Here are some oddball Maytags:

I think these were sold as "builder's models". From bizarre brochure deduction, I think these were all from 1989. We start with an A884 a better than the TOL model but featuring a BOL blue style tub rather than a TOL style white one:

A883:

A882:

A613:

A506:

A482:

A382

A284:

A283:

A282:

A105:

A104, a friend of mine bought this model locally and is still using it happily. She had bought the matching dryer a couple of years earlier. She's one of those people that had been told by a repairman to always buy BOL's because it was the bells and whistles that caused malfunctions. Boo, hiss:

This is the back of the A884 cut-sheet, but they are all basically identical save for the small differences between the 12 models shown:

My mom had the A105 up until Hurricane Katrina. Blue small tub with turquiose powerfin agitator. It did a helluva rollover when washing.

A613

I have an A613...it's a great machine. I also have a '97 Dependable Care. Amazingly, the A613 holds as much as the DC, and the turnover (rollover) is better. Also rinses much better too, as the spray rinse is 90 seconds long.

Maytag washers were classic up until the mid 90s when they started using Norge/Tragic Chef/Whatever machines.

Says on the brochure it's a "Helical" drive. Now is that the slower agitating machine? I thought those were Orbital. My mom's had fast agitation.

A506 Fabric-Matic

Talk about a work horse of a washer. My wife and I used it and the matchning gas dryer from March of 1986 till November of 2005 when the poor things started to die a slow death painful death.

Did not know at the time these machines could be restored.

Replaced them with a GE set. Had heard to much about how Maytag had gone to the dogs. The GE's are not as quiet as the Maytags. When the GE agitates we hear this constant thumping sound. But they wash, clean and dry clothes. What more could I ask for!

differences???

How are the A883 and A612 different? Unless I missed something, the only thing I saw that made them different was the color of the tub....

excuse me...i meant A613,,,,,in the previous post.....

sorry for the typo...

The 883 is a builder's model, only difference is styling. Also, did y'all notice that some of these control panels look like they're "constructed" from retouched photos? Gives one the impression that these machines were made ad hoc with whatever surplus parts Maytag had left over. I wonder if that was a commom practice with a lot of bona fide appliance makers. As I've posted on this site before, a lot of my beloved GE filter-flo's don't appear in stock catalogues and seem to be ad hoc oddball models.

...and by the way, I don't care what anyone says, the old turquoise Power Fin agitators had much better action and "rollover" than those newer stupid white ones with the lame post fins. So there.

Interesting brochures...especially those control panels! I think Greg was referring to the A104 when he told me that in addition to the black control panel, there was a BOL machine that didn't have it. Can't remember if it had ivory buttons or not. Has anyone else noticed the different capacity designations? I saw standard capacity, large capacity, extra capacity, and extra large capacity!

Another strange thing that I noticed is that all of these are the "traditional" helical-drive and not the Orbitals since they mention the Power-Fin. I say strange because Maytag made the changeover to the Orbital around 1988-1989. With the Orbital came the PowerFlex, first in turquoise and then in the boring white we saw in those 90's machines.

--Austin

Those models in question ran from about 84/85 til 1990. Except the 104 and 105. They hung around a few more years under a different model number. These models were only made for certain stores. There were a few local department stores here that caried some of these models. The 482, 883, and 884 were extremly popular here in Cincinnati Ohio. 87' is when maytag introduced the orbital trannsmission which was around series 11 in most of these models. The machines in the above brochores are pre-series 11. If you look at the warranty it only 5yrs on the tranny. Orbital had 10yrs until about 03'or 04'????.

Just my .02 worth

I can tell you what made them different....

Around the time that these machines were made was when my family was going to get another Maytag to replace the really old one that my Mom had. One was sold by Fretter/Silo, and the other was sold by everyone else. This was circa--1987-88-89, the blue tub,shiny model.It was their claim at the time that they would price match anyone, however, they did not have the exact model # of machines, hense, making it impossible to do so. Perhaps that was part of Fretter/Silo's downfall.They were nice machines, I would take one. Alot of companies now a days, namely Sears, have machines that are all theirs with the Maytag name on them,not that it makes them bettter;if I was deperate, uninformed, and had a Sears card in my possession, it would look tasty to get one.My two and a half cents worth.

Some of these remind me of models that were at Monkey Wards. also, we had a very small Lowes here in the early 1990s and I remember a couple of these looking very similar panel-wise.

Not necessarily builders models

But they were junk nonetheless, both from a performance and a reliability standpoint. The A882 was my first washer. Blue tub. Blue power fin agitator modified for the orbital transmission. I bought it at Silo in 1989, a big box retailer that went out of business a number of years ago. The A882 had that wonderful heavy, classic Maytag feel, but it was a hunk of junk. Due to the side fins added on the agitator barrel and the short stroke without the Whirlpool type corkscrew, roll over was poor. It always tied sheets up into a long rope, and couldn't pull them down if they air bubbled, so they didn't get clean. The rinse didn't last long enough to even roll the clothes over once. The lid rusted out so badly in less than five years that rust crumbs would fall into the wash and stain laundry. It sounded awful from the beginning. The service man could never figure out why. I did finally. It was a loose rivet on the motor slide. Oh, let's see...I only had a few minor problems with it: the water pump failed, the tub got a rust spot and had to be replaced, the tub seal boot failed twice... Within five years I had spent more than the purchase price on repairs. I suspect a lot of people were less patient than me and junked their Maytags of this era after only a couple years. The matching dryer didn't break down per se, but it got annoyingly loud after a few years. The service man replaced the reduction pulley, which solved the problem, but the noise returned within 6 months. I hated those machines so much that I finally just gave them to someone at work who had 5 kids so she would have two washers and dryers to get all that laundry done. I bought another Maytag pair in 1997 or 1998 (insanity?!), but I absolutely love them. They perform beautifully, and they've been pretty reliable.