[michaelt]

My father has sensitive skin, so my parents wanted a washing machine with excellent rinse performance. They consulted independent reviews, and brought an £800 ($1000) Miele washing machine which was reviewed as having good rinse performance.

Except it didn't. The rinse performance was mediocre, even with all the 'extra rinse' settings enabled. After several engineer call outs, they returned it and brought a £450 ($580) Bosch instead. The rinse performance was still mediocre, but at least they hadn't wasted so much money.

Later, I learned that the reviewers had dropped their rinse performance standards, because modern water- and energy-efficient washing machines couldn't perform and they didn't want to publish a review that panned every single machine.

My point is: Buying a Miele isn't a silver bullet.