The situation with the Maytags was that the agitator that worked so well in the wide tubs of the conventional washers and gave such great rollover did not perform as well in the automatics. The tub was too narrow and the agitator fins too large. That also made the Maytag automatics cause wear on fabrics. When the first AMP was tested at CU, they judged the capacity at around 5 lbs of laundry, but that was the next to the last thing said against Maytag washers until the early 70s when, horror of horrors, they tested a standard tub Maytag against the large tub Whirlpool and discovered that the WP could wash in two loads what the Maytag washed in three. After that, they did not test a standard tub Maytag again. The sun rose and set on Maytag with never a rainy day, even during the capacity wars when they tested washers with 12 lb. loads. The Kenmore, with its regular tub was deemed overcrowded with the 12 lb. test load while the Maytag was judged to handle it just fine which, I guess, proved that no one at the testing bureaus ever devised a way to hold in the lid switch to watch the agitation in a Maytag. I guess that was because the Maytag was not meant to agitate with the lid up and to have the lid up during agitation would somehow interfere with the performance of the washer...or something.
