The handwash or delicate cycle tends to use marginally more water to cushion the clothes ... but otherwise, no, there's no way to get more water other than perhaps by manually adding it through the detergent drawer. If you end up adding too much more, the machine will trigger a flood fault and go into drain. People are not understanding that these machines are designed, engineered, and intended to work with a minimal amount of water ... that's part-and-parcel of the high-efficiency, energy-and-resource-saving aspect. You either accept the situation and modify your laundry habits accordingly, or get another kind of machine ... such as a traditional agitator toploader that fills to cover the clothes.

My suggestion for getting the residual detergent rinsed out of your clothes is to keep running them through full cycles WITHOUT detergent until the water runs clear. No need to use the intensive sanitize cycle ... a warm wash on regular or delicate or whatever cycle is appropriate for what's in the load is sufficient. Then start afresh with proper amounts of HE detergent, load sizes, and cycle selections.

I spent a year with a front loader and found the same thing.

If you used the manufacturer's suggested amount of detergent the cleaning was wonderful. Unfortunately it would never rinse out without running them through another complete cycle.

So I used what people on this forum said, which was a tablespoon or two of detergent for a full load. That rinsed out fine and worked for very lightly soiled clothes only. For really dirty clothes that tiny amount of detergent wouldn't clean them.

I tried everything and just went back to regular toploader and couldn't be happier. Clothes get washed clean and rinsed well in half the time.

Curiousshopper,
what kind of toploader did you buy? and I have done so many different types of loads and used different amounts of liquid detergent, I would never try to do the amount recommended, it would take a year to get the soap out.

We have the LG WM2688 and it has a Water Plus button.
It then uses about 6 gals instead of 5 gals, for wash & rinse.
It also has an Extra Rinse button.

I also heard that HE powder detergent was lower sudsing that the HE liquid.

I usually use powdered detergent and just ocasionally do a load with liquid HE detergent. The liquid Tide HE I have tried does not rinse well. It contains a small amount of fabric softener which even left some greasy looking spots on some t-shirts. I have used a lot less than the recommended amount and it still leaves a somewhat strong scent on the clothes. I am using it up on my hot loads like towels and linens since it seems to rinse a little better following a hot wash cycle.

I normally uise the Sears HE powder and don't have any problems with the rinsing performance. The clothes come out with a very light or no scent at all.

Regular TLs that just do one deep fill rinse don't really rinse well. When the pump of our TL failed we had plenty of time to look at and scoop out the rinse water that was still in it. It was quite nasty (detergent residue and dirt, and it was blue). After a low speed spin cycle the leftover of that stuff just stays in the clothes...:-(

I leave an empty plastic "ice cream bucket" weighed down with a brick, in the utility tub right under the washer drain hose.
Even after the washer has finshed it's cycle, I can always see a sample of the "final rinse" water.
No need to empty it, it'll get flushed out next wash load.
Also, you can use up to 1 cup of vinegar (not for silk) in the f/s dispenser in every load to help eliminate the soapy residue build-up.

link: ReaderÂs Digest vinegar in the washing machine

link: Will Original Pine-Sol® Brand Cleaner help to clean greasy work clothes?

Miele released their new models last year stating that they complied to the new 2008 Energy Star requirements. I suspect that all washers now being sold comply, so there is probably no way to get any more water into them.

Perhaps what we need to do is bug the detergent makers and demand that they reformulate their products so that they are clean/clear rinsing in less water - there is no need for all of these suds anyway, not even in He detergents.
They are always releasing a new scent of something - why can't they improve rinsing?