Kitchenaid washers

[bud]

Any info would be great. So Far I have three and the one from the late 90s seems to work the best. I'd really appreciate any info with pros or cons of these machines, what years are better than others, etc. I'll say this for the 90s machine, it can handle very large loads.
Thanks Pat

 

[rp2813]

KitchenAid washers are basically Whirlpools, but the KA's are higher end and fuller featured machines.

I think you've got a good one with the late 90's model but they probably started going downhill soon after that.

Others here will be able to advise on which vintages are best.

 

[dnastrau]

2000 KitchenAid washer

We had a MOL 2000 MY KitchenAid washer (KAWS800 I believe) that we bought when we built our house. Overall it performed well but I felt it was pretty noisy - more than I thought it would be anyhow. After a few years the lid started to rust around the edges - so much for the porcelain top and lid. I opened it up to change the coupler once and did not see much evidence of a "Quiet Pak" in there either. It looked like any standard Whirlpool except it had a heavier "Gold seal" motor if memory serves.

The cycles were quite flexible but I always wished that it had a slow agitation/fast spin combination choice - but it did not. I stuck it on Ebay and sold it for about $55 when we bought our Maytag Epic 9700. I had cleaned it up and touched up the rust - it looked really good too. I was suprised that it didn't go for more but people probably didn't know what it was. Looking back on it I wish that I had kept it as a second machine. Incidentally, we still have the matching 7.0 cu. ft. matching dryer that still works fine.

I remember seeing the KA washers in the '90's that had the nice stainless knob bezels and stainless trim on the fabric softener dispenser part of the turquoise agitator. The 2000 had none of these - just color moulded knobs and a plain white Whirlpool-type agitator. We ordered the 2000 KA sight unseen and to be honest I probably would have gotten the same performance in a TOL Whirlpool or Kenmore and would have saved a few bucks too.

Andrew S.

 

[yogitunes]

I have a nice set, got for $100.00, it has the BIG agitator, which operates at slow speed for the wash, gentle but sometimes I wished it would also do a high speed wash, I really love the window in the door of the dryer, nice features otherwise, and a clean look, wish list would have been the digital set with the timed dispensers, but beggars can't be choosy!

 

[dnastrau]

Nice!

Wow - windowed dryer! Does that washer have the turquoise agitator? These are already collectible!

These must be a bit before 2000 - this is what I really would have liked to have gotten back then. By the 2000 MY they had already dumbed them down at least cosmetically...

 

[yogitunes]

SIZE MATTERS!!!

yeah this one has the larger base sure scrub agitator, not wild about the blue, but what can ya do!

what I really like about the dryer window is that you can manually turn on the interior light while it is running!

 

[dnastrau]

I like the blue

Kind of Maytag-esque!

The agitator in ours looked the same except it was white and did not have the stainless trim.

 

[yogitunes]

I never seen the BIG base one in white, but I am going to change out the corkscrew/dispenser with a white one, so as I wash clothes, all you will see is white on white, kind of a clean look that will match the whole machine

 

[dnastrau]

It looked the same as far as I can tell, but...

...I can't say for sure if the later all-white agitator in ours had a smaller base, etc.