People! Read the reviews thoroughly and THEN purchase (2009-06-29)
Don't get overly impressed with the Krups name as I. I read a couple of the reviews and thought I would take a $100 chance and purchase the FMF5. Poor decision. Should have pulled my old Bunn back out of the back of my truck on its way to the dump and found the "o" ring that may have been causing the leaks. This Krups coffee maker literally stinks to high heaven. It is nasty. My expensive fresh ground coffee tastes and smells like North American Civet Cat. I have done the vinegar thing, I've brewed with and without the filter sack (even though I have reverse osmosis water anyway) and experimented every way I could. I wrote a letter of complaint to the manufacturer and received a call over the weekend & I am to send the unit to their closest service center for examination. It is a pretty unit and not as bulky as my old Bunn stainless carafe machine. But at least the Bunn brewed coffee invited you to enjoy a cup and not make a run for the windows to open for a refreshing breeze to clear the stench out of your kitchen. I think I've written enough. But believe me I could go on and on. I am SO disappointed. ~ Coffee Lover in Eastern Montana

Krups has horrible customer service/repair (2009-06-26)
KRUPS stinks! I bought this item and sent it for repair because the digital screen went haywire, everything kept blinking and you could not even turn it on. Needless to say I sent it back twice and now the same thing happened again! I have made a total of 6 pots of coffee and it had been in the "repair shop" for almost 3 months total. They never repaired it the first two times and when i asked for a replacement the second time, they swore they fixed. Bull$@!!!
I will never by a Krups product because if it is under warranty and it breaks they can not be relied upon to fix the problem.

Believe the bad reviews (2009-06-21)
It's true. This is one of the worst designed appliances I have ever purchased. My biggest gripe is the fill guage. Probably one out of every 3 times I fill it with water, the guage gets an air bubble and then I have no idea how much water is in it. Not a big deal if making a full pot, but anything less than that and you're SOL. True that you can detach the top of the guage and blow the bubble out, but beware of the bottom part of the guage detaching too. If this happens, there will be water all over your counter.

Controls are also problematic. I left it on "small pot mode" one time and my mother-in-law brewed a pot the next morning, leading to coffee all of the counter and a fried out electrical system (it did come back to life, but we were going out for coffee for a few days).

Makes decent coffee pretty fast, but aren't there a lot of other coffee machines that do that too?

Flawed Electronics (2009-06-11)
Like others I bought this unit to replace an older Krups coffee maker that after many years of making excellent coffee, became unusable (the plastic reservoir cracked). This unit with its electronic switches and descaling monitor in my view is ill-designed, as the electronics do not seem to be water-proofed in any way. One spill on the panel of switches in front, which can hardly be avoided, and the unit won't function, since the on/off switch is electronic. My unit was toast within a relatively short time because of this. Before that, it was a pain to use because of the descaling monitor. While the monitor is well-intentioned, the unit won't function when that notification comes on until you run the descaling procedure at least once. It took me several times (run 8 oz. of white vinegar through the machine instead of water). The procedure takes more than an hour, and you have to do it or you can't clear the notification and make coffee. There is also a flaw in the water level window design. It would always get bubbles in it, so you couldn't tell how much to fill the reservoir. Even if you fill it below the red indicator inside the reservoir, it can somehow trap water and over flow, killing the electronic switches in the process. I'm not getting another one of these until Krups changes the design.

A Extra Step (2009-05-16)
Had a Krups for 10 year, could not have been happier, but it died. Thought I'd give the Carafe type coffemaker a try. I make 4 cups each morning. 4 cups brewed into the carafe end up luke warm. That means you have to pre warm the carafe with hot water. This was a pain in the B###. Returned it and went back to the hot plate type coffeemaker.