Entry Level Miele dishwasher

I bought the Miele Advanta G2170SCVi because I was looking for an affordable custom panel dishwasher, using my cabinet door as the dishwasher door so you can't even tell the dishwasher is there. I got a great deal an outlet store because it had some dents that would not be visible once I put my own door on it, otherwise, I don't think I would have paid $1250 for it, but it is a great dishwasher.

European dishwashers work very different from American dishwashers, so if you've been using an American model all your life, any European dishwasher may not work for you. They use less water and less energy. No heating element which can damage your dishes, and instead they use condensation drying. It also requires you to adjust the water hardness level depending on your local water. It's a very simple setup which you only need to do once, but you must use Rinse Aid. Although they say you can use any detergent for "domestic" dishwashers, some work better than others with Miele dishwashers. There are many discussion at other sites (like THS at ths.gardenweb.com/forums/appl/) for more info on what detergents work best with Mieles.

The controls are hidden on top of the door, and some people don't like not knowing what is going on, but in my kitchen, it looks much nicer having the controls hidden. There is a buzzer that alerts you when the cycle is finished but I turned it off because sometimes I start the dishwasher late at night. It is very quiet, you can't even tell it's running until it starts draining, and that's because I have PVC pipes.

It has 3 trays: Top tray for cutlery, middle level for small plates, cups, glasses (with adjustable height), and bottom level for larger items. At first glance, the cutlery tray on top seems like it could be a pain in the butt to load, but if you load the forks, knives, spoons the way they ask you to in the manual, they come out completely clean, and they're much easier to unload. Water comes out of the very top (to clean the cutlery tray), the middle (under the middle rack), and the bottom.

I do not rinse any of my dishes before I put them in and everything comes out clean. No residue anywhere, except the "triple filter system" at the bottom of the dishwasher needs to be cleaned once in a while (every 4-6 is what they recommend in the manual--it is VERY easy to clean). The only time I had residue on dishes is when I had scrambled eggs stuck to a wooden spoon which was hard to get even by hand.

This dishwasher can be hooked up to a cold or hot water source, since it has its own internal heating. I hooked mine up to the hot supply which supposedly speeds up the cycle since the water starts up warm already.

The cycle times are reasonable. "Rinse and hold", which I use if I don't have a full dishwasher and don't want to leave smelly dishes in for a day (no detergent), lasts somewhere around 10 minutes. The "Normal" cycle which is pretty much the only cleaning cycle I use, lasts around 2 hours until the very end. The "Short" cycle only lasts about 30 minutes, but I haven't had great results with it, it's only recommended with lightly soiled dishes and not for detergent tabs (which is all I use).

As far as drying, everything comes out dry except for plastics, because unlike glass and ceramic plastic does not retain heat, so the passive condensation drying that this dishwasher uses doesn't work so well with plastics. The advantage is that this dishwasher (without a heating element) also won't burn plastics, even if you put them on the bottom rack, or they fall to the bottom (which I've never had anything ever fall to the bottom BTW).

While there are many different Miele Advanta dishwashers, this review really applies to all of them (except for the top cutlery tray which is only available in the SC models) :

For example, this model number is: G2170SCVi

G2170 = Advanta fully integrated (G2020 = pre-finished)
SC = top cutlery tray (no SC = cutlery basket).
Vi = custom door (SF = Stainless Front)