> I am somewhat cynical about buying expensive "quality" brands after being burnt a few times.
You and me both. I am (was?) a big believer of "buy it for life" because I don't like producing waste and I like the peace of mind of owning high quality, reliable equipment that doesn't break (% regular maintenance and wear parts)
But these days it seems like the only options available are paying $10 for a $10-quality product, paying $100 for a $20 quality product, or paying $1000 for a $50 quality product, none of which are appealing. I dread buying anything that's expected to last more than a year.
Our previous vacuum cleaner was a Miele. It died after 20 years of use. The near identical new model still works perfectly after 5+ years. Those things are amazing.
I'm still using the Miele vac that I bought new in 1989 (from the Whole Earth store in Oakland or Berkeley - that was a weird spin off). I brought it in for its first cleaning this year to the local vac repair store (I got a free cleaning in exchange for signing up for their discount vac bag plan a few years ago and finally found the time) and the young folks were puzzled by the made in West Germany tag on the bottom :)
At this point the only thing that doesn't work is the speed selector indicator as the rubber band that connects the indicator to the selector switch failed and parts are no longer available. Compatible bags and filters, however, are still produced. Definitely not much in the way of planned obsolescence in this one ...
I have a Miele canister vacuum. It’s great. I have a Miele HX1 cordless vacuum. It was outrageously expensive and never worked. Completely awful. Couldn’t suck up a cheerio off the floor. A cheap crappy Chinese Dyson clone worked many, many times better. Moral of the story, brands are BS.
Our Miele dishwasher has been spectacular over the last 3-4 years - one of my favorite appliance purchases ever.
I was less impressed with their standing vacuum, honestly. It held up OK but frequently jammed and had little issues. We eventually replaced it with a Dyson cordless that seems much much better.
