Miele G 5266 SCVi SFP Dishwasher Review

The Miele G 5266 SCVi SFP dishwasher has a stainless steel finish with a wide pocket handle. Opening the door reveals its top-facing controls.

Inside, you’ll find three racks. The upper and third rack both have handles for making adjustments.

About the Miele G 5266 SCVi SFP Dishwasher

• Dimensions: 33.75” x 23.63” x 22.5” (H x W x D)
• Finishes: Stainless steel
• Cycles: Normal, Quick, Pots, Rinse
• Cycle options: Sanitize
• User manual: Miele G 5266 SCVi SFP Dishwasher manual

What we like

It boasts impressive cleaning power

It may surprise you, but in our lab testing we’ve found that most high-end dishwashers have trouble with actually cleaning dishes. One theory is that once you reach a certain purchase price, you begin paying for its look and style rather than an increased cleaning performance. This is a trap the Miele G 5266 manages to avoid.

Across the board, this dishwasher puts up solid numbers in just about every way. During our testing, the majority of dishes came out of a cycle completely spotless: The number of dishes that had even a speck on them was less than half as many as other dishwashers.

The only stain this dishwasher had difficulty with was our hardest stain, pureed spinach, and even then it performed better than most, filtering out the tiny green specks before they could be redeposited onto other dishes.

Overall, while this isn’t the absolute best cleaning performance we’ve seen in our testing, it’s at the top. You should have no issues with the quality of clean the Miele G 5266 provides.

The Normal cycle is much faster than average

The Miele G 5266’s Normal cycle takes just 108 minutes to complete, a full 30 minutes faster than the average dishwasher.

While the quality of cleaning is more important, a faster cycle time means it can more easily fit into your day, as opposed to just running a cycle overnight.

A third rack and adjustable upper rack helps accommodate everything

This dishwasher has quite a few features that aren’t common in the dishwasher space, and most of them offer useful functionality.

For starters, it has a third rack, which we like because it can accommodate normal-sized utensils, as well as larger items, like ladles. This third rack can also slide its left half under itself, to make more room below for wine glasses or other tall pieces. When this half of the rack is extended, it reveals a shallow channel down its center, which is the perfect depth for storing smaller bowls.

The upper rack can be adjusted vertically and also tilted at an angle to facilitate loading and unloading. Typically you can only adjust the height of the upper rack, not tilt it: We love this additional functionality as an accessibility consideration.

What we don’t like

Its price means it’s competing with the best of the best—and competition is steep

Part of the problem of a $1,499 MSRP is that it rockets the G 5266 into the absolute upper echelon of dishwashers on the market, where its prime competition also looks great, cleans well, and sports special features.

Miele’s standard warranty seems insufficient for this level of investment

Based on the numbers, there’s not a whole lot to dislike about the G 5266: It’s a good dishwasher in most regards. However, Miele’s warranty plan is not great: The company offers the industry-standard, year-long guarantee, and it will extend that to two years if you use an authorized installer.

While two years is still twice as good as what most other companies offer, other companies like Samsung or LG will often offer extended warranties on specific parts that can last up to five or 10 years.

Miele claims its dishwashers are built to last for 20 years. We would like to see this backed up with a warranty to match.

What owners are saying

As with other high-end appliances, the internet does not have many user-created reviews to get a peek into the day-to-day use of the machine. On top of that, Miele products aren’t always sold through traditional retailers, which are typically great resources for user reviews.

As more reviews get posted, we’ll update this section with any pertinent information we can find.

Warranty

The Miele G 5266 SCVi SFP is covered by a one-year warranty, which can be extended to two years if the unit is installed by an authorized technician.

The standard industry warranty is a single year, so we do like the ability to upgrade it to two years by using an authorized technician. As with any higher-priced product, we wish it had a longer warranty to help consumers feel safer about making such a large purchase.

In this case specifically, Miele publicly claims its dishwashers are made to last for 20 years. One of the key reasons why you should invest in Miele seems to be its offering of “unique reliability and peace of mind” (for context, most appliances are only manufactured to last for about 10 years). So, we have to ask, why not back up this claim with a warranty to match?

Should you buy the Miele G 5266 SCVi SFP Dishwasher?

Yes, if it's in your budget.

The Miele G 5266 SCVi SFP dishwasher is expensive, but we think it makes a good case for its price point.

For starters, this machine has excellent cleaning capabilities. During testing rounds, most dishes came out 100% clean: The number of dishes that weren’t completely spotless after a cycle was half that of the average dishwasher. We found lower-than-average instances of redeposit, higher-than-average drying performance, and cycles tended to finish much faster than the competition.

We are also impressed by how little water the machine used, but as a trade-off, it does consume about 30% more electricity than the average dishwasher, which undercuts its efficiency claims somewhat. We also do like that you can extend its warranty by using an authorized installer, but at its price the extra year on the warranty feels small.

If you’re not quite sure this Miele is the right fit for you, we recommend checking out the excellent Bosch 800 Series SHPM88Z75N, which runs a little cheaper, has excellent cleaning performance, and comes with its own unique feature set.