Why does my Maytag washer barely put any water in the tub even on the deep fill setting?

Stop using the "Normal" cycle imediately. Energy efficiency regulations dictate that manufacturers meet strict water consumption targets on that specific setting, so the software basically locks it down. On almost every newer Maytag or Whirlpool platform, toggling Deep Water Wash while set to Normal adds maybe an extra quart or two at most—it will never truly fill the drum. Switch your standard go-to setting to **PowerWash** or **Bulky/Sheets**. Bulky/Sheets is usually hard-coded to ignore the aggressive eco-sensing routine becasue the machine assumes you have a comforter or heavy bedding that needs to be saturated. Whites works pretty well too. You still won't get an old-school tub filled to the brim, but you'll get enugh water that the clothes actualy submerge and turn over properly instead of just rubbing dry against each other.

If you relly want to check the pressure system just to rule out hardware failure, you can pop the top panel and inspect the small translucent tube running from the control board down to the bottom of the outer tub. Occasionally that hose gets pinched, develops a pinhole leak, or the air dome port at the bottom gets clogged with detergent sludge. That can trick the sensor into reading water pressure too early.

Nine times out of ten, though, the pressure transducer is working exactly as designed and the machine is just doing what its eco-programming forces it to do. Switch off the Normal cycle, throw pods directly at the very bottom of the drum before loading dry clothes, and see if that fixes the rinsing issues.

If it's clicking for five minutes before even trickling water, check the shift actuator—part W10913953 on most of these VMW chassis like the MVWC565 or MVWB765. That little motor shifts the splutch between the basket and impeller during the dry sensing routine. When its optical switch gets coated in belt dust or the motor weakens, it hunts back and forth forever trying to calculate the load mass. Put it into diagnostic mode and pull the fault codes. If you see an F7E1 or F7E5 stored, that actuator is hanging up and throwing off the cycle's entire logic before water even enters the tub.

Totally agree on ditching Normal for Bulky/Sheets—it's night and day with these machines. One detail to add for the detergent residue, though: make sure you turn the 'Fabric Softener' switch on, even if you never use the stuff.

If you leave that off, the board defaults to a pathetic spray rinse while the basket spins to hit efficiency numbers. Toggling fabric softener on forces it to perform an actual deep-water submersion rinse, wich finally washes the soap out.

Have you ruled out how you're actually loading the tub? With these impeller units, if you drop clothes straight into the center on top of the plate, the motor miscalculates the basket's inertia during that dry sensing routine. It ends up reading the load as way smaller than it actually is. Are you placing items loosely in a ring around the perimeter like a donut, keeping the center bare? If laundry is bunched in the middle, the wash action can't pull items down, so whatever is sitting on top never turns over and stays bone dry.