Since everyone is baggin' on Maytag's I'll throw in my 2 cents(that's all I can afford). My parents have been using the A806 that I went through for them since July 2012 and they've never had even the smallest issue with it. It seems to do an excellent job and the few times I've stood there and watched it work the turnover during agitation is strong. Last year we took down a bunch of white lace curtains from the windows upstairs and down at my parents house(all told more than a dozen sets) and washed them on the gentle cycle. These curtains are decades old and half of them hang in direct sunlight, so they should be a bit on the delicate side, yet they emerged from the wash clean and undamaged. Obviously it'd be foolish of me to argue with those who claim to have had a different experience and call them liars, but I can say that I haven't seen the problems being described. (knock on wood) I'm very happy with my old Maytag.

It is well documented that MT washers can be fairly hard on clothing compared to most other brands of washers built during the same time period.  That said they can be successfully used without destroying your wardrobe, as millions of owners have proved.

But the fact remains that MT Automatics always had problems with fabric damage complaints from the very first automatics built, [ I worked for A MT Home Appliance store in the early 70s and our MT rep shared a lot of letters that MT got from consumers about clothing damage, it was a constant problem for MT when consumers switched to MT washers ] the agitator was simply too big for their small diameter tubs, this coupled with the long stroke and squared off fins was not a good design. MTs orignal agitator was designed for a square wringer washer tub and it worked quite well in this application.

MT never had a decent agitator in an automatic washer [ that they designed and built ] till they came out with the Load Sensor Agitator in the last helical drive machines.

Yes even a Norge 20LB washer washing along at high speed will not do the damage that a Power-Finn MT agitator will do to a load of clothing, Consumer Reports proved this years ago.

I can attest to the power of that Power Fin agitator. My aunt on my dad's side had a lower end A-series I believe, can't recall any actual model number because I was very young, and she replaced it with a KitchenAid similar to the one we had growing up. I remember her complaining about certain garments getting stretched in places, but I don't remember if anything tore. Her problem however is that she and all of that family of four have absolutely no care at all if things like laundry or dishwashing are done right; as far as they're concerned, if you pack the washer with clothes and dump a scoop or cap of detergent in, and the washer has run, the clothes are "clean". She would overload it every time I ever saw the machine run, and the load would slowly, but surely, roll, but with a lot of rocking back and forth. The transmission ended up giving out on the poor thing. Not sure what ended up happening to the KitchenAid either, because she hasn't had it in years, in place of the Maytag Performa with a straight vane agitator that they have now. I myself have already replaced a belt and the pump on that specific machine, and I honestly don't give it very many more years to run.

I can also attest to the Load-Sensor agitator that my Atlantis, currently powering through loads upon loads of my father-in-law's family's many clothes, and its success. I think the low-profile fins on that machine in addition to the broad spirals on the upper-agitator are what does such a good job with rollover and gentle performance.

Now that I've read this thread and reflected on it, to the best of my recollection, I never saw any clothing damage when we had GE machines; the edges of the Activators in our machines were very rounded and there weren't any extra "ears", fins or other protrusions to catch clothes. Also, the Bakelite was very hard and wore down very slowly. Another possible factor is that, if you've ever watched an early FF with the spiral activator do its thing, the first, hard stroke is a very short back stroke that pulls the load downward. The majority of the force is from the "body" of the activator; not so much from the three fins on the bottom.

When I first owned a Maytag, it was an orbital model with the newer version white poly agitator with lots of ridges, four little auxiliary "ears" attached to the post and sharp corners on the bottoms of the "Power Fins". After a little while I noticed holes in sheets and shirts that seemed to increase in number over a long period of time. I changed the agitator to the earlier blue Power Fin version without any ridges or protrusion which improved turnover and seemed to decrease the incidence of damage, but I noticed that the soft polypropylene nicked very easily and left sharp small tears and edges that could catch fabric. One of the things I love about the LG front loader is how gentle it is on almost every material that goes into it. Doesn't generate a lot of lint either; I imagine that was one of the general flaws of any machine with an agitator that oscillated back and forth.

I've been using an A107 for over 2 years now. Never an issue. Even lace curtains and table cloths have come out fine. LOVE my Maytag!

I've also noticed that the Maytag tubs seemed to be very susceptible to friction wear. I've picked up several that were very dull nearer the bottom of the tub, which to me would indicate more along the lines of abrasion than anything. Either way I can't imagine a dull porcelain inner-basket with water in it damaging clothes. I'm using an early 80's Kenmore BD portable with a 1.5cf tub. I overload it but no damage to anything in over 3 months of use, and that thing has a small diameter and tall FIXED agitator fins.

But then again, as a family, we've also never had a WP/KM DD (aka. ShredMore) do any damage to anything that wasn't already on it's way out. Depending on the clothes you buy, some just don't hold up regardless of the washer you use. I've had newer (less than a year old) pants that just sort of dry-rot/tear after a while, but the weakness was with the fabrics breakdown not the washer. My roommate had this happen with some of his vegan clothing at our old house where there were 4 washers hooked up.

We may never know...

Tim