repair shop has been at our house 4 times and replaced the same part twice and the control board. It still dies with a loud POP and blows a fuse when they power it up after trying a new part. Wolf is unwilling to replace it. They've just ordered yet ANOTHER part. I've been without a steam oven for longer than I've owed it now. I didn't have the oven for the holidays, and Wolf couldn't care less. I predict my warranty will be expired before they fix it. I just bought a SubZero and Wolf cooktop as well. I really expected better customer service. I will never buy another Wolf appliance.

We're building a new house and the placement of the appliances is pretty much fixed at this point. We didn't have any idea of how tricky this would be. Speed oven, Steam oven plus 30" convection oven and induction cooktop. Where to put them all? And how to decide which manufacturer so that they all match, without breaking the bank? We're thinking that the 30" Convection oven will be the one we use least. The Miele Steam seems better than the Bosch, but that means we have to make everything Miele to match. Miele 30 " convection is a lot more expensive than the Bosch. And how many of you have a Speed oven and what do you use it for? Currently, we use a Microwave to heat a bowl of soup, or warm up coffee, or reheat leftovers. We roast a lot of chicken and use a Convection oven..same with fish. We're a retired couple so it's mostly the 2 of us, and wonder how often we'll have a crowd and use everything at once. Plus, we're moving to FL and will have a good grill with a rotisserie, so will have that option too. Also wondering about a plain Microwave +Combi Steam+ Convection set up. But we're thinking that for resale value, we should have a Speed Oven. Can any of you tell me which appliances you use the most and do you have any experience with Bosch cooking appliances? And has anyone out there ever installed a wall oven under a cooktop, rather than buying a slide in or built in stove?

Sorry, just took a look at this thread again and noticed your question...by the time I got to Miele, I had decided on induction, so I didn't give the Miele an actual test drive. I did give it a pretty thorough inspection at the Miele place, though, and thought it was a very sexy range -- and the performance seemed very similar to the Wolf dual fuel. I say that b/c the Miele also has the stacked burners, which I really liked, but the BTUs are higher than Wolf (which top out at around 16k, I believe -- Miele was closer to 20k or so -- I can't quite remember). The Miele ovens on the 48" range were very nice -- the smaller one is a speed oven, and the bigger one is a regular convection. The speed oven wasn't a big plus for me personally, since I really wanted a steam oven as a second oven, but there are people on this forum who love their speed ovens. One thing I really liked about the Miele oven, which Wolf doesn't have, is the burst of steam option, which is great for baking (you can program up to 3 bursts of steam for up to 6 min. each during cooking). I didn't care that much about the MasterChef options on Miele, but again, others love these. At any rate, the Miele seemed very similar to the Wolf, I liked the steam option on the oven better and liked the Miele burners better (also, if you're interested in a grill, theirs was excellent and seemed very similar to the Wolf, which I think is the best in the business). If I had stuck with a range, I would have been very tempted by the Miele.

I have a Wolf CSO and, if I had to do it over again, I would give Miele a much closer look than I did the first time around. According to the Yale appliance blog, Miele makes 97% of their parts in-house, and it's the least-serviced brand they have. The Wolf CSO, on the other hand, is a re-branded V-Zug (a European brand) oven. If you're thinking of getting the Wolf in the "Professional" trim (as shown in your mockup), be aware that the hinges are not strong enough to support the weight of the bar on the door. Wolf advises that, after use, you leave the door partially open in the "at rest" position to let the oven cool down. If you try this, the door will fall completely open with a fair amount of force. The problem, according to a Wolf repairman, is that the bar adds too much weight to the door. Wolf doesn't consider this to be a defect though, as you can fiddle with the door and find a spot where it will stay partially open. The Miele unit is plumbed, while Wolf has a removable water container. It isn't hard to refill the Wolf container, but my oven often says it needs to be refilled once it gets down below about 1/2 full. The oven won't give you this error message though, unless the oven is running in steam mode. When this happens on my oven, it won't even recognize that I've refilled the water, and I have to shut the oven off completely (once I even had to flip the breaker) to get the oven to recognize that it has water. It's annoying at best, and can create problems if you need to get steam into the oven early in the cooking process (like when you're baking a loaf of bread). Of course I can't replicate this problem in front of a repairperson, so the problem hasn't been fixed. It's interesting that a rep at the local Wolf design center told me that Wolf had studied the CSO market extensively and decided not to make a plumbed model, because 90% of the problems encountered are with the plumbing. Aside from that statement being complete BS, 90% of the problems I have with my Wolf are with the water tray. Wolf tells you to start cooking all of your dishes in a cold oven, as it heats up quickly. I think the real reason they tell you this, is because the oven won't produce steam once the temperature gets over 212 degrees. So if you're an experienced bread baker and want to bake bread in a preheated oven while injecting steam, be aware that you can't do this on a Wolf. I started another post on this subject in the Appliance Forum, and my understanding is that the Miele CSO will inject steam into a preheated oven. This isn't to say that you can't make a decent loaf of bread in the Wolf, but it won't give you the amount of control that an experienced baker typically wants. Another issue is that, if you are cooking something with steam at a temperature over 212 and open the door to check on your dish (like when you're reheating something), most of the steam will come out and the oven won't put new steam in. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as my experience is that too much steam can make a dish too soggy. Always be careful to protect your hands when opening an oven with steam, as you can get burned very easily. Aside from the steam, a big advantage to having a CSO is that it heats up very quickly and is much more convenient than a full-size oven when making a quick meal. In this respect, the lack of a broiler on the Wolf is a definite disadvantage. Wolf has a "Convection Humid" mode for their oven, which I find is nice for cooking dishes like lasagna and macaroni & cheese. Many newer traditional ovens now vent any steam because of their sensitive electronics, so I find it convenient to have this cooking mode available. I don't know whether Miele has this cooking mode as well, but I assume they do. When used as a traditional oven, the Wolf CSO heats up air and blows it into the oven cavity, unlike a traditional convection oven which heats up the oven cavity and then redistributes the air. This seemed a bit weird to me at first, as the oven cavity is completely cool almost immediately after cooking, even though the heating element (wherever it is) is hot and needs time to cool off. When cooking something that sticks up in front of the convection fan (like a roast or a loaf of bread), I generally turn it around half way through, to avoid overcooking one side. Aside from this, the Wolf seems to take a bit longer to cook most dishes than a traditional oven (though this is more than offset by the quicker time to heat up). Wolf has a number of pre-programmed cooking modes under their "Gourmet" and "Recipe" menus. They'll send you a book with recipes for one or two of these menus, but other than that, you're on your own in terms of figuring out what they do and how to use them. For example, there's a pre-programmed Slow Roast mode, which does a very nice job of roasting a beef tenderloin and having it ready to eat (including resting time) exactly when you want it. There are several other types of meat that can be cooked in this way, but what if I want to make a Strip Roast (which isn't one of the choices)? Do I just program it for Top Round and hope it comes out the same? There's all kinds of pre-programmed modes (e.g. soufflés or beef stroganoff), but absolutely no information on what the oven does in these modes. Maybe it's me, but I want to know what the oven is going to do before I just let its computer take over. In many cases, there's a small pool of water in the bottom of the Wolf after using one of the steam modes. Wiping this up with a paper towel is generally enough to keep the bottom clean. The sides and back are a lot more difficult to clean though. Wolf says to run the oven with steam at a certain temperature for a certain length of time, and then everything should wipe off. This hasn't been the case with my oven, which has lots of little brown spots on the back and sides, that I can't seem to get off. The Wolf CSO comes with one solid and one perforated pan that fit into the slots on the side of the oven. A rep at my local design center told me to be sure to buy some "half size" pans as well, so I could steam 2 different dishes at once. The clear impression was that these "half-size" pans take up the whole width of the oven and fit into the racks as well. After spending $250 to buy 2 of the "half-size" perforated pans, I discovered that they're nothing more than small perforated pans that you could buy in any restaurant supply store for $10 or $15 apiece. They aren't the full width of the oven, and certainly don't fit into the side slots. Of course, they won't take the pans back, because I had already opened them at this point. I get the feeling that Wolf spends more money on promoting their brand, while Miele spends more on engineering. Wolf has a number of design centers around the country where smartly dressed people will wax enthusiastic about their products. They also hold cooking demonstrations where chefs will show you how to prepare dishes to impress your guests. Overall, my impression is that Miele gives you a lot more control over the cooking process than Wolf. That's not to say that the Wolf doesn't do its job well, but it often doesn't tell you what it's doing, and you have to come up with own methods if you want to tweak the process. It reminds me a bit of a story I read once about the difference between Boeing and Airbus. Both planes have lots of computerized controls, that do most of the work of flying. The difference is that Boeing always gives ultimate control to the pilot, while Airbus leaves that control with the computer. So in certain situations Airbus pilots need to learn how to trick the computer into doing what they want the plane to do. From what I've seen and read, Wolf is more of an Airbus, and Miele is more of a Boeing.