Hi! I hadn't check in here for awhile and there are so many new comments and wanted to thank you all! 1. A few of you noted that German persil is not widely available in the US. I live in a very eastern European neighborhood in north Brooklyn and a fair amount of mom and pops carry European imports. Oddly they are all inexplicably cheap and even carry most of my favorite chocolates from the UK for 60% less than other places [Lion Bar FTW]. It's a unique experience and also great for odd jams and biscuits! After a quick look [long, actually, because it's not in english] at the box, and a google, the Henkel Polska seems to be formulated differently than the german, but based on my use so far it is working very well. I will try to get my hands on some of the actual german, do a comparison, and come back here with my findings. 2. I promise to not use blueing again. I think I was only doing it since my grandma said that's how things were done? I now know she was totally wrong on that [and other things, like putting hot dogs and rice in casseroles. Together. ]. 3. Individual replies: @Donna-37:Awesome I will look to find the Target Ever spring, sounds like a good twindos dupe. I'm not near bigbox often, but when I next am I will pick some up. @theclose : You mentioned using tide liquid for when a load would require liquid detergent. When would that be? I read through a lot of the threads in this forum and it seemed like powder was mostly preferable. Is it a certain kind of stain that requires liquid? @livebetter :Do you like the Miele color powder? I have started with the persil, am loving the Miele Ultra white, but hesitant to buy another variety until I use up the persil box I have [which on 1-2 Tbsps per load might be 2030. @rococogurl : All Hail the Queen! Honestly your cheat sheet is amazing! I do have the leblanc on my list-to-buy, however my husband was super wary after we installed the machine and then I bought a vast number of detergents and extra phosphate stuff for our miele dishwasher based on reading old houzz forums, so I refrained for now. I've been very careful about sudsing, when something new [but vintage linen] is purchased I run it with no detergent, prewash with sodium percarbonate, and extra rinse. It's insane when I see how much sud is in the washer when I am washing these items with no detergent. For my first few loads of normal clothing I followed your sheet, but did the measurements by half. I've tweaked with cycles and have come up with what works for our water and only the smallest trail of bubbles ends up on the bottom slope of the door glass. The Polska [not german as I OP'd, but Polish] Persil powder has almost no sud, I have not yet experimented with the Polska persil gels, however the perwoll sport worked well for my workout stuff and didn't rash me [sensitive skin] and didn't sud at all [maybe because sweat?]. I have Bosch compacts at my upstate place and for my rental property. When I wrote my initial ask here I didn't really understand them and was only using cold water and like half a cup of budget liquid detergent [it now sounds insane to me that I was doing that]. I am now using them correctly [using your cheat sheet for them too], getting exceptionally better results, and trying to figure out how to instruct my longterm tenants without sounding insane about fabric softener sheets being outlawed and them using too much soap. I now think the miele and the bosch are equal in result, the miele is just more plug and play and the cost made me actually research how to use it, vs. the bosch I just installed and walked away. Bosch are great machines; It's my own fault for not learning how to use them correctly.

@John The Home Depot Design Center's installers are not certified, though they plan to be soon. The woman I spoke to on the phone told me they were, but, when I went in and spoke to the manager I bought from, he said they weren't and there was confusion about that because they had been certified until certain changes to the corporate structure at HDDC were finished and now they need to reapply, or something like that. So I knew they weren't certified, but thought they were as good as certified. That's why I got the five year extended warranty (because the lack of the Miele-certified installers meant that Miele would not double my warranty through them to 2 years (which they do when Miele-certified installers are used. And, yes, I think what you say about third-party installers might be correct. I know that HDDC has their own installers, which they tout, and I was impressed by that (but not so much now). The second set of installers they sent with the replacement machines were very good.

Thank you for the responses! Looks like 1 hour+ is pretty standard. I often forget about the wash until it's been done for awhile anyways so when it comes to wash times I'm mostly concerned about those mornings when I realize my kids have no clean pants... However, I may not need to make this decision at all! The reason we were looking for a washer in the first place is because our 1995 Maytag Dependable Care washer (which the previous owners of our house left behind) was leaking. The shut-off valves were ancient so we couldn't turn off the water to check things out. Finally had the plumber come out to change the valves and he discovered the lines to the washer were leaking. He replaced those too and (so far, fingers crossed!) it seems we're back in business. I am still eyeing a new washer, though. We stayed at an Airbnb that had a new front loader and the clothes seemed to come out so much cleaner than at home. I didn't look at the brand, but it was definitely not Miele. So there's the conundrum. Do we keep an old and (so far) reliable machine which we can likely fix ourselves but which doesn't wash as well, or do we spring for a new machine which, if something does fail, requires incredibly expensive repairs. Hence the reason I was looking at Mieles -- the reliable reputation.

Hey Amanda, I have the highest end W1/T1 . My experience has been a mixed bag. I'd suggest getting the entry level W1/T1 as they have a better UI (in my opinion) and are reasonably priced, all things considered. If you look at the W1/T1, carefully examine the manuals for the entry and middle / high end models to make sure you know what you're getting. Knowing what I'm aware of now, I would have gone entry level instead of highest end. I liked the straightforward UI of the entry model and didn't spend so much time looking at this until I had mine and realized the higher end models have a control panel that's "more capable" and simueltaneously "more complex". I end up using the "towels" settings for almost everything I do since it's closest to my prefrences, but that's not just a dial flip over, it's a burried choice in a menu. I haven't used any of the TwinDos or anything like that since the Miele detergent has more chemicals in it than I'd prefer. At some point I'll try putting my own detergent into their containers but that's low on my priority list. In EU Miele sells refillable TwinDos containers but in the US you have to buy new ones from them with their detergent. People have found the EU TwinDos and US TwinDos are NOT mechanically compatible either, which is pretty d*** like. W1: Pro: - Clothes really do come out clean! I'm very impressed at how clean stuff is when it comes out, so it succeeds at its primary goal. - Quiet! The only noise you hear is the clothes sloshing, ZERO motor noise or whine unless it's in a spin cycle or pumping water out. It's weird and very impressive. And I'm an Engineer who has designed electronic motor drive systems before! - Lots of options and programs / vartiations to get what you want (if that's your deal) W1 Cons: - Spin cycle doesn't seem to be long enough, clothes have come out more wet out of the W1 than a cheap $300 top loader. Not always but has happened more than once. I've had to go back into More Programs and run a spin cycle to get more water out sometimes. This is frustrating because I got the highest end model to get a 1600 RPM spin and mechanically extract as much water as possible. - Mine has given me several inlet pressure errors ; I have external water filters which might be the issue so I'm not fully blaming the machine but I don't think the machine should be so sensitive to water pressure -- it's a clothes washer, not a fuel injection system on a $80K car. I've since pulled the plastic water filters on the hoses / clothes wsaher that Miele ships with since I have external filters which will catch any sediments or particles anyway. Also they should have used metal mesh not plastic for the price of the unit. I'll keep an eye on it and will see if it gives me these errors again after this change. - Aside from the entry level model, I think the UI on the middle / upper end models isn't super intuitive since they're giving you WiFi / cell phone / tablet to control more "advanced" features. I'd ideally like a "favorite" which for me would be cold water wash/rinse, shortest cycle time and highest speed, extended spin. That does the job for most of what I want except for towels where I prefer warm wash. I think you can get custom profiles with the app but I've been hoping to avoid having to introduce a cell phone or tablet just to do laundry! On my old HE3ts I could get that with a few button pushes in a matter of five seconds. On the W1, I have to choose More Programs dial, towels, then force the spin speed to max from it's default of "high" using the "touchless" buttons (capactive). It's not the end of the world but I've had to explain this to a few other people more than once if they use my W1 and they look at me and ask "How much did you pay for this?!" - There is a LOT of water the pools in the gasket at the end of a load. I've used lots of front loaders before and there's more in this one than any other I've had. Again, for a premium unit I'd expect they would have solved this. I keep a towel on the unit just to clean up the pooled water and prop the door open so it dries sufficiently. - W1 doesn't have any sort of internal filter / mesh for catching lint or debris -- not that I think other companies do this either but I think Miele should have done this for such a high end unit. I have mine dumping water to an external basin (fascinating to see how much dirt it pulls out, I'm watching right now as I write this!) and I installed a metal filter mesh at base of the sink to help catch lint, etc. Surprisingly at the end of every run I find a noticable amount of hair and lint in the mesh which would otherwise eventually end up clogging the drain had I not put something there. In a normal set up the drain hose just goes into a drain so all of that stuff would certainly end up in your drain lines at some point. I did try using some very fine stainless mesh on the drain hose (which sits inside a sink mind you) and it ended up backing up since the water drains at a really fast rate, so that wouldn't really work if you routed the drain hose normally and not to a sink. T1 Pros: - The ventless drying is overall great, low heat added and clothes come out dry and it's pretty low power consumption. It's astonishing how much water it pulls out, when you remove the drawer and dump it you see first hand how much water it's extracted. - You can have the T1 store water in the tray (which you empty after each run) or can have it drain water externally. I now have mine dumping water to the external sink and so no need to mess with the drawer anymore (which is very nice). - Door is reversible - I have NOT yet tried out the steam function which is the primary reason I went for the highest end T1 since CV19 and work from home, having wrinkle-free clothes hasn't been a priority. T1 Cons: - Dryer is NOT made in Germany, it's made in Eastern Europe (I think Slovenia or Czech Republic). I don't know for sure, but I wonder if it's made by Asko actually. For a "premium" product where they keep pushing it's made in Germany, I don't see any literature that the dryer is NOT made in Germany which I think is deceptive marketing, and frankly overpriced if you're not getting a "German build". - My dryer's heat pump system (which is basically a refridgerator) is super noisy / loud. I think mine is defective and I have a call put in with Miele to help but for a new "top end" unit this is disappointing. - Have to bias it to a longer run time, even on Normal Plus setting my clothes are still fairly damp