Well Peter, I"m gonna be the devil's advocate so to speak and split hairs with you. You cannot simply go by "label" of cycle, you have to look at comporable sequences. As I have stated before in discussing these differences, what was Normal on my model later became Heavy Soil and that's a comparable comparison. What was Light Wash on my model later became Normal Cycle. Except for China-Crystal, all comparable cycles used more water on the S version than others, including rinse & hold. You look at essential sequence, not label. (It's kinda like some people on here bitch because their Duet doesn't have a cycle called Permanent Press on it, but the manual clearly states the Normal/Casual cycle is intended for, including, wrinkle free and permanent press items). Another way of looking at this is the layout of the buttons. From left to right, each ensuing button was for a lower performing/lower soil requirement. They simply dumbed down in a way the terms, trading Normal for LIght, and Heavy for Normal. (Kinda like that last of the PlwerCleans, Normal started with the main wash phase, no "prewash", so you had to use "heavy wash" if you wanted to have dual detergent washes. It's simply manipulating terms again to satisfy some government requirement. But then again, I look inside the covers rather than simply accept what the cov er of the books says. It's also kind of like on the new Maytag Maxima's, default normal soil is the equivalent of heavy soil (and time length of cycle) on the cmparable Duet model. Just like I stated above, I habitually used Light Soil because it was simply the equivalent cycle (in terms of sequence of events) for what many other brands at the time had as normal (prewash, rinse, heated main wash, and two post wash rinses). And my energy saver cycle was the equivalent of most light soil cycles--maybe a prewawsh but then a shortened main wash (probably without temp boost) and two rinses, which si what my energy sagver cycle was. I used it for light soil or for soil that haedn't sat for more than aday or if I was doing some cooking and baking and that was the perfect cycle for stuff that hadn't become encrusted. And as I've said before, I knew my Normal Cycle was the equivalent of most other's heavy soil cycle and I didn't reaklly use it, if I felt I needed better performance over the Light Soil (which gleefully took care of cooked on oatmeal and other starches which had sat for several days), I jsut simply went straight to PotScrubber. Even with dinner guests of 10 & 12 and just tableware put in there, Light Soil was more than adequate.
[this post was last edited: 9/18/2011-22:50]
