thank you gary for that informative and thoughtful response. now i hear miele has a new oven & coffee system coming out in june/july. i think we will go with the miele but hold off for the newer models. i contacted miele and they said the specs for coffee system are the same as far as cutout (except for depth) and they are waiting on the cutout size for the oven. i will provide those to the cabinet maker and get the new ones when they come out. since potential resale is on the brain, i don't want to have "outdated" appliances as soon as they're installed.

I'm one of the ladies with the Miele oven who loves hers. Mine's 8 now, a great performer and 0 issues. It replaced a self-clean Viking that only cleaned the back half of the oven and then never worked properly again.

Miele suggested the Perfect Clean which has been easy to maintain and looks quite good for an oven that is heavily used. I've never taken it apart but it can be almost completely disassembled for cleaning if necessary.

It requires a learning curve because there are combination heats with convection -- top and bottom elements work together -- but I adore this oven. I bake bread a lot and do other pastry (though not cookies very often).

The rotisserie is fantastic. I also like the meat probe a lot.

They seem to have resolved the heating issues. But I should state -- because it's true -- that to fully preheat the oven -- even after the preheat dinger goes off -- it takes about 20 to 30 minutes. I was told this by the Miele consumer people before I purchased it and haven't been impatient. This oven has been a complete workhorse.

rococogurl thanks for the feedback. does the perfect clean only come with the masterchef? i was hoping to avoid the markup for the masterchef. i wonder what the configurations will be for their generation 6000.

My oven has the masterchef settings and I could well do without them. They are for people who don't know how to cook or who don't want to and want auto settings. I used them once or twice to see what the fuss was about. But some people want and need them. If someone doesn't it's no loss.

But be sure the oven has the rotisserie, meat probe and at least one rolling rack. I make bread a lot and cook it in a Le Creuset casserole and the roller is superb for that. trailrunner, who also bakes and came for a visit, retrofit her ovens with the roller rack. But I believe the new ovens come with it.

For a while Perfect Clean was offered, then discontinued. Don't know if that's the case now. At the time I bought mine (2006) I did a lot of checking around and actually was able to speak with someone at Miele who was in customer care but knew his stuff. He counseled me to go with Perfect Clean vs self-clean. He said that North America is the only area where self clean is wanted. But no idea if that's still the case. I was having to clean the Viking by hand anyway. Wiping out the oven while it's still warm, and scraping gunk off the glass over the lights and on the door is pretty easy.

Must say, there has not been a single issue with this oven which, of course, has made me very happy. It vents from the bottom so the electronics are protected.

No idea about generation 6000, whatever that is. Miele constantly updates and changes their appliances. Last year, I bought the washer/dryer in February and they were outdated by June. Extremely annoying. I would have waited had I known.

By all accounts the Wolf oven has very even heating but that's certainly offset by the enamel issues, which seem to continue. It's such a shame. Our DD has Kenmore double ovens in their house. I made a mess in one of them cooking a chicken that hadn't fully defrosted. Used the self-clean and it worked as well as the old electric ovens did. Odd that Kenmore nails it while the high end brands have enamel and electronic issues.

If you're looking for an oven at that level then why not a Gaggenau? Great self clean with no issues over many years. Side opening door which is a huge plus and eliminates the need for fussy rolling shelves. Best energy efficiency of the bunch by a large amount the last time I looked. Fastest heat up times when I compared them all a year ago. No fancy settings but a huge range of cooking options including bread proofing.
Sheesh, I sound like a sales type, but I've really appreciated using this unit for its features and speed. Best of all, I managed to get it for a lower price than either Miele or Wolf.

BTW, get the plumbed Gagg coffee machine too and save yourself trotting back and forth to the sink. It's a treat! A caveat, Even though I live in a rural area, I have access to a BCS trained installer/repairer although I doubt I'll ever need his services.

It would have been nice, but the Gaggenau quotes I got were enough of a difference so that we went with Miele + Blue Star instead. Nearly everyone seems quite happy with either though.

Google pulls up talk of the 6000 series back to January 2013 and would like to have been able to go with that (whenever it actually debuts in the US). But, since our place has not had a kitchen at all since September of last year and the big rebuild project will be complete soon we had to order what exists today. With my luck they would come out in August... of 2015.

i did think of going with the gaggenau after i heard about the miele temp issues but never really looked into it. any issues with the gagg?

ok now the bosch benchmark is in the mix and it is down to the bosch vs. the miele. i think the bosch is slightly ahead because of the side opening door and the almost full additional cubic foot of capacity. please give me your thoughts as my poor husband is sick of hearing about ovens :P

I also considered Wolf but the peeling issues took them out of the running pretty quickly. Right now I'm leaning towards the Bosch Benchmark--love the sideswing and I believe the capacity is more than Miele. Miele has rotisserie, Bosch does not. But in terms of the price and quality, I'm leaning towards Bosch. Don't have to have my decision in for a month or two so I may change my mind :)

I like the rotisserie. Have any of you considered the new Thermador with the rotisserie?

I have to make a decision on all appliances by tomorrow. I am having a hard time. I like the Wolf steam convection oven. I like the Thermador with rotisserie but quite expensive since I am getting the Wolf Steam Oven.

I am looking at the Bosch now since you all mentioned it.

Jumping in. Eager to hear which steam oven you went with. We will be gutting our kitchen sooner than later and I'm a planner. Miele, Wolf, or Bosch or something different at the last minute and are you thrilled with your purchase? Kelli

For me the oven choice would be between the Bosch side-opening door and the Electrolux Icon, which gets everything else right. Unless I could afford the Gaggenau in which I wouldn't consider anything else.

Gaggenau does sell optional glide-out shelves for their ovens BTW. Overpriced though, just like the oven it fits into.

We're looking at ovens for our kitchen remodel, so I'm curious to hear which ovens you folks went with and how you liked them.

If Bosch's steam oven was as large as Miele's / Wolf's / Gaggneau's plumbed I'd go with Bosch. Sadly, Bosch's 1.4 cu ft steam oven is tiny (same as Thermador's and Gaggneau's non-plumbed), too narrow for our use. Also, Bosch's side-opening door only opens 90 degrees or so, not the 180 that Gaggneau's does. I'd rather lean over a hot door than worry about burning my elbow by having one right next to my arm.

I do really like the Bosch Benchmark pull-down 30" oven, and I think it would match decently well with the Miele Combi-Steam oven if we went that route at 1/2 the price of Miele's 30" oven.

Our first choice for steam oven would be Gaggenau, but at $8000 it's almost twice the price of the Miele. And their styling is so distinctive, we'd probably have to pair it with Gaggenau's $6000 regular oven. How is it that $2000 ovens now come with gliding racks, but with Gagg at three times the price it's a $400 extra?