Miele appliances last longest of all domestic brands. This was the verdict reached on washing machines after a recent consumer poll carried out by Germany’s Nuremberg-based consumer research organisation GfK. Miele tumble dryers last on average even longer: 18.6 years. The average across all brands excluding Miele was only 12.4 years for washing machines and a mere 11.8 years for tumble dryers. And those last six years have a significant impact on the environment: Longer-lasting appliances produce significantly less refuse and go particularly easy on natural resources in production.
Protection of the environment at Miele begins at the product conception stage. An assessment is made of the environmental impact of the production process and the use of mineral and fossil resources as well as water, electricity and detergent consumption during the product use phase. After all, natural resources are becoming scarcer and the energy required to salvage used materials is high and also has a detrimental impact on the environment. What are needed are long-lasting, energy-efficient and reusable machines like those produced by Miele. The end-of-line testing remit at Miele is geared to a product life cycle of approx. 20 years. Only when it has passed an uninterrupted endurance test which, in the case of washing machines, lasts 10,000 hours or 13 solid months, can new model series be approved for market launch.
The durability of Miele washing machines was recently validated by an endurance test commissioned by Germany’s leading wfk laundry research institute. The results of this independent study showed clearly that Miele washing machines were the only ones among those tested which were still in proper working order after an excrutiating 4995-cycle endurance test equating to 20 years of service. “Without the intervention of a service technician, only the three Miele machines survived the test in working order. On all the other appliances defects and failures occurred which in some cases were numerous and required a service call-out and even resulted in the premature termination of testing”, says the survey. This survey subscribed to the test criteria laid down by Germany’s consumer watchdog Stiftung Warentest (StiWa) but under far more exacting conditions: Instead of the 2079 programme cycles (corresponding to approx. 10 to 11 years of use), the benchmark was raised by a factor of 1.5 so as to meet Miele’s own more stringent testing requirements.
The more recent GfK study confirms that Miele’s endeavours to build machines which last tally with data provided by consumers. All Miele appliances, whether use in the laundry or in the kitchen, last on average four years longer than their competitors. The average life span of a Miele domestic appliance is 17.3 years. The industry average, excluding Miele, is only 13.2 years.