Newsflash:
Mother Toggle's top-loading 1984 direct-drive 24" (60cm) wide Kenmore died quietly a few weeks ago after many long and hard years of service. After keeping the "dead body" around for a while, we dragged her off to P.C. Richard's (a local supplier) to get a new machine and send the old one off properly.

All said and told, a Figidaire front-loader with the jog dial was chosen. I was disappointed to learn that this model (as shown in linkie) has only two rinses with the option of a third. My own Frigidaire has three, IIRC with the option of a fourth one.

I suppose it pays to REALLY research every tiny detail first.......

GadgetGary and I had chosen the machine in the following panel for a friend of his.....

It was only $10 more than the one I had chosen, but had fewer features. I basically bought the above one due to a dial and Automatic (Water) Temperature Control.

For our international friends this is electronically controlled assitance for the hot and cold water inlets to "assure" minimum tempertures. (works with "cold" and "warm" selections).

That we chose

I like the word "program", BTW for what we'd normally call a cycle.

CYCLE is the equivalent of the Greek "kyklos" (cyclos) or CIRCLE. I suppose withour a timer dial it is technically not a circle anymore. :-)
PROGRAM is from pro-gramma meaning pre-written or pre-determined, as in predetermined sequence of steps. :-)

Why the need to cut the number of rinses? Have the US Federal standards again tightened?

Togs, this is why the Frigidaire FL'er you and I have is ranked only average (Good) for water efficiency in CR. Just as TL'ers miraculously became more water efficient over night (the miracle: lower the maximum water level to what used to be medium-high on most machines), front-loaders became more water efficient by dropping the third rinse.

I, for one, am glad to have a front-loader that gets the job done in 55 minutes, doesn't need an act of congress to get it into the spin cycle, is not a wet-nap machine, doesn't dumb-down hot water, and has a traditional cycle knob which makes lengthening/shortening cycles very easy.

I have had the Frigidiare 2940 for a year now and mine has three rinses on "Normal" program, four on "Heavy" and two on "Quick." Too bad they have cut back the number of rinses...I like having three on a normal cycle and if you have to add the extra rinse option to get those three, then you effectively don't have an extra rinse feature without resetting the machine after it is done. It is a good machine and I have been very pleased with its performance.