Miele W4000 Series : W4840 27 Front Load Washer

by Miele

Product Details

• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• ASIN: B002L8LAMG
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #812,891 in Appliances (See Top 100 in Appliances)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars be aware of firmware options, November 28, 2009

By 

Mr. Bill (Los Altos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

I am posting a revised review of the Miele W4840/T9820. The reason is, I want to revise my score upward. (Fair is fair.) I include the original review for reference below.

I stand by my original assessment of these products, EXCEPT, I was very fortunate that my Miele dryer had a recall. (I am not kidding about this). After a few false starts, the Miele repair guy came out with a firmware change for the dryer. I complained to him that the washer was not getting my clothes clean, and I discovered that there are TWO PAGES of firmware options available to be set by a repair technician. These options include "hygiene" and "allergies", each of which increases the amount of water used in the wash.

Turning on these two options, my washing machine now uses enough water to get my clothes clean. What a concept!

I have 2 things I want to accomplish by re-writing this review. First, if you already own a Miele W4840, and if you agree that the clothes aren't getting clean enough because of too little water is used, you need to know that THERE IS A FIX. Second, if you have the hots for a Miele and are just smitten with the idea of the quality and reliability, my advice is to get them to CHANGE THE FIRMWARE FROM THE GET-GO, so that the clothes are actually immersed in water. Otherwise, you're headed for my initial experience.

My opinion on the dryer hasn't changed a bit.

I think I figured out the problem with Miele USA. When I filled out my warranty registration, and mailed it in, they mixed up my phone number, which is my account number. So any service requests just went straight to the circular file.

Here is the original review. I still think it accurately represents what you will get if you buy a unit is the "stock" firmware settings:

I soooo wanted to like this washer/dryer set (W4840/T9820). I shop for quality and reliability, and am willing to pay a significant price premium to get it. On top of that, I have a Miele dishwasher and I love it. So when my Maytag got elderly, the skids were greased for Miele Nirvana. Alas, it was not to happen. Its not that this product is terrible, it is just that it is not that great, across the board.

I had a very minor warranty failure, and my experience tells me that if you have any real problems, you're hosed. I just had a burned out LED indicator on the dryer. Called the Miele office in NJ. Got the big stall/phone tag/shuck and jive. Eventually, I asked them to just mail me an LED and tell me how to fix it. Nope. After several phone calls, and a no-show appointment (over a period of 6 weeks), I just gave up. My dryer has a burned out indicator. That's just the way it is. Not the biggest thing in the world, but for $3700+ delivered, I figured they could stand behind the warranty. Nope. Warranty performance = F.

Just speculation, but I'll bet that non-warranty repair is a nightmare. There are so few of these sold that probably there are very few people with repair experience, and there is probably not an adequate stock of spare parts. Just a guess.

My biggest beef is that it doesn't wash the clothes all that well. Now, this is my first experience with Energy Saving front loaders, so maybe this is life after going Green, but the bottom line is that I'd rather have my old Maytag top loader. I think that Miele just went so berserk trying to save water that they lost sight of the fact that the purchaser buys this product to get his clothes clean. I have resorted to using the extra prewash cycle for everything, and the extra rinse to get the soap out. To me, this is kind of like the first low-flow toilets, where you get to flush twice. Cleaning performance = B-

The dryer doesn't work all that great, either. Everything is based on a moisture sensor (no simple timer mode), and my experience is that things either come out damp (normal mode) or over-dried and shrunk (extra dry mode). I have resorted to running everything on normal mode/gentle heat and then letting the dryer run in fluff/no wrinkle mode for a while (an extra 30 minutes or so) in attempt to get dry but not shrunk clothes. Drying performance = D.

Both the washer and the dryer are incredibly energy efficient. I saw a noticeable drop in my utility bill. Energy saving performance = A (until you start adding back extra cycles to get things clean).

The controls are needlessly complicated. You feel like a space shuttle pilot getting ready to dock at the space station. It's not that you can't figure it out, but why should you have to? User interface: C-

Now, in all honesty, I have to say that other than the LED indicator, nothing else has failed in 2 years of regular use (2 adults, no kids). Both units seem to be very well made, and I think (hope?) it is not pipe-dreaming to expect that these units will last for a long time. If they do, however, it will be a mixed blessing, since they just don't work all that well.

I just can't believe that this is as good as it gets for a $3700 washer/dryer.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very clean clothes, superurb control, robust build and quality, November 12, 2009

By 

g "g" (dc) - See all my reviews

I have had my 4840 for two years.

There IS a reason why this is a TOP rated model from multiple user reivews on epnions, and the big forumn on washing machine in the "laundry" section on gardenweb (search for it) which is the most active forum discussion washing machines.

The 4840 is one of THE most reliable front loading machines. It is built like a tank, vibrates very little, has extremely durable controls, a heater that can allow controls for any user selected wash temperature, etc.

Of the prior two reviews one is bogus and one reflects a rare experience but also gives bad facts (relative availability of miele service).

If you want the straight dope go check the epinions reviews where you see reviewers with histories discuss this model and you will see it has one of the highest ratings and why.

Epionis: 7 atings all very good to excellent
Consumer reports user ratings 4.7 stars out of five with 27 ratings
Consumer reports own ratings: top quality cleaning and durability
Gardenbweb: excellent reports on claiming ability, user options AND durability


The second reviewer here on this model, "BThompson" does not own this model, does not own nor has every used a miele. They are talking about an asko -- a totally different brand!

The first review does have this model. They had a bad experience. I have no doubt to the veracity of the breakdown reported, but I do not agree as to claims on "emailing meile and getting no repsonse. Miele has and has had a post pruchase 800 number right there accessible from the "phone numbers" link on the front of miele's US site!

I called and I live in a moderate/small sized metro area and there were four authorized miele repair companies within 30 miles all of which will come for free warranty service.

My mother in law has a $800 18 month old GE front loader. The main circuit board failed and it cost us $500 to fix and the motor failed 2 months later! What good was having 30 repair centers in her area, that was junk, unlike mile, by all objective measures.

Check consumer reports. Miele makes top rated appliances. top ratings on dishwashers, vacuums and washing machines. Just like LG, Samsung and Bosch there are not a ton of repair centers as there are for maytag whirlpool, Kenmore or GE -- but those all fail much more as widely reported by the serious consumer monitoring.

We have 4 kids and run our miele 10 times a week for over two years and zero problems. it runs quiet and no vibrational unlike GE and other top loaders, it washes AND rinses very well, has a good energy rating, and is durable as heck and beyond the EXCELLENT reported reliability, you can see with the naked eye the high build quality by just going to a a store and comparing it with brands like ge, whirlpool/maytag or Kenmore!

It is priced high, but tends, again by objective measures, to last twice as long as other large front loaders.

17 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Expensive junk, September 23, 2009

By 

D. Simone "oodanner" (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

We purchased our Miele 4840 washer two years ago. We were told by the salesman that we were buying the best there was and that we wouldn't have a problem with this for 20 years or maybe more. We knew it was expensive so we decided to purchase an extended warranty on it but, hoped we would never have to use it. Well here is it two years after we have bought it and it broke down with some type of water system error. We called in the extended warranty and they sent out someone who had no idea how to fix it, nor did they have any other shops who were available to fix it. We decided that even though we paid for the extended warranty it would be better to get someone who was qualified to work on Miele washers. We live in a large metropolitan area and there are only two places qualified to work on Miele appliances. One of them we found out is unreliable so that left one. He has a workload a mile long. We have been without our washer for a month and a half. Miele customer support is non existent. Basically once they get your money if you don't have something break down within the first year which is how long their pitiful warranty lasts, then you are going to be out of luck. For what we paid for this washer we could have purchased another high end brand top loader twice over that also washes clothes better. We have had two front loaders including this Miele and it doesn't wash clothes any better than the cheap Kenmore front loader we had before it. I also tried to send e-mails to their consumer relations department. The best you will get is a single automated response. After that don't expect a real human being to care what your problem might be. If there is anything that you take away from this review it is that you should NOT waste your hard earned money on this expensive piece of junk. Please I urge you to search the internet as much as possible to find out what kind of company this really is. I truly believe the main problem with why you don't hear to many issues with these washers and dryers on the internet is because most of the people who bought them are the type who just want to show off how expensive of a machine they bought and are to busy justifying their purchase to make a candid review of what they really purchased, that is nothing better than any other brand out there. Miele's tagline is "anything else is a compromise", it should be "Anything else is less expensive and much easier to get repaired" At this point I'm almost ready to cut my losses, buy a decent top loader to replace this and take this washer to the junk yard where it belongs.