Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

[rudin1969]

I have owned a Miele wt2670 for 6 months.
I have noticed that some of theT shirts I have washed on the Cotton/Coloureds cycle look ‘old’ — do you think it is possible that the honeycomb drum is somehow ‘faulty’ and fails to protect clothes on the ‘vigorous’ cotton cycle?
Andrea

[Del]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

Hi

Most likely to be The detergent rather than the machine. General rule of thumb is liquid detergent for coloureds and biological powders for white cottons only. If you tend to use powders on coloured items they tend to fade due to the bleach contained in biological powders.
HTH.

Del

[Kentish]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

If you live in a hard water area, forget liquid detergent and stick to powders for both types of wash )colours and whites).
The honeycomb drum is supposed to be better than normal perforations at looking after your garments, so seeing as you don’t say damage and merely ageing I would also suggest detergent type and make be the first place to look.

[kwatt]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

Hi,

What Del says, but he forgot something. 😉

If you don’t follow the care labels for wash agitation then cotton fibres will become damaged, hence look old. This is made considerably worse on the likes of, for example, printed cotton t-shirts with a logo on it etc. as the fibres will split and “poke through” the print making it look faded prematurely.

The main EU wash symbols, kinda de-crypticised are available from this link

The worst of it is, if they’ve not been washed in accordance with the instructions (and we’d know as would the manufacturers and detergent whizz kids ;)) then there’s no possible claim you can make for the ruined clothing either.

As for the honeycomb drum, I don’t have enough data on those machines to pass any sort of comment or judgement although I’d be surprised, a lot, if Miele put a machine out that was below par.

Hope that helps.

K.

[gegsy]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

kwatt wrote:As for the honeycomb drum, I don’t have enough data on those machines to pass any sort of comment or judgement although I’d be surprised, a lot, if Miele put a machine out that was below par.

Im sure you wrote this :snig:
http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.p … le&sid=119

Greg

[kwatt]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

Press release from Miele. I don’t believe any other manufacturer’s claims until the product is proven and I won’t apologise for not believing Miele either without proof. 😉

Sadly, all too often the claims made, shall we say, are a tad optimistic at best. So I rely on field feedback and/or proof/data from actual users as well as any lab data I can glean. Without evidence, it is a claim, not a fact.

We’ve seen them all, you know the type of thing… like silver nitrates can sterilise your clothes, you can wash without detergent, you can use this little ball and, honest it’s magic… really, it works…

Uh huh, much of the claims are nothing but a modern day equivalent of an old thing commonly known as Snake Oil, or “SCAM” for short.

K.

[rudin1969]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

Thanks for your replies.
Actually, some of the stitches seem to have been damaged (the T shirts are plain white 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} cotton ones). Maybe that’s normal — I’m a novice here 🙂 The thing is I read a review of the Miele 2697 (I think) on the Italian CIAO site – this guy demanded a replacement of his new Miele as he claimed that the honeycomb drum had damaged towels (snags, damaged seams) and other garments that had been washed on the cotton cycle (it is indeed a VERY vigorous cycle — in theory, though, clothes are never in direct contact with the drum… but is that true???
Andrea

[Martin]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

Del wrote:If you tend to use powders on coloured items they tend to fade due to the bleach contained in biological powders.

For coloureds it’s best to use powder (or liquid if you prefer) marked ‘Colour’ (usually in purple packaging) which doesn’t contain bleach yet has enzymes for that essential ‘biological’ stain removing action. 😉

Edit: Just realised you are located in Italy so maybe detergent packaging is different there? 😕

[rudin1969]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

Just an update.
Apparently, there seem to have been quite a few complaints in Italy about the Miele Honeycomb drum. At least 5 people have had their washing machine replaced with a model with a traditional drum/or have been refunded by Miele. In my case, it’s mainly a matter of snags and a few stitches gone — Miele does not produce a washer dryer with a traditional drum and I am not too keen on the AEG Turbo or Bosch/Siemens.

[Trilobite]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

That is interesting, as the brochure I looked at stated something like ‘Miele performs the silk-stocking test…’ This is apparently, a check to ensure that the drums cannot snag delicate fabrics.

I don’t like to say this, but by the looks of Miele’s newest range of machines (more plasticky), there may be an increase in faults reported.

[marcowash]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

I never heard anything like the honeycomb damaging clothes. I have four Miele washing machines with honeycomb drum and no one of them damaged anything. I use to wash all my shirts with the cotton program at 40°C and anything came out damaged. I also wash underwear with this program and I use to spin everything at maximum spin (1800 rpm on my W 487 Softtronic). I never had a problem of wear of laundry.
I don’t understand how a completely smooth drum surface can be responsible for damage to clothes. In my opinion there must be a problem with the drum i.e. damaged holes resulting from having washed sharp metallic objects with the laundry (pins, screws etc) or a misuse of the machine (use of incorrect washing programme/temperature or unappropriate detergent which seems to be a common fact amongst washmaniacs… 😛

[Trilobite]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

Perhaps there were a batch of poorly manufactured drums, that found their way onto the Italian market. Certainly seems odd, as Miele machines are usually beyond reproach.

[marcowash]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

Oh, yes, a batch of defective drums is always possible although I had the pleasure to talk with one of the people who claimed having problems with clothes (in that case they were towels) and he told me that Miele changed the drum of his machine. I think the problem might reside in the choice of wash program/temperature unadapt to textiles being washed. My question is, can a particularly strong wash rythm damage good quality cotton bath towels? I don’t think so ❓

[rudin1969]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

I probably chose a temperature (60 degrees) which is too high for white cotton T-shirts. Towels are okay, apart from a couple of loose threads. I have also washed a pair of (machine-washable) trainers a couple of times — do you think that might have damaged the drum? Several people I know wash their trainers in their washing machinge so I’d have thought that was OK. Do you think I should get in touch with Miele?

[Martin]

Re: Miele honeycomb drum: does it damage cotton clothes?

rudin1969 wrote:Several people I know wash their trainers in their washing machinge so I’d have thought that was OK.

Don’t wash your trainers in the washing machine is probably the best tip you’ll get out of this thread! 😉

Trainers are the cause of most internal damage to washing machine drums. Coins left in pockets cause the greatest external damage. :rolls:

Don’t tell Miele! 8)

[Author]

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