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mrrepairit

Miele W4840 and T9820

mrrepairit
16 years ago

I just wanted to give these two appliances a great review. We replaced our top loader washer, and our gas dryer with these about a month ago. My wife was somewhat reluctant to spend such a large amount of money on them, but I felt that their reputation made up for the price difference. She's now saying those magic words "you're right"! (My only previous experience with Miele is our vacuum cleaner.)

She is tremendously pleased with the cleaning the washer does. She has washed woolens, lingerie, area rugs, horribly dirty jeans, and just about everything in between. They have all come out fantastically clean. I've set the max spin on the washer to 2000 RPM, so the time in the dryer is extremely short for most loads. (In some cases, it is less than 15 minutes.)

I must say it is amazing how the washer balances the loads in order to get to the highest possible spin speed. I suspect it is using "fuzzy logic". It does vibrate a little, but it is on a concrete floor on pedestals. It doesn't "walk" at all.

The thing that really took us by surprise was the extremely small amount of water the washer uses. For most settings, it is barely visible. Only on the gently cycle does the level rise to what I had been expecting. I suspect that is one of the reasons it does such a great job of cleaning - more friction in the cloth. But it doesn't produce lint!

Miele can count me as a very satisfied customer.

Comments (18)

  • jerrod6
    16 years ago

    Glad you are having a good experience with the machines.
    I have the T9820 dryer and have no complaints.

    Max spin to 2000 RPM wow! If it had wings.......

  • aquarius2101
    16 years ago

    Great to hear you're pleased with your pair.

    However, I'd advise you to turn the maximum spin speed back down to the default 1400rpm speed. Although the electronics may be designed to spin at 2000rpm, components in the machine such as the motor or the drive assembly may not be able to bear up with 2000rpm over time... As much as I hate to rain on your parade, I'd hate even more to see you with a washer that has gone into turbo drive and blown itself up with the possible case of the warranty being voided.

    Jon

  • crooks101
    16 years ago

    Actually, if the machine could do 2000 RPM vs the 1400 RPM, it would be over 2x the g's force on your clothes and the machine. RPM is squared, Drum radius is linear when doing the g force calculation.

    Fortunately, the service level setting does nothing. Otherwise, you would have risked blowing your clothes out the side at over 1200 g's vs the usually 600+, which, BTW, is still quite high.

    I tried it on my W4840 at the different RPM setting and the power usage never changed. Starting at the next level and the machine empty (I think 1600 RPM to be cautious). The firmware seems to be some generic Miele firmware for several machines types including a TL vs FL setting. And changing the FL to TL setting DID NOT transform my W48xx to a TL. That would have been cool! LOL. Unfortunately the same affect with the RPM setting. No free lunch here not to mention the liability issues Miele would have if it had really tried to do it with a machines only spec'ed for 600+ Gs and a full load of clothes.

    So I just set my setting back to 1400 RPM. If you had a warranty issue and they saw you had set it higher, even if it did nothing, you might void your warranty.

  • crooks101
    16 years ago

    Oh, aquarius is right. You always take the risk of voiding your warranty by changing the standard firmware setting without a manufacturer's approval.

    By the way, the liability issue is one reason I did not publish the procedure to get into the W4840 firmware on this forum. Eventually someone else did. It crosses several boundaries including unintended consequences and publishing possible confidential manufacturer's information on the net. In that case, the liability issues could have gone both ways, if you had gotten hurt by your changes and I was the one that told you how, I might be considered culpable.

  • mrrepairit
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    Actually, I just used the procedure published elsewhere on this forum to get into the settings. When I got to the RPM setting, it said "2000". Now I don't know if came set to that, or if it starts the menu at that setting. I just left it there and exited. The washer certainly doesn't seem to be under any stress, and the clothes dry very quickly. It appears to have some fuzzy logic that limits the speed of the spin if the drum cannot be balanced totally after several tries.

  • Buehl
    16 years ago

    Mrrepairit: What thread is this info posted on?

  • sarky
    16 years ago

    Great washer and dryer. Built so solid. The dryer dries superfast, blows a lot of air. Any hints on how to quiet it down?

  • mrrepairit
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    I don't remember what the thread was on getting to the program. A search in the archives on 4840 programming should bring it up if it's still there.

    One of the reasons my wife likes the dryer so much, in addition to the speed at which it dries things, is that it doesn't overheat them. I attribute the speedy drying at lower temperatures to the increase volume of air. This increased volume does make the venting louder than a "normal" dryer. I used 4 inch duct, and wrapped it with self-adhesive ducting insulation, such as that used for heating ducts. It quieted it a lot. Another approach would be to use heavier, 5 inch ducting, but I suspect additional insulation would help even in that case since it would reduce the resonance inherent in the metal ducting. Since my dryer duct is about 15 feet long, with two 90 degree bends (one at the dryer), I figured the duct was contributing most of the noise, and it was.

  • jerrod6
    16 years ago

    I am having very good success with this dryer also.
    I already had the 4 inch duct so I didn't really have to do anything for venting.

    There is a lot of air moving and the actual high setting on this dryer is lower than the normal setting on my old dryer....still everything dries great and with less wrinkles and some how less lint..I don't get that..but there is less lint. Everything comes out feeling very soft.

  • kerbosch
    16 years ago

    Lint gets generated in the washer - not the dryer. It comes from your agitator,drum or drum holes beating up the clothes and literally ripping them (threads at a time).

    When the clothes get into the dryer, those torn threads get loose and appear now as lint.

    What kind of washer did you have before jerrod6?

  • jerrod6
    16 years ago

    I have had a Miele W1986 since the first week of January 2003, so same washer. I replaced an older Whirlpool dryer with this T9820 in May.

    Maybe the torn threads are not getting loose? Maybe the old dryer had built up lint that was getting added to the screen during each use? I dunno. I could also just be crazy! :)

  • Cyberspacer
    16 years ago

    Wow! jerrod, that's smart. you now added a great gas dryer to match a great washer.

  • jerrod6
    16 years ago

    Cyberspacer

    Yes I like my 1986 very much and plan to keep it as long as I can. I like the fact that it will shorten the cycle for small loads, and quickly heat the water if needed, but have found that most loads get very clean at a temp no greater than 120F using the default quicker cycle. Still it is nice to be able to get to almost 200F and use the extended cycle if I want to. Everything that I put in comes out great and without a lot of additional laundry booster products. I have it programmed for high water fills during the rinses--works great.

    I bought it In 2003 and used it with my existing dryer(I don't care if things don't match), so this year I replaced it with the T9820 which also seems to work very well. I like the high air flow and low temperatures. clothes come out soft and with few wrinkles.

  • mrb627
    16 years ago

    Question:

    How much time does the EXTENDED WASH option add to the wash cycle?

    MRB

  • splinky
    16 years ago

    I wonder does anyone have their units in the kitchen or breakfast room. I'm hoping to avoid a basement installation and save some steps during the day. is this a problem with the waste water stack? Do these units stack on each other? Thanks

  • jerrod6
    16 years ago

    mrb627

    "How much time does the EXTENDED WASH option add to the wash cycle?"

    I can only speak for my W1986 unit. How much time is added depends on what cycle you select. It will add a different amount of time for cottons a different amount for perm press different amount for delicates..and so on.

    It also depends on how long it took the machine the last time I used that cycle and that temp with the extended option.

    Finally after the machine starts it will sense the size of the load and reduce even the extended time if the load is not full.

    The last time I used extended on a cottons cycle of 140F the initial time displayed was 1 hour 41 minutes. However after the machine determined the load size the time got reduced to 1 hour 15 minutes. The initial regular time for this type of load(wash, three rinses, with spins between) is 54 min. at 140F and 49 min. at 120F. Even this will get reduced to about 36 if the washer is not full.

    The other thing about extended on my machine is that it treats the rinses different. You get a long rinse, a short rinse with longer soak pauses,and a longer final rinse. On the regular cycle all of the rinses are the shorter length but the middle rinse still has the longer pause which allows the clothes to soak a bit in the water.

    The final difference is that the machine will allow more time to balance the load for the final spin and the final spin is longer.

    This is for the W1986. I have no experience with the newer washer so cannot say how it operates in the extended mode.

  • Cyberspacer
    16 years ago

    Jerrrod - I was a prevous W1986 owner and I loved it. I now have the W1215 set. The W1986 is a classic with the dial and extra heavy duty construction. I traded up for the honeycomb drum when I moved.

    MRB - My W1215 adds 15 minutes to the Normal and Wrinkle Free cycles when you press Extended. I have not checked on other cycles. The Mega (the big huge machines) Mieles add 30 minutes to these cycles when you press Extended. My neice and nephew have a set of the Mega Mieles and they work just as good (to my surprise) as the 220 volt washers. I guess the Germans really know what they are doing.

  • mrb627
    16 years ago

    Thank you for the update cyberspacer. Even though the uber machines do not do a profile wash, I am still quite interested in them.

    MRB