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More Miele Vacuum Cleaner Repairs
Replacing the plug on the electrical cord (an easy but temporary fix)
"I replaced the plug on the end of the cord several times
before I replaced the entire cord winder. People in my house were retracting the
cord and letting the plug SLAM HARD into the vacuum cleaner body and eventually
the plug got loose. When I saw sparks one time, it was time to fix it.
I cut off the plug and replaced it with a generic plug from Home Depot. If you
are handy with wiring or know someone who is, it is an easy job to connect two
wires. It worked fine for a while, as long as certain people were careful about
winding the cord more slowly and not letting the plug slam into the vacuum too
often."
Replacing the electrical cord on the Miele cord winder assembly.
"Well, here's the story. The plug on my vac got all torn
apart several years ago and since then I have replaced the plug several times.
However, the replacement plugs I get from Home Dept keep breaking. In the
process of replacing the plug each time, I had to trim the cord a little, and
the cord kept getting shorter. Finally, when the plug broke the last time, I
decided the cord itself really needed to be replaced (the winder still worked
fine).
I took my trusty 301i Miele to the local vac shop thinking that since it was
just the plug/cord that was broken, anyone could put a new cord on the existing
reel. The vac guy took one look at the machine and told me that he did not
replace cords on auto winders anymore because, "They were a pain in the butt."
He told me to either to purchase the cord winder together with the new cord on
it from Miele myself or take it to a Miele shop, of which there were none
locally.
Long story short, I did not want to pay $100 for a new Miele cord winder with
cord when the winder worked perfectly, just the cord needed to be replaced. The
vac shop had cords in stock (wrong color, right length, but who cares about the
color if it does the job, right?) for MUCH less. In fact, the cord I bought from
the vac guy cost $9.95!
But how do I deal with putting the cord on the auto winder? That's when I found
your site as I was hunting around the internet. No info on exactly what I
wanted, but it got me a lot closer. Once I used your directions to open
everything I could scope out the insides of the cord winder and study it. It
became obvious why the vac guy didn't want to fool with it.
The white winder wheel has a very strong copper spring inside of it, and, to
replace the plug, you have to essentially take the winder wheel out of the auto
winder box and out of the vac. Once you do this there is NOTHING to hold the
winder wheel together and the spring comes loose from between the two wheel
"halves" becoming a dangerous projectile. There's no way to hold it together
with one hand and replace the cord with the other hand at the same time. You
need both hands to do both jobs.
So, finally, here is my brilliant fix-it idea:
Before you unscrew the white wheel and take it out of the vac, use long, thick
electrical "zip" ties to tie the two halves of the winder tightly together so
that the spring won’t come out of the middle when you take the winder wheel out.
In other words, I pulled the broken cord out to unwind it from the wheel and
stuck the ties through the "spokes" of the empty winder from side to side (I
used three ties) and tightened VERY tightly. Then, I could safely unscrew and
remove the winder wheel in one piece without it violently springing apart.
With the "tied" winder out of the machine, I could then remove the old cord from
the wheel and attach my new cord. To finish, I popped the wheel back in the
machine, removed the ties, and pushed the winder button to start the cord reel,
and, presto, problem solved!
Now I could use your instructions to put the unit back together!
This is the abbreviated version of what I did. Sorry, I did not take pics to
show you! Hope it makes sense without the visual.
One note, the plug on the replacement cord is a little smaller than the factory
plug and will slide up into the winder opening at the back of the machine when
it is fully rewound. This means I have to stick my fingers inside the winder
opening to fish out the plug next time I use it. To avoid this problem, I have
now trained myself to pay attention when the cord is going back into the winder
and I stop the winder myself when the plug gets close to the back of the machine
before it sneaks up inside the winder opening. I hope this helps.
One final thing, be very careful if you try to mimic what I did. The winder
wheel can be dangerous. Of course, I assume no liability for the consequences of
anyone else's use of my information!
And again, thanks for taking the time to take pictures and write out an
explanation of what you did. It truly was very helpful!
Georgia B."
Basic "My Vacuum Cleaner
Won't Run" Troubleshooting Tips.
I'm not a Miele technician, just a fellow owner, but you may be able to do a bit
more troubleshooting if you are comfortable with electricity and handy with an
electrical test meter.
Basically, if you think about it, the vacuum cleaner is an electric motor with a
switch. It may be a little more complex if there is a variable speed control
also, but the troubleshooting procedure still applies.
If the vacuum cleaner is
not running, most likely it is an electrical problem of some sort.
The basic procedure is to test electrical continuity from the wall to the motor
in a series of logical steps at various critical points.
The first step is easy. Plug a lamp into the wall. Confirm that the power from
the wall is good. You'd feel awfully silly after taking your vacuum cleaner
apart only to find a tripped breaker on your home's electrical panel!
Next, is power getting to the switch? If not, the cord is bad.
Is power getting beyond the switch? If not, the switch is bad.
And so on.
If power is detected at the motor, but the motor doesn't run, the motor is bad.
That is probably the worst case scenario in terms of repair cost..
This may all be an oversimplification, but I went through similar
troubleshooting with my Sears Kenmore clothes dryer (several times) and in one
case I was lucky and discovered that a thermal fuse had burned out (a $2 part).
The next time I wasn't so lucky and the motor itself was bad. I bought a new
motor and replaced it myself. Expensive, but had I called Sears repair for that,
it would likely have cost me more to repair the dryer than to replace it, and if
I had decided not to repair it, I would have had to pay the technician for the
service call and for his time in addition to the cost of a new dryer.
Good luck and let me know how it turns out. Maybe you want to take some pictures
if you do end up taking it apart. If nothing else, to help yourself with
reassembly.
Replacing the motor on a Miele vacuum cleaner.
"I found your web page recently on the Miele vacuum. I too
had a problem with my vacuum but it was related to the motor. It failed after
ten years when the expected years of service should be twenty.
Anyhow, I put in a motor for around $110. There are a couple of motors to use.
You need to find the right one. Mine was a 300 series Ametek-Lamb. The procedure
was very similar to the steps as you have listed.
Here are a couple of other details.
After removing all the parts to access the motor, there is one screw to remove
to free the motor. The motor slides out for the most part.
There is a five-pin wire set that connects to the unit. Important: Before
removing, write down which way the switch is plugged in.
Next, remove the computer chip board component on the old unit and place it on
the new one.
A couple of key things to note. First, you need a Torx screwdriver to remove
the entire assembly. There are two wires that connect from the motor onto this
custom chip. In my case, I was told it didn't matter which connects to which.
The tricky thing is that when you put the Torx screw back on, the hole where the
screw would go is not threaded. I had to screw it on with a wrench.
Finally, there is a reusable gasket that sits in the front of the motor. I just
took it off the old one and put it on the new one.
Once that is back on, it is pretty straightforward. Just reverse the steps.
Hopefully others may find these steps helpful.
Richard F."
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