Last of the true Maytag dishwashers?

[pulsator]

A friend (Kevin) of my BF and I recently called me over to see what was wrong with his Maytag dishwasher, it was making an absolutely awful sound while draining and shaking so hard that things were falling off the counter on top of it. (I had NEVER seen a dishwasher do THAT!) I eventually figured out that the plastic "suction plate" in the discharge pump area had broken off and was sitting loose as a goose on top of the drain impeller. Spinning at 3,450RPM and having a 4 inch diameter plastic disk sitting loose can never be a good thing! The vibration had also done the motor in as it started making weird noises of it's own and was beginning to be very difficult to turn.

 

I told Kevin that both the motor and this discharge pump housing had to be replaced (total of $230 from RepairClinic) and after deliberating for maybe 10 seconds, he announced that he wanted me to pick him out a new dishwasher (somewhere around $1,000) and that he would buy the parts for his old dishwasher to be fixed if I replaced the parts and then I could have the old dishwasher!

 

The dishwasher at my BF's house is (was) a contractor model, Whirlpool by Frigidaire, the LOWEST end model ever made I'm convinced! It has 2 cycles: Normal and Light, and it has a rocker switch for heated dry or air dry. It sounded like a freight train (and not in a good KitchenAid by Hobart or belt drive reverse rack Maytag kind of way), had NO insulation (I don't know if it was just never installed or it never had any to begin with), and the rinse-aid dispenser leaked everywhere so we couldn't use that. So, obviously, I accepted the offer!

 

Kevin ended up buying a beautiful Miele dishwasher which I am jealous of, but my jealousy is drowned out by my joy of getting rid of the Whirlpool! Kevin likes the Miele but has one issue with it: it's too quiet. Ugh. Personally, I think that if you can't hear the motor at ALL but you can still hear the water whooshing around, that's perfect!

 

Anyway, back to the Maytag, I got it all fixed up and we installed it at my BF's and it's just WONDERFUL!!! My aunt and uncle have the slightly older version of this dishwasher with the plastic interior and SWEAR by the Auto Clean cycle. So far, I have not had anything come out not clean with the Auto Clean cycle!

 

Until I met Kevin, I didn't even know that Maytag made this machine with a stainless interior, but here are all the pics!

 

[pulsator]

Money shot!

Love the stainless!!!

 

[pulsator]

Cycles and options

I love that you can add an extra rinse. I've never seen that before either!

 

[pulsator]

The other side

I find it odd that the Auto Clean cycle is over here, Kevin didn't even know it had that.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Wow

I always wanted to try a REAL Maytag dishwasher but never lived anywhere that had one. It looks great and you certainly can't buy anything like that now! Glad you fixed it. My rinse aid dispenser in my Whirpool dishwasher (I thought) was leaking too so I stopped using rinse aid two years ago. I decided to put some more in to see what would happen and it doesn't leak a drop anymore, so I must have overfilled it and it leaked out making me think that it was leaking.

 

[frigilux]

Maytags were great dishwashers. I had one of the last before Whirlpool bought them out and loved it...except for the relatively loud sound level and....let's see, what was that other thing...oh, yeah: It wanted to start on fire, hence the name Smokey The Maytag. The heating coil would turn on at will, even when the machine was off. I had the board replaced under a recall, then sold it.

Miele too quiet?! For me, there's no such thing as too quiet with dishwashers. I'm on a quest to get the most silent dishwasher I can, which appears to be either an upper end Bosch or the new (whenever they decide to put it on the market) LG with no soft food disposer and a manual filter. Spending hours in a kitchen with a roaring dishwasher doing load after load of pots/pans/prep dishes is no fun at all. I like the quiet of my current LG...but shaving another 3-6 decibels from the sound level would be nice.

I held my decibel meter about a foot in front of the LG last night when it was running a half-load, and the level was around 46-47 decibels. The machine tends to be quieter when it's fully loaded. I'll have to see if that gets it closer to its advertised 45 db.

Back on subject: Great job with the save, Jamie, and I'm sure your BF appreciates your expertise with appliances!

 

[retropia]

That looks like a nice Maytag! What are the racks like? My brother has one of the self-immolation models, a portable, which was fixed under recall. He likes his a lot, but his racks were bad and I found him a replacement set.

 

[rp2813]

Ah, still with the tower thing.  The JetClean models do a great job (I had a 1991 lower end model for a while), but I prefer a bottom rack that doesn't require me to accommodate a tower.  Still, that machine is a huge improvement over the Whirlpool, and you've already learned that it's very capable of handling anything you throw in there.

 

[appnut]

Yes, one of the last. The SS tub was a feature the last couple of years. The autoclean was isolated so as to encourage users to simply opt for that cycle. A fairly flexible dishwasher with its options. The added rinse is a nice feature, wish more brandes had that. I hope that is not where the flatware basket usually resides when the machine is being loaded.

 

[powerfin64]

flatware basket

Thats correct Bob, the flatware basket sits at the 6:00 position, and can be separated apart also to be placed where space is available for flexible loading. I have a Maytag from 2000, control panel and racks is the same as shown, mine is not a stainless interior.

 

[whirlcool]

We have a towerless Maytag Jet Clean DW. It really does clean well and we really do like the split basket design. Those split utensil baskets are available separately from Maytag. I am sure they would fit other brands besides Maytag.
Ours is very quiet. When it is running you can't even hear it in the next room.

 

[frigilux]

I didn't realize Maytags still had a tower in the bottom rack toward the end. I really dislike having a tower because of the large/odd-shaped pots/pans I wash. Had a portable Whirlpool back in '86 with a tower and was glad to be rid of it when it was replaced with a KitchenAid in '89.

Two things I really miss about my Maytag's racking system: The terraced upper rack meant I could stand two 9" x 13" cake pans on end at one side of the lower rack. I wash several cake pans every Monday, and that was a real space-saver. Really came to love the terraced upper rack, too. Thought it was weird when I first saw it, but it really made the upper rack very flexible. I recall standing 2-quart pitchers on end at the "deep" side.

 

[combo52]

Last Maytag Standard Tub Dishwashers

Good save Jamie even I can agree that this is a big improvement over a BOL WP Clean-Wash DW LOL. And I would agree these were the last GOOD MT designed and built DWs, but the last true MT designed and built machines are the ill fated MT tall tub models which actually worked fairly well but were problem prone from start to finish and just not very sturdy. When WP took over MT they fairly quickly closed almost every MT factory, but told us that they were keeping the factory in Tennessee where the MT TT DWs were built because it was an all new state of the art factory. But after a few years of trying to save a poorly designed product they closed it and continued with their own more successful TT machines that they build in Clyde Ohio for all their DWs.

 

Hopefully you will get some good use out of this DW, I always liked this SS tanked machine and it was also sold under the Jenn-Air name. While these DWs still had a powerful 1/3 HP 3450 RPM motor the main wash impeller was 1/2 the size of KAs or WPs Power-Clean machines. This was done to reduce noise over older MT RR DWs. You should keep in touch if you need parts for this or other appliance projects, I recently scrapped at least a 1/2 dozen complete pump and motors for these DWs [ I still have at least a 1/2 dozen more ] we got lots of these when MT did their big recall as a lot of DWs were just scrapped and I would have gladly sent you one for shipping cost.   

 

John.

 

[redcarpetdrew]

MDB9150!

This is the model I have in my kitchen. I absolutely love this dishwasher and it performs wonderfully. The drying cycle handles even plastics. The silverware basket splits in half if you need to wash only a few things. The only real issue I've seen with these is a possible weakness in the control boards (how I got mine) but the part isn't really that bad. You will LOVE this dishwasher!

RCD

 

[labboy]

Loved ths dishwasher

We had one of these and loved it. The only drawback was the tower but we got used to it. Autoclean and Extra Rinse were great cycles.

The control panel died after they did the Rinse Agent Dispenser recall repair.