What you are already doing ----- scraping the plates --- is exactly what you would do using a Euro machine and a good enzyme-based detergent. You should never pre-wash, especially if you use the right detergent.

The food grinder pitch is ridiculous, just read this site and you will find that Miele #1, Bosch #2 are the most sought after diswahers.

I agree - the food grinder is not necessary - but some of usmlike heated dry which you won't get on the European models. If that matters to you, then KA is a good choice.

weissman, thank you for pointing that out about the drying. I can't say that I've ever used heated dry on our current Amana, but it's something to think about. I was originally leaning toward the Kichenaid architect series dishwashers but keep reading how great the Miele/Bosch are and don't want to miss out!

The one other thing that concerns me is that I keep reading something about these dishwashers having "water softeners" in them. What happens if you already use softened water? Do you have to run a separate, unsoftened line to these DWs?

No, my understanding is that you can turn the water softener off in the Miele if you don't need it.

I didn't buy a Bosch in our last house because of what I heard about the grinder -- and before this site. I bought a Kitchenaid and was very happy with it, but they changed the racking and I didn't like all the aprts that came out and had to go somewhere if you weren't using them so I kept looking this time.

I got Bosch (under the Thermador name). I think I have had one chunk of someting in the basket in all the time we've been using them (2). I scrape -- like a knife or fork pushing off what comes off and leaving the little bits and wet stuff that will stay behind. Not prewashing. The DW cleans well, is quiet and dries as well as any I have had. Some plastic will not dry completely (wet tops or rims), but I've never had a DW where it did. I think I have had one chunk to clean out of the basket in many months of use. The one thing that turned me off before has turned out to be a non-issue.

I looked at Meile and didn't feel confident about the way it loaded for our use and I got both of mine for what I would have paid for one of the Meile. I was tempted bythe water softening, but the Bosch have done just fine for us.

When you take off the filter assembly for cleaning on the Miele, you will notice a small basket that catches and holds large bits of food. This basket resides directly in the path of the water being pumped through the unit, so the particles in the basket experience a tremendous amount of turbulence. Water, when pressurized, is an amazingly strong force, and the particles in that basket end up getting blasted and broken down into smaller grains that get washed away. You should check the filter about every 40 washes or so, and it pops right off.

I think the food grinder marketing is a bit overblown. I'd like to see a photo of one of these food grinders -- I bet we'll find that it's not as impressive as it sounds.

I scrape my dishes before loading them into my Miele, but I do not pre-wash. I scrape obvious foodstuffs with a fork or whatever is handy, the rest goes in the dishwasher. I think you'll having cleaning problems with any dishwasher if you just throw dishes in as-is.

I never understood the need for a food grinder in the dishwasher because our dishwashers have always drained into the garbage disposal (local code). I was concerned about drying -- we air dry sometimes but I didn't want to have to air dry all the time.

We installed the Miele Excella last spring & it's the best dishwasher we've ever used! Everything gets so clean. Very rarely there's a bit of water in the tops of things, but that happened in the other DWs too. I love how we can put anything anywhere because we don't have to worry about it melting; we had some things ruined in the old DW because the heat was too high. It's so quiet that we have to flag when the dishwasher is running. We scrape off big bits but don't prewash. We use powdered detergent with enzymes, rinse agent, and Somat salt.

We do have kids who are responsible for loading the dw AND scraping the plates beforehand. Scraping meaning to take a fork and push the stuff on the plate into the garbage. Sauce and small pieces (e.g. the odd piece of rice remains). No pre-washing. They do an ok job but still stuff gets stuck in the dw.

In our old Maytag WITH food grinder it meant that a service guy had to come out with his special tools and screwdrivers to access the filters and clean them out. Ther service guy said that he sees that issue very often in his job. Well, after a couple of calls like that I figured out how to do it myself but it was still a major job to clean it out.

Now we have a Bosch, NO food grinder and food gets stuck/accumulates as often as before. The big difference: it is soooo much easier to clean the filters as there are very easy to access. Done in seconds.

I have a 2+year old mid-line Bosch. By far and away the best cleaning dishwasher I have ever had - better than any of the previous that had the disposal or grinder or whatever that may have ground chunks into bits but didn't necessarily get food residue off my plates. I too have rarely if ever found anything in the little trap - most consistently (as in 2 or 3 times) I've found the little sticker off of apples and pears that had perhaps gotten left on plates and I think I found a pea once in there.

I toss chunks of food - like my apple core and orange peels - in the trash before I load the dishwasher. But I routinely put my plates in with sauce residue left on the dishes etc. Nary a problem. I don't even really fork scrape - unless I need it to toss gross items such as peels and cores and whatnot but nothing smaller and finer. What impressed me the most though, is that it gets dough-crusted bowls from making dough for bread (or cookies, for that matter) - clinging dough and all - perfectly clean. If you've ever made that New York Times' no-knead bread you know that you mix the ingredients and let the dough rise in the bowl for 18-20 hours before you process it again. Well, by the time I've put the bowl in the DW, very recalcitrant pieces of dough have clung and dried onto the bowl for 20+ hours. The bowl then sat in the DW for another day or so. The dishwasher got all that clingy dough stuff off the bowl and got that bowl spanking clean. The first time I did this, I didn't think it was fair to the DW to put in that dough-crusted a bowl but, as is my wont, I figured I'd let the DW give it a shot and I'd wash up what the DW couldn't. Well, didn't need to do anything but put that bowl away. It was crystal clean.

With my previous domestic model dishwashers - dont' remember brands but whatever most rentals use - if I thought something might be a challenge for the DW, it usually was. And then of course, the DW would thermostatically fuse any residue to the bowl. But not this DW. It just gets stuff perfectly clean. Disposal or not.

Oh yes, very small household here so my DW only runs about every 3-5 days. So dishes often sit there with stuff on 'em for several days. And it is still clean and perfectly dry.

Don't let the disposal talk scare you. Toss your trash away but don't bother with the rest. Good luck shopping.

Most of the d/w's with the food grinders are not really grinding the food just before it goes down the drain. The real purpose is to chop up the food to make it small enough to go through the spray arm holes without clogging them. In other words the food you just washed off gets sprayed right back on the dishes over and over again.
With the 100% filtering like on the Miele and the Bosch the food is washed off the dishes and down into the main trap where it is held until the drain cycle is activated. At this time the filtered particles are pumped out.
As pointed out above sometimes larger items need to be cleaned out.

We recently replaced a GE Profile dishwasher with a Bosch SHE58C02UC. We weren't at all concerned about not having a food grinder or internal heater and I'm glad we weren't! I love my dishwasher and it does a superior job cleaning our dishes.

We are a family of 4 - Mom, Dad and 2 kids, 6 and 4 - and we run a load every single night. Only once have I had to rewash an item and that was a very soiled batter bowl that I had allowed to dry out and stick on like glue.

With our GE, we scraped and pre-rinsed every item going into the dishwasher and still, on every load, something had to be rewashed. With the Bosch, we simply scrape the plates clean (it's been killing us not to rinse!) and place in to the machine. It saves us a great deal on water not wasted pre-rinsing in the sink! We've had few problem with plastic items not getting completely dry. Since we run it at night, it has all evening to dry out. Whatever plastics do still have water on them in the AM are easily wiped dry with a dishtowel.

ALl in all, I love my Bosch and would buy it again in a heartbeat!

we've had our Miele Optima for almost 2 months and I couldn't be happier. I was restricted to Miele or Asko due to our counter height and chose the optima as I didn't think I would use all the special settings of the excella and perla...and the price. Re the asko just too many complaints re repairs.

things i love about mine-SUPER quiet, load everything in--I've never done that before and my clean up time is noticeably faster, don't need to rinse--except for the large leftovers as others have noted, big capacity, plate holders substantial, usu run on china as it is shorter and things still get clean

things i don't like- the short cycle does not dry--the dishes are wet at the end :(, I wish all the cycles were shorter

there is a test you run prior to your first load that actually assesses the hardness of your water and tells you if you need to add softener which is a kind of salt.

a real deciding factor for me was a pic I saw on this site (try searching miele) with a BOATLOAD of dishes in it and the claim they came out clean---they were right.

if I had had the option I probably would have gotten a cheaper american brand because of the price, but the miele really seems worth the price in the end.

good luck deciding,
lisa

Miele Optima here--we love it (well I do; DH doesn't load/unload it nearly as often as I do...!). We scrape but don't rinse unless we either forget not to or if it's just easier than trying to scrape out whatever's in/on the plate or bowl. Everything, even peanut butter coated spoons come out spotless. The only times I find that some of the cutlery comes out less than clean, is when I've put a large "tupperware" container in the middle rack, which then blocks the spray arm from hitting the cutlery tray full force. I'm trying to remember to avoid doing that!

The only things that are ever a little wet after running the DW are the tops of coffee mugs, plastic ware lids and occasionally some plastic bowls and drinking glass rims--the same things that were wet after using an American heated dry DW. The nice thing about the Optima's no heating element drying system, is that it allows you to put plastic items anywhere in the DW without the risk of melting (from being too close to a heating element).