What your Miele is doing, and what it usually means.

Dishwasher will not drain

A cycle that finishes — or stops — with water standing in the bottom of the tub. On a Miele this usually reports itself with a number, and more often than not the cause is outside the machine altogether.

• Standing water after the cycle
• A number on the display and a cycle that stopped
• Water that drains if you run it again

Dishwasher will not fill

The machine starts, waits and stops. Miele publishes several separate conditions for this and they point at four things, three of which are outside the appliance and free to check.

• A cycle that stops early with dry dishes
• A number naming the water inlet
• Water arriving very slowly

Dishes come out dirty

The machine fills, runs and empties, and the dishes are no better than when they went in. Which rack is failing is the useful clue and it is one you can read from the kitchen.

• One rack clean and the other not
• Gritty residue on everything
• Worse on the short programs than the long ones

Dishes come out wet

On this make that is frequently not a repair at all. A Miele dries with residual heat and, on the newer machines, by opening its own door at the end — so a machine that will not dry is often a door that is not opening or a rinse aid reservoir that is empty.

• Plastics wet, china dry
• Everything wet on every program
• A door that used to open at the end and no longer does

Dishwasher door drops or will not shut

A door that swings down instead of holding at an angle, or one that no longer latches. On a fully integrated machine the door is carrying your own cabinetry, and that weight is what the springs were set for.

• The door falls open on its own
• It will not stay shut when pushed to
• Steam escaping at the top edge

Washing machine door will not open

One of the very few conditions this maker prints in words as well as a number. With a wet load behind the glass it is a same-day call, and forcing the door is the one thing that turns a part into a panel.

• The door stays locked after the cycle
• The display says the lock is jammed
• Water still visible in the drum

Washing machine will not drain

A cycle that halts part-way with the drum full, or one that finishes and leaves water behind. The W1 machines report the water path in detail, so this is usually a short diagnosis.

• Water left in the drum at the end
• A cycle that stops before the spin
• Draining, but very slowly

Washing machine is loud on the spin

Noise that arrives with the spin and quiets as it slows is the classic bearing signature — and it is worth acting on early, because a bearing allowed to run to failure can take the drum with it.

• A rumble or roar that rises with the spin
• Knocking during the wash rather than the spin
• A machine that moves across the floor

Washing machine will not spin

A machine that washes and rinses and then leaves the load dripping. On this make the first question is whether it is refusing to spin or unable to — and the difference is usually the load.

• Clothes soaking wet at the end
• The machine trying to spin and giving up
• It spins on some programs and not others

Dryer will not dry

The commonest complaint on a heat-pump dryer and the one most often solved without a part. This machine has no heating element — it moves heat around a sealed loop — and everything about that depends on air moving freely.

• Damp clothes after a full cycle
• Cycles getting steadily longer
• No error message at all

Dryer says the container is full

A ventless dryer collects the water it takes out of your clothes. When it reports a full container an hour after being emptied, the container is not the problem — the float, the pump or the drain is.

• The message returns immediately after emptying
• Water visible in the base of the machine
• A plumbed machine reporting it at all

Dryer cycles are getting longer

A heat-pump dryer is slower than a vented one by design, and that is not a problem. A cycle that is getting steadily longer than it used to be is — and it is nearly always the air path.

• Cycles noticeably longer than a year ago
• The machine warm to the touch on the outside
• Clothes dry but only just

Oven will not heat

Cold, or simply wrong. An oven that is out by a consistent amount and one that swings between are different problems, and only one of them is the sensor everybody blames.

• The cavity never reaches temperature
• Food browning on one side only
• An oven consistently thirty degrees out

Oven door locked after self-clean

The oven holds its door shut during a self-clean deliberately and releases as it cools. When it does not, that is the latch — and it is a same-day call rather than something to live with.

• Still locked hours after the cycle
• The clean cycle stopped part-way
• A number on the display naming the door lock

Steam oven says there is no water

A combi-steam oven that will not steam, with water sitting in front of it. There are five documented causes and one of them catches every house with a reverse-osmosis system.

• A full container and a message about water
• Steam programs stopping part-way
• Weak steam and long cooking times

Steam oven is asking to be descaled

The reminder is calculated from a water-hardness figure set at the factory, and South Florida water is harder than that figure — so on this coast the message arrives after the scale, not before it.

• A descaling reminder on the display
• Steam that is weaker than it was
• Descaling tablets not dissolving fully

Gas burner will not light

The appliance will tell you nothing about this — Miele publishes no code for its gas surfaces — so the whole diagnosis is in what the burner does, and the questions on the phone are more detailed for a gas call than for an electric one.

• Clicks and never catches
• Lights and goes out a few seconds later
• One burner out while the others are fine

Induction zone switches itself off

Usually the overheating protection doing exactly what it was built to do. Miele documents what it does — cancels the Booster, reduces the power level, or switches zones off — and lists the four circumstances that trigger it.

• A zone dropping power or switching off
• The Booster cancelling itself
• Worse when the oven underneath is on

Cooktop controls will not respond

A sensor control reads a wet patch or a pan lid as a finger held down, and locks out. That is the free version. The other version is the touch board, and telling them apart takes five minutes.

• No response to touch at all
• A lock symbol that will not clear
• It works again once the top is cold

Cooktop glass is cracked

On an induction or radiant top the glass is the barrier between spills and the electronics underneath. A crack that reaches the edge lets liquid straight in, and this is the one thing on this site we ask people to stop using immediately.

• A crack running to the edge
• A chip at the frame
• Crazing around one zone

Refrigerator is not cold enough

A cabinet that is running and not holding temperature. Before anything expensive is considered, one cheap thing is checked, and on a built-in cabinet in this climate it is right often enough to check first every time.

• Fresh food warm, freezer fine
• Everything a few degrees out
• The cabinet running constantly

Frost building up in the freezer

Frost is moist air meeting a cold surface, so the question is always where the moist air is getting in — and in this humidity a door seal a few millimeters proud is enough to do it.

• Frost on the back wall of the freezer
• Ice around the door opening
• A fresh-food side getting warmer as the frost grows

Refrigerator door does not close properly

A panel-ready door is carrying your cabinetry and cabinetry is heavy. Over years it settles — and in this climate a door standing a few millimeters open is a frost problem within days, not a cosmetic one.

• The door no longer pulls itself the last inch
• A visible gap at the top or bottom
• Two columns whose doors do not line up

One wine zone is warm

Diagnostically this is good news. One compressor and one condenser serve the whole cabinet, so a zone that holds correctly proves both — and the problem is downstream, smaller and cheaper.

• The upper zone warm, the lower fine, or the reverse
• A zone that will not come down to its setting
• Both zones drifting together

There is an F number on the display

Miele writes an F and a number on every appliance it builds. The number on its own is not the condition — the number plus the appliance is — and a good share of them are things the manufacturer asks the owner to try first.

• A number that returns after every reset
• The same number on two different appliances
• A number with words beside it

There is water on the floor

Water where it should not be, and the first job is finding out whether it is coming from the appliance at all. In a kitchen with stone counters and a laundry closet with a wooden floor, the answer matters within hours rather than days.

• A puddle at the front of the machine
• Water appearing only during one part of the cycle
• Damp at the back that nobody can see

The machine smells

Warm, damp and closed is what both of these machines are between uses, and in this climate that is all it takes. Almost none of it is a repair, and all of it is worth dealing with before it becomes one.

• A musty smell when the door is opened
• A smell that comes back within days of cleaning
• Black marks in the door seal

The appliance trips the breaker

An appliance that trips its protection is telling you something specific, and the one thing not to do is keep resetting it. On this make the maker itself names a residual-current device tripping as a condition to report rather than to work around.

• It trips as soon as the appliance starts
• It trips part-way through, at the same point each time
• It only trips when one particular appliance runs

The appliance will not start at all

Nothing at all is a different problem from a cycle that stops, and it has a much shorter list behind it. Half of that list is outside the appliance.

• A completely dead panel
• Lights on, and nothing happens when a program is started
• It came back once and then stopped again

A professional machine is down

A Little Giants washer in a salon or a PFD dishwasher in a restaurant is not a household appliance with a busy schedule — it is equipment whose downtime costs money by the hour, and it is treated that way.

• A machine out of service during opening hours
• A laundry room running one machine short
• A dishwasher that will not finish between services

It has started making a new noise

This equipment is quiet by design, so a change in what it sounds like is a real signal rather than a nuisance. Caught early, most of the causes are small.

• A hum, a rattle or a grinding that was not there
• Noise only during one part of the cycle
• A refrigerator that has become audible from another room

Dishwashers

The appliance this name means in most American kitchens, and the one that tells you the most about itself. A Miele dishwasher reports the water path in detail — the tap, the inlet filter, the hose, the drain — which is why more of these calls end without a part than on any other appliance in the house.

Washing machines

A small line and a deep one: Miele sells three washing machines in the United States and builds all of them to a twenty-year design life. That changes the repair question — on a machine this age, the honest answer is usually which single part has worn rather than whether the machine is finished.

Heat-pump dryers

Every dryer Miele sells in the United States is a heat pump, and there is no vented model to compare it to. That is the single most useful thing to know before booking: this machine has a sealed refrigerant circuit rather than a heating element, so almost nothing that goes wrong with it is what goes wrong with an ordinary dryer.

Ranges

Two appliances on one chassis, and on this make they report separately. The cooking surface and the oven cavity are different boards, so the first thing worth establishing is which half is unwell — it changes the parts, the access and the figure.

Cooktops and rangetops

The one place this make writes something other than F and a number: the induction tops write FE, and a bare F with nothing after it is its own condition. Induction also reports more than any other cooking surface Miele builds — and most of what it reports is about heat and about the glass rather than about a part.

Ovens, steam ovens and drawers

One control family covers the wall ovens, the combi-steam ovens, the speed ovens and the drawers, which is why they share a page. The steam side adds a set of conditions all its own — about the intake valve, the nozzle, the container, and the hardness of the water itself.

Refrigeration

MasterCool columns and built-in cabinets, most of them behind your own panels. What is distinctive about their conditions is that the cabinet usually keeps running while it reports: it is telling you a reading has stopped making sense, not that it has stopped cooling — so there is normally time to act rather than to empty it.

Wine refrigerators

A cabinet with a job that is stricter than cold: hold a temperature steadily, hold humidity with it, and do neither of those things loudly. Zone count and access decide most of what a repair costs here, and a single wrong zone rules out the compressor immediately.

Commercial and professional

The line Miele builds for places that are open for business: the Little Giants washers and dryers, the PFD professional dishwashers, and the ironers behind them. Same engineering, a different appointment — this equipment runs all day, and being down costs money by the hour.