My father always said that if we are lucky, we can learn from the mistakes of others, if we are not so lucky, we must learn from our own mistakes, and some people never learn at all.
We all know hindsight is 20-20. This review is about a product that we bought years ago, but could play an important role in your purchasing decision today.
About ten years ago we had a little extra money, so we decided to buy it. thought would be the last void of the world, that it would be a void that would last life.
I have an ASET (Associate in Science in Electronics Technology) and I worked in electronics R&D; technicians for 27 years.
I knew that the bench “amps” that some of the artists were throwing out to the public at the time were falling. Vacancies are advertised by the motor’s “amps” ratings, in other words, how much electrical current the motor draws.
These things were nonsense to me then, and still are, if I see them.
A light bulb can draw amps, but it is not worth the vacuum property.
I’m more interested in whether I cared about how much power the vacuum can absorb (this is ridiculous), not how many amps the motor was drawing.
So when I looked at what was around at the time and some magazines, I decided that Miele seems like they make quality vacuums that will really last.
This was very important to me because I was about 48 years old at the time and all while I was alive, they had been more common until now. They all lasted a while, but they didn’t disperse the air well, and I got tired of vacuuming and developed a disgust for cleaning. Most people don’t have much suction, so they don’t clean very well.
I am allergic to dust, so I had to vacuum this time too HEPA filter. For those not familiar, HEPA stands for “High EfficiencyAir” filtration. Air was first developed in submarines years ago. To stay submerged at intervals, they wanted to filter some good air. This was later transferred, as are many military developments, to private use to build automobile engine air filters and air filters for homes and sometimes for air systems. They use them in clean rooms in production facilities and hospital care.
There are different levels, from the less expensive ones used in the industry, to the medial levels that are used in clean hospital rooms. Some of them are filters so thin that they can filter out viruses as much as possible. Filtered particle sizes are measured in microns, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
So instead of buying a typical vacuum in the $100 or less range, I decided to go for it this time, to buy something that would last me a lifetime and be the ultimate vacuum cleaner.
Something with powerful suction, a HEPA filter and made with real quality and strength to last for years.
Miele is an old German company that started decades before WWII. It was a reputation for fine German workmanship, and of course we had always heard that the Germans had a real reputation for making high quality machines.
So now this mystery was solved when I checked the Miele vacuums.
Sure enough, they didn’t try to pull the wool over my eyes with the bench “amps”, they just talked about it being a very powerful vacuum.
So we bought one. It cost around $750 street price at the time, but we had some money to spend, and we were waiting for something that would actually happen, so here we go. Now we both come from lower middle income families, so this is not a small amount of time to spend on us.
The number of years was great. It was a powerful vacuum that could “suck up pop cans”. It had a whole range of speed settings, so you can even turn it off so you don’t suck up the drapes if you don’t want to.
We bought everything he did in a while. It had a very nice golden indicator on the top to measure how full the bag was, so you would know when to change it. For allergies, we also have bags six>designer-bags to open the box and pop the bag by closing the opening to prevent a cloud of dust do it in your face. They really liked the thing.
We’re not empty at all, maybe once a month, so we haven’t been at all in detail. In fact, I was just getting ready to look for a new dusting brush, but this time, because the old one is finally getting frazzled.
But about 2 months ago, it suddenly began to smoke, heating up and filling the place with smoke. I stopped as soon as I realized what was going on.
I opened the basket to find the pockets really full, in fact it was very heavy when I picked it up to replace it.
The problem was that there was no complete idea. The orange tip at the top had stayed near the bottom, maybe 1/4 of the way, for it was done all those months ago.
And I lifted the bag outside, and closed the board over it and threw it out. Then the following week, I bought a few more bags and put one in. I turned the engine over, but this time it made all kinds of noises and the motor was barely running, with very little suction. It is true that it is worn out.
I would not have remembered this now if it had really been my fault. If I was going to go on for months and months and a full gold bag would have been indicated all the way to the top and this was done, I would have no beef with Miele over this.
But that was not it. The Gold indicator had stayed near the bottom, and the motor had suddenly burned out just from the tension of the full bag, without letting me know that I could change it.
Remember the old quip about a $500 TV picture tube protected by a 30 cent fuse? Well, this reminded me.
It seemed obvious to me that this was a faulty design that led to the melting of this expensive vacuum years before it came down, all because this poorly designed indicator didn’t do what it was designed to do.
So I went to the website where I bought it, and they told me there was something similar for ten years, so it was out of warranty.
I then contacted a local vacuum supply that also makes roofs and asked how much it would cost to replace the motors. I was told about $250!
Then I was filled with disgust and horror. If it had been a big mistake to buy such a valuable vacuum, and supposed it would last a lifetime? Not realizing that maybe this “fine German machine” wasn’t designed to tell me it was a full bag, and burn $250 on my motor?
But I thought; why must I suffer this? It’s not my fault. These guys seem to have designed a $750 vacuum cleaner with the fact that, if it had been a car, it would have been like what we’ve always called an “idiot light”. Hey stupid, all the oil is gone and your engine just exploded.
I think that’s what happened here as well.
So I contacted Miele directly and explained my displeasure. Of course, they pointed out that the machine was 10 years old, and I was right to point out that it had nothing to do with the fact that it seems to be defective. That engine would have lasted another 20 years if Arvale’s dinky indicator had just told me the bag was really full and burned it.
they offered me no consolation or comfort. They tell me that I need to take it to the local office and have it assessed now.
That’s right.
So here I am with a $750 vacuum that probably needs a $250 motor because of the seemingly useless bag full indicator. Should I toss the whole thing and just go back to the $150 HEPA vacuum, which probably can’t suck people, but only works as a bag-full? Am I spending even more money than I shouldn’t have, and I’m sure of it.
I proposed to Miele that I am an electronic technician with ASET (Associate in Science in Electronics Technology) and if they could just send me a motor, save the money and replace me, but they will not even answer me, as they said to bring it to value.
So, despite my disgust now, I’ll probably do that, but I know that whatever happens, I’ll probably never buy another Miele product now, and I’ll probably recommend that others avoid them as well. I feel really let down by this.
