Have you read all of the instructions for loading the washer. With a high efficiency washer you need to pretend the agitator is still there. And sort by types of clothes instead of color.

Same problems with mine.

mainell, my wife clearly remembers the salesperson telling us that the advantages of the 'mini-agitator' design was that one didn't need to separate by fabric and/or types. Even so, we wash colors separately from towels, separately from whites - it doesn't matter how we wash, the problems persist.

So glad to see (planet711) that I am not alone.

Whirlpool, any comments??????

I have the same problems too. It somewhat helps the tangled clothes issue to lower the spin speed. I also see that residue sometime and end up doing another rinse. Hello whirlpool???

Yep, have a Maytag Bravos, very similar machine. Almost always, after wash cycle complete, remove clothes, shake them out, put them back in washer, and run full cycle a second time; 3 hours for a load of clothes is a PITA. Also, never more than half loose fill machine with clothes.

Ok, what cycle are you selecting when washing the loads of colors?

My school has a Maytag Bravos XL that is about 4 years old. I use it frequently to wash loads of towels, sheets, and rags. I will tell you honestly that these machines perform horribly when overloaded. The tangling is certainly from wash action and not the spin. It is a huge drawback to HE top loaders. Often times I use the Bulky cycle on the Bravos XL, and it fills approximately half way up with water. For fairly large to full loads it works decent. Avoid the Normal cycle at all costs.

Powerwash for almost every load.

Dry spots can be an artifact of high spin speeds ... stronger extraction and airflow currents in the drum can produce dry spots.

I've had that happen on thinner fabrics such as shirts, sheets and pillow cases with my F&P AquaSmart (sibling to some of the Cabrios) which spins at 1,010 RPM (a little faster than most Cabrio models).

What a salesperson says does not necessarily reflect proper use of an appliance ... and they surely don't have hands-on usage experience with all the products they sell.

As DoreyCrouse says, spin speed has absolutely nothing to do with tangling. Any tangling occurs during wash/rinse agitation when clothes move in relation to each other. Items are pressed stationary against the drum during spin and do not move w/respect to each other so tangling cannot occur then.

Yes, it has been ~3 years. At first I thought it was just OK, then really disliked it, now somewhat used to it. Have a standing offer to buy a friends old agitator washer that fills all the way up (discovered it when I house/pet sat for them).

I started this discussion and now am attaching photos of today's laundry load: medium sized, mixed colors, all garments opened and layered into tub. Machine settings: Color Last / deep water / extra rinse / water temp-cold / soil-heavy / spin-high. Here is a sample of patches of dry straight out of the washer before placing in dryer....the conundrum continues!

Those look to me like dry spots from spinning ... not because the items didn't get wet during washing.

This is a pillow case with similar dry spots after spinning at Medium 670 RPM (not the maximum 1,010 RPM) in my HE/impeller toploader.

This is a video of the wash period. Many will say it's not enough water, but that's not true. Watch the entire wash period. There's only the one navy pillow case in the load. It starts on top, rolls over several times from the top to the bottom, fully submerged in the water each time. There are also several instances of a recirculation shower that sprays over the top of the load. Part 2 and Part 3 vids are also on my channel for the rest of the cycle (rinse and final spin). The vids date to December 2018, I didn't record it just now for this reply.

"Here is a sample of patches of dry straight out of the washer before placing in dryer....the conundrum continues!"

Have you ever examined the clothes just before the spin cycle to verify that indeed, they never got wet?

I guess not all Cabrios are alike. Ours is a 2012 and has never given a bit of problem. We usually run it on NORMAL was cycle, high spin and cold water.

YMMV

Cold water is the worst .... contributes to hidden smutz (on the inside of the outer tub and on the outside of the inner drum). I don't use cold water on anything for washing. Cool at minimum for the very few items that may be of concern, such as black or red or navy cotton t-shirts with silk-screen or heat-set decals. Everything else is warm or higher. The sheets above were at 122°F.

We inherited a Cabrio without agitator in a house we purchased. I dislike it. It walks and unbalances a lot. Our contractor looked at it and said he had the same machine and that the only way to get it to work was to wash everything on BULKY. We have found this to be true. Our laundry isn’t ever very soiled. We always use hot water and generally medium loads. We spin on HIGH 90% of the time. If I watch the load, the same stuff remains in the same place in the drum. But we are getting by with this machine. We never have dry spots, though random loads will occasionally come out with detergent on them. Otherwise stuff seems to smell clean enough. If we had diapers or work clothes, this machine would be unacceptable to me. I keep looking for a new machine but we have space and clearance issues, and every washer I find has several bad reviews. I feel frozen with indecision.

We've only used liquid detergent and pods and have had no problems with 'smutz'. Ours only tries to walk when the load is not distributed around the drum evenly enough, and that's on spin cycle when it's easy enough to redistribute the heavy stuff.

The trick about smutz (more properly known as scrud) is that it can't be seen directly when it's in the hidden areas. The inside of the inner drum is lovely and shiny and clean because the clothes rubbing on it keeps the residue from accumulating. Residue sticks to the outside of the inner drum and inside of the outer tub where it can't be seen without disassembling the machine. It's wonderful if you don't have any accumulation but the only ways to know for sure are 1) raise the machine top and take off the tub cover to look down between the tub and drum and/or see if any shadowy-evidence of scrud is visible through the outer tub (which typically is translucent if plastic), or 2) pull the inner drum for a direct look at it and the tub.

This is the accumulation that was in the old-style agitator toploader that I had refurbed for my mother. It was pristine at the beginning. She used it from 2012 to 2018. LOTS of cold-water washes (and liquid detergent, mostly Arm & Hammer). I couldn't convince her to run warm washes and hot for towels & kitchen linens. A mechanical problem developed with the transmission (which I hadn't serviced previously) so I pulled it down to fix that. The inside of the basket was shiny/clean white porcelain. The clean area on the outside is where I had already scrubbed it before taking the pics.

Sorry, new computer. Have had to figure out some passwords including this one.

Ok. So the ColorLast cycle agitates more gently. I would not use that cycle often. It probably is not strong enough to turn a medium to large load properly. Normal and deep water is probably good. I would make sure I am running the pre-soak option on that machine if it has it! This might help a bit more. Can you comment on the cleanliness of the clothes?

I have used the Bulky cycle with some success at school, but I find that a majority of the towels and rags that are washed still come out with coffee stains, dirt, and other miscellaneous soils still visible despite running cycles that take more than 2 hours (running all available options and waiting for water to heat up as well).

The bulky cycle fills with too much water to get proper washing action unless the load is large enough. HE toploaders need the clothes to be in contact with the rotating impeller for good cleaning. Mechanical cleaning action is reduced if the items float and swirl in the water (although that is usually the intention on delicate cycles).

wdccruise, I will stop the wash cycle just before the spin to verify whether the spots are "actually dry" or not. I will say that when these occur, I generally touch them to my upper lip (good for assessing wet & dry) and they always feel bone dry.

Also, just because I listed the conditions under which the spots occurred on THAT load doesn't mean that's the ONLY time the spots appear. They happen in ALL combinations of cycles / temperature / spin / etc..........

Dadoes, I meant to say that. Bulky for full loads. I have noticed there is NO interim spin. Horrible idea.

No interim spin ... not uncommon on toploaders with a specific Bulky cycle. My two F&P toploaders with Bulky cycles (one agitator, one HE/impeller) don't spin after the wash, rinse twice (deep/agitated rinses), then stop and beep before the final spin with a message on the display advising to push the item down firmly and press Start to continue. This is to avoid damage to either the item or the machine if a very large, fluffy piece such as comforter or sleeping bag protrudes up to contact the tub cover or other parts of the machine that are stationary during spin.

The photos look like what we see floating in the Cabrio that came in the house we just bought. We cleaned with the Affresh on the cleaning cycle eleven times! Once, , then 3 or 4 times in a row, as Affresh suggests running 3 times in a row if not clean after the first time. we still have little green floaters. Any ideas?

@Sally Skulteti, floaters indicates residue is loosening. One can assume the previous owner never cleaned the machine and apparently had very bad usage habits. You can either continue repeating the process, or attempt to disassemble the machine to get directly at the residue. Maybe try other cleaning products than Affresh. There's a Tide-branded washer cleaner and an OxiClean product. Lemishine. Maybe try dishwasher detergent pods, two or three or four at a time for an extra-strong dose.

Thanks. will look into those other products.