AS you see from my photos, I always put some odd shapes items belows those little plastic containers and small Japanese bowls...... and Both items will be clean all the time!! :)

We normally have a full load of cups, which we put in the middle rack. Since the upper rack seems to work well for the little bowls you have (our's are very similar in size), maybe I'll try pulling the bowls on the middle rack and moving the cups to the bottom.

Ahhh....loading....yes, as they all say, it's a learning curve. One thing I discovered immediately is that the the machine is NOT bowl friendly. Especially for the small diameter, high sloped cereal type bowls that are being sold in most casual dinnerware sets these days. I have tons of those small stainless steel pet bowls (four kitties) which may be similar to those you describe. I do load them in the slanted tine sections found in both the middle and lower baskets. I must leave enough room between each bowl so they get cleaned. And I do have then loaded sloped down. Other bowls go around the perimeter of the bottom basket and many bowls just get shoved in an unused cranny. I like you, can not get good cleaning results just placing things on top of each other, I could not load my machine as in the photos above.

My pet peeve is that I can't find a good place for all my plastic containers. When I have a bunch, I find I have to use the right side cup sections which takes up valuable coffee cup real estate!

I find the solution is not to try to cram things in, but instead to run an extra wash. Loading a Miele reminds me of a parking lot puzzle game I have. HA! Good Luck

I love stacking items on top of each other in our Bosch - works great.

Here are two threads from automaticwasher.org showing off people's loading skills, which also contain some Miele pictures:

Here is a link that might be useful: Friday BobLoad® Offering

And here's the second one:

HTH, Alex

Here is a link that might be useful: Time for a new Friday Bob Load Offering thread II !!

Hmm, those photos of the "Bobloads" were veeerrrrry interesting, thanks! I've really got to get a new DW this year and that KA KDS18 is looking pretty good as a replacement...

jkom51 ... you are aware, of course, that a KDS-18 is 30+ years old, so your only source is to find one used. They were new on the market in the late 1970s, produced from 11/1976 to 10/1979.   :-)

Before I got my Miele:

I overloaded (few items not completely clean) this time:

bottom rack of that same load:

half tab of anyone of those will work!

DO NOT use this one in your DW...... :p