I may have figured out what caused the excessive sensing on my whirlpool duet (95hex).... they came out to rebalance the washer today and all the loads I ran seemed right on target with the washer estimate and only one load spent significant (20-25) minutes sensing in between the wash and rinse. That load was a king size quilt. Seems like large/heavy single item loads are the common factor for me. Possibly a balance issue? I am not convinced it has anything to do with the temperature because I ran 2 sanitary temperature loads today and neither of those spent any excess time sensing, only the bulky quilt, washed at the warm temperature backstory is i was concerned because the machine itself was wobbling at low tumbling speeds (does fine at high spin speeds) so I had Lowe's come out and do a rebalance today...ultimately they couldn't get it to stop wobbling but they did say the initial installation balance was way off. They said they now got it as good as they could and they suspect that the current wobble is either from being on a pedestal or individual unit variation. They left it up to me as to whether I want to ask for a new machine. i decided i will try it out for a while and then decide. can anyone tell me if such wobble is normal? i am talking about the whole washer unit not just the drum. thanks for any input!

I would sit down & read the manual all the way through (except for the spanish part... LOL). I did this before my set was even installed & think I learned quite a bit from it. The Delicate & Heavy cycle are the main washes... They are just different b/c of the amount of water used, the speed the drum spins & tumbles & the water temp. Prewash & AutoSoak are 2 different options b/c they're 2 different things, ie. explanation above. Here are the definitions out of the manual: Heavy Duty Use this cycle to wash loads of sturdy, colorfast fabrics and heavily soiled garments. This cycle combines fast-speed tumbling, longer wash time, and extra high speed spin to shorten drying times. If the water temperature is lower than needed for this cycle, the heater will warm the water to the optimum temperature. NOTE: Use the Heavy Duty cycle for optimal removal of organic soils such as blood. Delicate Use this cycle to wash no-iron fabrics and garments labeled "Permanent Press" or "Wrinkle Free" or that indicate using a "Gentle" cycle on the care label. This cycle combines low-speed tumbling and low-speed spin to reduce wrinkling. Prewash Use this option for heavily soiled loads that need pretreatment. This option adds a 15-minute prewash and drain to the main wash cycle. NOTES: Add detergent to the Prewash and Main Wash compartments of the Dispenser Drawer. When using Prewash, use powdered detergent for the Main Wash detergent compartment because liquid detergent will seep into the washer during Auto Soak. NOTE: The Prewash and Auto Soak options cannot be selected in the same cycle. Auto Soak Use the Auto Soak option for loads of heavily soiled cotton, linen, polyester or nylon with set-in stains. During Auto Soak, water will be added to the drum and the laundry will be equally distributed by a short tumbling phase. Laundry will then be soaked by phases without drum movement. After soaking, the washer drains without spinning. Add detergent to both the Prewash and Main Wash compartments of the Dispenser Drawer. Use powdered detergent for the main wash cycle because liquid detergent will seep into the washer during Auto Soak. For cycles with Hot Wash Temperatures, the Soak temperature is set to WARM. Otherwise the Soak temperature is the same as the Wash Temperature. The Auto Soak and Prewash options cannot be selected in the same cycle. Hope this helps! :)

appliancenightmare, I think having the water heater set to 150 F is problematic in more than one way. You say that you have 4 children, do they never mess with the hot water faucet? I know my 3-year-old uses the warm water occasionally and I wouldn't want her to burn herself! She thinks 120 degrees is too hot... In addition to that, there is a maximum temperature for incoming hot water for the ATC of a FL to work correctly. For the Bosch I think it says no more than 140 F, which is plenty of hot IMO. Does your DW have an internal heater? Maybe you should upgrade the DW if it can't get your dishes clean with water that's cooler than 150 degrees. The Bosch 800 has the option to do "quick" washes on all cycles, but they will not be really short. The 500/500 Plus have the actual "quick wash" feature that is supposed to take 25 minutes. 2 hours is not the cycle time for a normal cycle. The sanitary cycle takes that long and can take even longer if you choose additional options (extra rinse, bleach, etc.) I agree that it would be nice to have the ability to manually pick the water temperature. The manufacturers have vary different definitions of cold, warm and hot. I think the Bosch Nexxt has pretty good temperature choices though and it uses the heater throughout the cycle to keep the water at that temperature. The other two probably also do that on most cycles, but I haven't studied the manuals of them. If you want to read the Bosch manual, I think the 800 is very similar to the 700 and you should be able to find the manual for that on the Bosch website. It is not easy to choose a good washer, but the three washers on your list are all very good choices IMO. Good luck!

buehl, Anyone who has cleaned a non-flow through, non-flushing whole house humidifier knows exactly what I'm talking about. Kind of looks like a science fair project gone astray. I know nothing about the Whirlpool (& related brands) implementation. It's possible they addressed this issue but don't know one way or the other. I looked through the service and technical training manuals for the LG steam washer and there doesn't appear to be any flushing of the steam generator. It does have a bleed-off port, but it's only meant to be manually opened if the generator needs replacement (the generator has no serviceable parts). Fans of the LG machine seem to get good results and always point it's top rating by CR. A careful read of the CR article doesn't show one way or the other if they even tested the steam feature. Often if something has a unique feature they will highlight it in a sidebar, but no such info appeared in the article. I believe CR just tests things in pretty vanilla default cycles so it's very likely the steam was never fired up in their testing. An email to CR brought no additional info. Nevertheless, the LG performed well in their tests (most likely without steam) to the extent CR testing has importance to you.