Miele is also a substantially higher price point.
We’re cheap and when we needed one we bought a Whirlpool.
Now I absolutely love Whirlpools and wouldn’t change unless they go out of business. We’ve had Maytag and Kenmore prior to it. The Whirlpool is probably louder than many of you like, but all I care about is clean dishes and it does fabulous for that, plus was inexpensive.
Happy to report that we managed to get our dishwasher back running! We were able to reset the panel after turning off the circuit breaker for a longer period than we had done previously and executing a sequence of pressing buttons on the panel as explained by KitchenAid support.
The motor is fine and the panel is stuttering along with a few minor hiccups for now.
This is great thread for anyone considering a dishwasher purchase and looking at these 2 brands.
For us the question of Bosch or Miele has been postponed but I have received good recommendations and advice on what points to consider when we have to continue our search (hoping not for another couple years). Thanks to everyone who chimed in.
Absolutely LOVED our Miele. It holds more dishes than any other dishwasher, so it significantly cut down on the number of loads that we did. It also requires less soap than other dishwashers. And Miele supports their dishwashers for 15 years, vs 10 for other manufacturers. When my Miele died, I replaced it with a Bosch, for 2 reasons: first, limited availability of repair people for Miele, and second, I read tha there is a part that can go that costs $1000 to replace. However, I’m kind of sorry. The Bosch is not nearly as well-thought out, and parts of it feel cheap. And with four of us home, we are running it 2-3 times per day, vs once every other day with the Miele when it was just 2 of us at home.
Tell me you weren’t disappointed when the dishwasher started up again. 
Another Miele fan here. We ran it daily for 12 years before it gave up the ghost. Without a single service call. My Bosch (previous house) needed at least a service call once/year.
Love love love the top row cutlery tray. Whirlpool tried to copy it and it is useless how it is designed. In our second house, I am re-doing the kitchen and taking out the 3 year old Whirlpool for a new Miele.
Glad the OP was able to get their dishwasher running again. It was good to read these recommendations - I suspect we will be looking for a new dishwasher sometime soon.
Our current dishwasher washes dishes ok if I’ve cleaned them first. Do you do that with your Bosch or Miele? What if the dishwasher is only going to be run once every couple of days?
Also, we have hard water in town here. My glasses come out looking stained/dirty, even though they are clean. JetDry doesn’t help - is a water softener my only resort?
I do not clean our dishes first before putting them into our Whirlpool, though I do remove larger scraps for our chickens. We also have hard water. I’ve found using Finish Quantum pods took care of the hard water deposits on glasses. Cascade Platinum can work too if they don’t have Finish Quantum, but we think Finish works better. Before we switched to those pods we had some success with just using white vinegar instead of Jet Dry.
@arisamp: LemiShine tames hard water as does Finish Quantum & Cascade Platinum (as noted above by @Creekland).
Miele D:W need to be “programmed” for water hardness value before the first run. There is a chamber that can be filled with an agent to reduce water hardness if it is high.
https://www.reviewed.com/dishwashers/features/what-is-hard-water-and-how-to-test-for-water-hardness
We never needed it because we are lucky to have very soft water here.
We use regular Cascade here - I’ll try some of these other recommendations. Thanks!
I have an RO water system so I didn’t need to use the Miele agent. On the newer Miele models there is a setting for wine glasses. Also, these models have features designed for holding wine glasses. I was really surprised at how well the machine cleans them. They come out sparkling.
I was told to cut the Finish pods in half. That’s what the repairman at work said.
I run my Bosch 1x a week, so I rinse them first.
If you’ve had hard water deposits building up inside your dishwasher, that will really affect water flow and things won’t come clean. Folks also usually blame the dishwasher thinking it’s going bad and needs replacing (BTDT eons ago).
Do you have someone handy to take it apart and give it a good scrub - the arms and waterways? H did it for ours until we discovered the pods that work with hard water. The amount of calcium, etc, that he would scrape out was amazing. It was far cheaper having him do this than replacing the dishwasher. I’m not sure how much it would cost to have someone else do it or if those “dishwasher cleaners” actually work - esp if there’s a bit of build up.
We haven’t needed to clean this one, but have always used those pods. They are worth the extra cost.
I was afraid the pods might not fully dissolve and cause more problems down the road?
My Miele dishwasher has a built-in water softener. My dishes come out sparkling clean without prior rinsing but I scrape off the solids. I also use half a pod of Cascade Platinum for a full load, this was recommended by the Miele customer service when the Intake/Drain light went on after using a whole pod. Using too much detergent will clog the lines.
I switched to Miele pods. Easier to cut. We don’t use our D/W that often… I can afford them.
I switched to Miele pods that I cut in half. I can order them online.
When replacing your dishwasher take some bowls along to see how they will fit. Several years ago I did that and found the way Bosch did their tines meant I couldn’t fit the many bowls we use as well.
Also note that the quietest machines likely do not have a disposer function but instead have a filter than needs emptying every so often- we avoid this by rinsing off particles, especially since we wait around 4 days between runs. Using less water also lengthens the cycles. There are always tradeoffs.
This is a timely post! I just bought a new Bosch dishwasher today because our old one, which had been leaking and had a few other issues, literally fell out of its space last night. Fortunately, no people, animals, or dishes were injured.
I bought the 800 series custom panel. It’s the quietest one, and it was on sale for $1100, plus there was a rebate. It arrives in a few weeks.
ETA: We have loved most Bosch appliances, with one exception, the 500 Nexxt series washer. I was really hoping it would be the first to die, but nope, had to be the dishwasher!
Our plumber did warn us to stay away from Samsung, though.