Maytag HE toploader white film on darks (MVWC565FW)

[tman]

Hello all!

I'm having a problem with our newer Maytag toploader (MVWC565FW). It's a couple of years old, but hasn't washed even satisfactorily since new. The machine is one of their "commerical series" HE machines from Lowe's that was purchased in a pinch to replace a vastly-superior Kenmore 80 Series washer that was at least 20 years old. Anyway...

The Maytag leaves a white, filmy residue on many darks that are washed. I've messed around with it for months, trying different combinations of factors but can't figure it out. I've cleaned the machine with Affresh, we have softened water, and have been using incredibly small amounts of detergent, stepping down from "Line 1" to half that (I've tried Persil, Tide, All Free and Clear, and Tide Pods). I've used "Deep Water Wash" (not available on Normal, I have to use "PowerWash") and added a deep rinse ("1 Rinse With Fabric Softener" setting seems to be the deep option, as the normal rinse seems to be just a spray rinse), but it still happens.

The frustrating thing, in addition to the terrible cleaning performance, and the 2ish hours it takes to wash, is the obscene amounts of water it uses on any non-small, non-auto-sensing loads - I had a medium, auto-sensed load that came out to ~50 gallons (no deep water wash), and a single, spray rinse deep-water-wash on PowerWash that came out to about 63 gallons. A small, auto-sensed load was about 17 gallons. The crazy water use wouldn't bother me so much if the clothes actually got clean, but about a third of loads have to be rewashed without detergent, so it is anything but high efficiency. Towels and whites seem fine for the most part; denim/black sweatshirts and scrubs are where the trouble comes in.

Does anyone have any advice? It could be a very nice machine if it cleaned even marginally well. But, as it stands, it's a frustratingly-terrible machine, and it isn't even economical. Do I have any other options?

Thanks!

 

[DADoES]

 
Maybe, even with the softened water, you're not using enough detergent to sequester and flush away lint and such.

Is your water softener perhaps not working properly?  Hot and cold supply both softened?

 

[eronie]

I agree not enough detergent !!!
No cold washing either !!
You must use at least use body temp water to suspend body oils, I think that's what is attracting the lint !!

 

[tman]

Pictures

Here are two pics I took. The first is a black sweatshirt washed on Deep Water Wash with two rinses and Tide liquid, the second is what floated to the top when I re-ran that load (as it was filthy still). It appears to be soap scum or some such thing. I'll try using more detergent and report back. But this is the kind of typical thing it's doing, most notably on dark loads.

 

[mrboilwash]

Picture #2 looks more like cold chicken broth than rinse water in a washing machine.
Just look at all the grease and scum floating on top.
Instead of cutting back from line #1 you could try to step up to line #5 or even more until the problem is solved and maybe you should use hotter water too.
On a load like this I`d start with a full cap and watch the progress of the wash cycle, adding more detergent as needed until there`s a nice layer of suds.
Additionally you could try to cut out liquid fabric softener if you use any.
Fabric softener per se is no problem, but if you use way too little detergent to dissolve all body oils the remaining oils could form some type of soap scum with the FS.[this post was last edited: 1/6/2021-03:54]

 

[pierreandreply4]

i would also advise not using fabric softener and i would suggest if you have the clean washer cycle on your machine it will remove any residual dirt or build up as well as run your next load using hot water and also check if the water in the machine enters hot and is not mix with cold water because of the atc temp sensor