Continued Adventures with the Whirlpool TotalCoverage DW

[mark_wpduet]

Honestly -

if the new Maytag's are anything like mine, I can't understand the bad reviews of awful cleaning. It cleans great, is quiet, and everything about it feels very sturdy - racks, inside, door, everything..

the only 2 small complaints I have are the tiered upper rack (which I have learned to live with) and the buttons are hard to push.

 

[joeypete]

Yeah I can't fathom it cleaning awful either!

What felt flimsy to me was when the door was closed, pulling it open caused the plastic handle area to flex. Maybe it was just the one at the store but it wasn't very solid up in that area.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

whirlpool vs maytag wash pump

I believe Whirlpool wants Maytag to be their old school wash system. I have the whirlpool point voyager at my dad's. Maybe maytag is the old school whirlpool due to how big the wash pump is designed. Do the maytag wash pumps still have a fan like the original whirlpool point voyagers do? I noticed that the later ones don't sound as pronounced.

 

[murando531]

My mother in law has the mid line with the front controls. It doesn't feel flimsy at all to me, though I do note that the panel will flex a bit when pulling it. My previous gen was the same though and never had an issue. Maybe it's designed to flex a bit, like the bumper of a car. I'm surprised at how much more solid my Whirlpool feels being a brand new machine. My door doesn't flex a bit when opened or closed, and feels heavier than her Maytag but who knows whether that's slight variances in the spring and cable tension or something.

They seem very happy with it. The thing I'm trying to break them of is rinsing. She's gotten better though, because she called me a few weeks ago to tell me she put a baking dish in the top rack with baked on cheese, and it came out spotlessly. I was like "Yeah? Lol, didn't I tell you it would?"

As far as loading it's identical to the Maytag I had because the racks haven't changed a bit. The only things I'm not a fan of are the stainless steel wash arms. They look gawdy to me; not sure what the narrow in the middle-wide at the ends thing is about. When you see the underside, the actual passage for water is as thin as the Whirlpool low-profile arms, so the rest is molded flat metal. All in all though, they're happy with it. Not an item has emerged unclean and it's extremely quiet, only a smidge louder than my WP, but both are too quiet to hear over a low-volume TV.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Whirlpool owns Amana too

I wonder if this uses the Maytag wash system as well?

@ Andrew - Yes, I noticed that after I bought my Maytag in 2015, the wash arms changed in the new ones not long after and I wondered what they changed in the machines compared to my current one. I thought the wash arms looks HUGE too. Mine are much more flat.

I'm debating on getting a waterproof cam like you did and put it in mine because I'm drying to see what it looks like and hopefully the clarity of your vid. But I dunno.

http://amana.com/dishwashers/dishwa..._interior_adb1700adw.pro?searchterm=ADB1700AD

 

[mark_wpduet]

Correction - 2014,

not 2015

 

[gelaundry4ever]

2016 maytag dishwasher

I wonder what whirlpool will do to the maytag dishwashers for 2016.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Hopefully they

will keep them with the chopper and point voyager, making slight improvements here and there. By the time I need a new dishwasher, who knows what will be available at that time...But right now, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a Maytag dishwasher....they are GREAT!

 

[gelaundry4ever]

improvements

I wonder what improvements will be made.

 

[mark_wpduet]

I don't know

Andrew said it still uses the old point voyager system, but with improved management. They also made the dispenser a lot better than the older dispensers....probably things like that.

 

[murando531]

I don't think that was me that said that. If I did at some point, it was completely unintentional. The new Maytag design works -similarly- to the Voyager because of the accumulator filter and disposer blade, but it is actually built on the same Tahoe** pump assembly as the Whirlpools and KitchenAids. The difference is the motor they used, and the fact that in the recess where the filter cup and screen plate are on the WP/KA, there's instead a fixed chamber with a screen similar to what was in the center under the arm on the Voyagers except that it now is shaped kind of like a kidney bean. There is also a lack of a diverter valve and motor, but the chamber for it is still there which is why both arms are fed at once. I'm still not entirely sure though how the pump is able to separate the soil particles into the accumulator, but I'm sure there's bound to be some passageway or something. It's hard to tell with parts schematics and pictures.

The next time I'm at my mother in law's I'll try to snap pictures of hers with the arm and filter shroud removed. At that point it's obvious it's a modified WP resource-saver design.

**I'm still not 100% sure what the official design title is. I only stumbled on a stray tech sheet online where it was addressed as "the new resource-saver Tahoe module". After that I looked up parts for the new WPs and on quite a few of the replacement pump assemblies and motors available, TAHOE-ASM was in the part name. Regardless, it's what I'm calling it for now because "resource-saver" and "post-Voyager" are a bit annoying to type and say all the time.

 

[murando531]

Okay, this is the best I can find from pictures online.

1st - Old version Maytag (Voyager) pump assembly

2nd - New version Maytag (Tahoe) pump assembly

3rd - New Whirlpool (Tahoe) pump assembly

Note the arm and tube manifolds on the two Tahoe assemblies, and that the Maytag's accumulator rests in the same area as the removable filters on the WP.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

maytag dishwasher

Maybe it's a hybrid pump. Next time, you should do a video of a full load in the maytag.

 

[johnb300m]

Fascinating.
Yea it looks like they put an accumulation chamber right where the removable filter sits.
It's probably fed by a little jet off the main conduit like the Voyager and older GE setup.
They just break off a water stream to filter it, and hope all the water eventually goes through. I'd trust that their 4 blade chopper cuts up soils small enough to fit through the tiny spray jets.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Andrew -

Perhaps I got the wording you used incorrect? It was something about how you said the Maytag that I have is still point voyager, but they use better management than the older WP voyagers....something like that. That picture of those pumps - the first one looks exactly like mine.

 

[murando531]

Oh okay!!! I gotcha. Yes, the Maytag you and I have right now IS a true Point Voyager design, the very last year they made in Maytag and KitchenAid machines. The new design, the current ones that launched in the middle of 2014, are the "modified" resource saver machines, which have the new sump assembly design. The "better energy management" part was that in your machine, what allowed them to continue using the Voyager design but meet the tightening efficiency regulations for a smidge longer was that they programmed it to be much more water conscious. That's why these versions of the Voyager were much more aggressive with Automatic Purge Filtrations**, doing its best to avoid having to drain the prewash water and instead progress directly into the main wash. That's why with extra heavily soiled loads, mine would do three APF's before finally deciding the water was too dirty, and draining completely to refill for the main wash. Otherwise with moderately dirty loads, it would do one, maybe two, APF's and then drop the detergent, essentially saving water by only draining away the soil caught in the filter. In older designs, like my granddad's KM Elite Voyager, only one APF will be done, if at all, before it just dumps the prewash water completely.

**I was going to try explaining it, but luckily I had saved the PDF from the technical education manual I found and can no longer pull up online.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Maytag dishwasher...

I spoke with my dad about the Maytags and how they have have push buttons that I can feel. I find them easier to access. Anyway, I am relieved to see that Maytag has the quality of the point voyater with the design of the Tahoe global design. I don't know what the name of the pump design is, so I'll call it a hybrid design. I like the fact that the Maytags start the main wash pump after it fills with a bit of water to check for cavitation. I also like that the white ones have stainless steel tubs. I'm thinking it's their EcoConserve dishwashers.

 

[mark_wpduet]

It's interesting that I have never even paid attention

to mine while it's running usually. I usually choose autoclean with hi temp/ tough scrub.....but I stopped choosing the modifiers and just started using autoclean alone since you guys said that autoclean will enable those options if it thinks it needs to...I timed it and it took 98 minutes to complete (no heat dry) using just autoclean with no options on a moderately soiled packed load. I do not consider that excessive as far as time to wash a load of dishes.

But this leads me to another question and I think I may already know the answer. With the jetclean steam cycle on my dishwasher, I think it uses 12.8 gallons of water...I was told on the new models the powerblast cycle is the same as my jetclean steam cycle. I'm wondering if a user chooses that cycle on the new models, if it uses that massive amount of water that mine does (for today's standards). I'm thinking it doesn't since these were redesigned to be more efficient.

 

[jerrod6]

Why?

can't the accumulator screen be something a user can clean once a month or so instead of the machine drawing extra water several times during a cycle to clean it, something  that has nothing to do with actually spraying the dishes?  If this screen is not cleaned does it impact the rest of the current Dw cycle?  

 

I would gladly clean a screen once a month if it would prevent stopping and starting, drawing water and pumping out several times during a cycle.  This on and off and the DW deciding to use extra water to clean a filter throughout one cycle would drive me nuts.  

 

[appnut]

Why can't the accumulator screen be something a user can clean once a month or so?

 

<strong><strong>Jerrod, it's called a manual clean filter.  NO THANK YOU!!  I hate them.  it's a European design.  I am thankful my old Kenmore Elite lasted long enough until a self-cleaning filter technology came out.  I dread having to get down on the floor and pull out a stupid cartridge.  clean it and put it back in place, hopefully properly.  My current new dishwasher only stops once during the prewash to check to see if it needs to drain prewash water or not.  And only once has it not drained prewash water in the almost 5 months I've had it.  It doesn't purge and clean the filter like what is described above.  I don't know how it does it, but it does.  So far, I'm very pleased with cleaning and food soil disposing.  </strong></strong>