Modern Maid dishwasher for sale

No D&M fans here, I see. ;-)

I saw this machine, badged as a something-else, at the Phoenix yard years ago, before they ran their remaining dishwashers through the chipper-shredder. I loved the analog countdown timer. Very sleek.

The wash system (tower, with the mid-level wash arm stuck up top) worked great for me; this was one of my favorite systems (on my Montgomery Ward unit) before somebody bade my dishwasher to die ;-) (ahem). The Magic Chef I had, which was similar but with no tower, was a royal pain to load; it might as well have been a single-wash-arm machine.

With this design, I really liked having the long arm up top, because a D&M machine is a master particle-depositer, and you need something to blast the gritties out of the concave surfaces of anything up top. It was a typical D&M; with the help of seventy-two water changes, it leveraged serial dilution to accomplish the seemingly impossible.

I didn't have issues with washability in the top-rack corners; I hold no engineering degrees, nor do I pre-rinse a thing. I do think about things like where the water's originating from, though, and thus don't do things like face bowls to the tank wall.

D&M had an absolute panoply of bottom-rack designs, and I agree with Greg that this was their second-stupidest. The first prize belongs to a variant of this style where the saucer rack above the tower RAN FRONT TO BACK along the whole rack, thus sub-dividing all of your lateral space completely and effectively giving you the world's first 18-inch 24-inch machine in terms of capacity. Friends of ours had a Caloric used mostly to store potato-chips (probably for the best), and it was mint inside. They offered it to us when they moved, and we politely declined. :-)

D&M's all-time achievement toward the end was digital controls (don't get me started on the soil separator); I've not had the pleasure(?) of using one of those machines, but I'm guessing--based on current electronic reliability trends with more credible manufacturers--that there's a reason why there are not many around to play with.


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Post# 682422 6/4/2013 at 17:35 (4,202 days old) by Yogitunes (New Jersey)
Checkrate/Likes nice control panel.....who made these models? the countdown timer is unique.... CLICK HERE TO GO TO Yogitunes's LINK on Cnj Craigslist

Post# 682428 , Reply# 1 6/4/2013 at 18:05 (4,202 days old) by combo52 (50 Year Repair Tech Beltsville,Md)
Checkrate/Likes *Modern Maid DW* This is a very rare model, but unfortunately it was just a D&M DW probably not worth more than $179 dollars new that someone paid more than the price of a KA Suberba for in the late 80s. MM was only sold through kitchen remolders and I always felt sorry for the customers that fell for such overpriced junk because they were too lasy to select good appliances and just let the remolder do the whole job.

Post# 682447 , Reply# 2 6/4/2013 at 19:50 (4,202 days old) by ovrphil (N.Atlanta / Georgia )
Checkrate/Likes 1 I appreciate the history found here on these threads, thanks John and Yogi for posting this. Always interesting to get John's perspectives.... just sayin'.

Post# 682449 , Reply# 3 6/4/2013 at 20:10 (4,202 days old) by Yogitunes (New Jersey)
Checkrate/Likes this is cool when stuff is posted that is out of the ordinary, or something you don't see all to often, who knows, it could be something someone has had their heart set to find and make a dream come true.... or even if to learn the history of such machines.... Thanks to John for his input as always, if anyone would know, he's the man to go to...

Post# 682475 , Reply# 4 6/4/2013 at 22:24 (4,202 days old) by lovestowash (St. Petersburg, FL)
Checkrate/Likes *same machine for Roper...* I have a brochure here somewhere when I used to work for Roper... we had 4 models in the lineup, and this was the TOL... started out with round "chrome" buttons... then updated to the square buttons identical to the Modern Maid... the next year it was glammed-up with matte black buttons and panel, and dubbed the distinction "Nouvelle"... "Nouvelle" was Roper's version of a Jenn-Air downdraft... not sure how long that lasted, I left and went to WCI... George

Post# 682520 , Reply# 5 6/5/2013 at 05:47 (4,201 days old) by bajaespuma (Connecticut)
Checkrate/Likes Did anyone notice this is an 18" machine? And even though it's a D&M, for an eighteen incher, it looks very full featured and I like the bottom rack arrangement. Seems to me that high-end 18" machines like the Mieles would be more effective with the old James design.

Post# 682536 , Reply# 6 6/5/2013 at 07:22 (4,201 days old) by lovestowash (St. Petersburg, FL)
Checkrate/Likes *24" only...* on the Roper version... we did have an 18" lower-end model... George

Post# 682542 , Reply# 7 6/5/2013 at 07:50 (4,201 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)
Checkrate/Likes This is a 24" machine. The pop-up tower is confusing but it is full-size. We had this exact model but ours was a Roper. It was likely put in by the kitchen re-facing company that butchered the original kitchen in our house sometime before we bought it in 1998. I thought it was strange to have the pop-up wash system in a high-end D&M the first time I saw it. The rapid-advance timer and countdown display were attractive on the machine and it was a quiet dishwasher overall. Those upside down "V" tines in the lower rack were dumb, made loading harder for many things and the cut-out just made things worse. Large pans were impossible to fit into the machine (a la GE) combined with the extraordinary amount of water it used (for fewer dishes) so it certainly didn't improve things for D&M but I think by this time they were on their way down the drain of history anyway. We used it for a couple of years before the door liner began to rust and the timer motor stopped working. This post was last edited 06/05/2013 at 08:09

Post# 682546 , Reply# 8 6/5/2013 at 08:05 (4,201 days old) by combo52 (50 Year Repair Tech Beltsville,Md)
Checkrate/Likes *Modren Maid DW* 18" ?, It does look narrow in the picture but it is a 24" model. The lower rack in this era of D&M DWs was the WORST lower rack design D&M ever came up with and with only a Pop-up-Tower to wash the insides of glasses in the top rack these DWs were known for Cleanings Failures in the four corners of the top rack , You either had to be an engineer and load these very carefully or just rinse everything first to get particle-free dishes out of one of these DWs, Thankfully they did not last very long in most homes.

Post# 682792 , Reply# 11 6/6/2013 at 17:59 (4,200 days old) by whirlykenmore78 (Prior Lake MN (GMT-0500 CDT.))
Checkrate/Likes *YUCK!* Poorly built and even worse design. It is a great collector piece but as a DW it's a piece of $#!T. I knew several people who were cursed with these and hated them. WK78

Post# 683884 , Reply# 13 6/14/2013 at 14:31 (4,192 days old) by mrb627 (Buford, GA)
Checkrate/Likes *Buttons* Those sure look like Kenmore buttons to me....LOL. Malcolm

Post# 683903 , Reply# 14 6/14/2013 at 16:05 (4,192 days old) by roto204 (Tucson, AZ)
Checkrate/Likes *Definitely* Sure are! Those are the same indented squares our '83 Kenmore had. Only it had the recessed sliding simulated woodgrain panel for that touch of chic. My grandmother didn't realize there were buttons under that door until I slid it back one day and discovered them. I guess she wasn't hip to scoping out the manual, but then again, she was still mourning the loss of her top-load Mobile Maid (circa '67 or '68), and wasn't much interested in the D&M anyway. Besides, she and my grandfather had a unique dynamic: She specified an item to purchase, configured the way she wanted, and he went to the store and invariably came back with something else. Like the dishwasher. Like the DD Kenmore washer that wasn't the largest capacity, so her bedspreads didn't fit. Like the '87 Buick when she wanted an Oldsmobile. :-)

Post# 682555 , Reply# 9 6/5/2013 at 08:52 (4,201 days old) by peteski50 (New York)
Checkrate/Likes *modern maid D & M!* This is the 1st modern maid D & M I saw with this design with the tower. I have saw this horrible design on the caloric and roper. This is when D & M was trying to copy maytag! I don't know what they were thinking? I only like the models without the towers and the full arm under each rack! Peter

Post# 682759 , Reply# 10 6/6/2013 at 13:37 (4,200 days old) by lovestowash (St. Petersburg, FL)
Checkrate/Likes *If you think the tower is bad...* When I started with Roper, our low end model did indeed have two full-sized spray arms... One under the bottom rack, and one above the top rack... Nothing in the middle to wash the glasses blocked by pots/pans on the bottom... George

Post# 683877 , Reply# 12 6/14/2013 at 13:32 (4,192 days old) by roto204 (Tucson, AZ)
Checkrate/Likes *Huh* No D&M fans here, I see. ;-) I saw this machine, badged as a something-else, at the Phoenix yard years ago, before they ran their remaining dishwashers through the chipper-shredder. I loved the analog countdown timer. Very sleek. The wash system (tower, with the mid-level wash arm stuck up top) worked great for me; this was one of my favorite systems (on my Montgomery Ward unit) before somebody bade my dishwasher to die ;-) (ahem). The Magic Chef I had, which was similar but with no tower, was a royal pain to load; it might as well have been a single-wash-arm machine. With this design, I really liked having the long arm up top, because a D&M machine is a master particle-depositer, and you need something to blast the gritties out of the concave surfaces of anything up top. It was a typical D&M; with the help of seventy-two water changes, it leveraged serial dilution to accomplish the seemingly impossible. I didn't have issues with washability in the top-rack corners; I hold no engineering degrees, nor do I pre-rinse a thing. I do think about things like where the water's originating from, though, and thus don't do things like face bowls to the tank wall. D&M had an absolute panoply of bottom-rack designs, and I agree with Greg that this was their second-stupidest. The first prize belongs to a variant of this style where the saucer rack above the tower RAN FRONT TO BACK along the whole rack, thus sub-dividing all of your lateral space completely and effectively giving you the world's first 18-inch 24-inch machine in terms of capacity. Friends of ours had a Caloric used mostly to store potato-chips (probably for the best), and it was mint inside. They offered it to us when they moved, and we politely declined. :-) D&M's all-time achievement toward the end was digital controls (don't get me started on the soil separator); I've not had the pleasure(?) of using one of those machines, but I'm guessing--based on current electronic reliability trends with more credible manufacturers--that there's a reason why there are not many around to play with.