The Hobart AM15 and the CMA-180 are both door-type high-temp warewashers, the kind you load a rack into and pull a hood down over. Not undercounter units, which matters because the undercounter class has a shorter service life and different economics entirely.
The AM15 is off retail. The CMA-180 is still sold new. Conventional wisdom says the discontinued machine is the risky one and the current machine is the safe one. The evidence points the other way, and it is not close.
The prices, and the surprise inside them
Start with the AM15, observed August 19, 2026:
- $3,000 used AM15T, single-rack high-temp, 208-240-480V, Carson City NV.
- $4,500 used, single-rack high-temp, natural gas, Houston TX.
- $4,995 "like new condition, tested, powers on, full wash cycle confirmed," open to negotiation.
- $7,499.00 fully refurbished, tested and working, multiple voltage configs, from a restaurant equipment dealer.
That reads as roughly $3,000 to $7,500 used, clustering $3,000 to $5,000 for as-is and tested units, with $7,500 buying a genuine refurbishment. We also found a used AM15VL ventless in Toronto at around $15,000 CAD and excluded it, because a Canadian-market or bundled-install price is not a US comp and averaging it in would drag the whole range somewhere untrue.
Now the CMA-180, same date. New pricing on the ventless VL family runs $14,896.20 for the standard VL, $15,580.80 for the front-loading VL FL, and $19,897.80 for the VL Tall. One retailer cites a $25,945.00 list against that $14,896 street. Do not split the difference between those two numbers; the gap is a channel artifact, not a market.
And a pre-owned CMA-180-VL was listed at $8,999.00.
Read those two used figures next to each other. A fully refurbished Hobart AM15 at $7,499 is cheaper than a pre-owned CMA-180-VL at $8,999. The premise that CMA sits below Hobart in the used hierarchy does not hold up against the listings. Part of that is submodel: every clean CMA figure we found is for the ventless VL, which carries a real premium over the straight C, S, and TS models. Non-ventless CMA-180 pricing we could not source at all, which is its own answer about how thin that market is.
Discontinued is not the same as dead
The AM15 is genuinely off retail. Searching a major restaurant supplier for it returns replacement parts and the successor line, not a machine you can buy. The successor AM16 family runs roughly $17,600 to $27,900 new depending on configuration, which is the honest anchor for what a new equivalent costs.
Our rule on this site is that a discontinued model with a deep parts catalog is a value play, and one with a thin catalog is a countdown timer. Parts Town lists 613 line items for the AM15. That is the largest parts catalog of any model we have researched for this site, on a machine the manufacturer stopped selling.
Better still, those are not vague listings. Prices as of August 19, 2026:
- Float switch and probe assembly, low water: $407.42
- Solenoid valve, 1/2 inch, 120V: $322.12
- Rinse arm assembly: $290.70
- Contactor, 110-120V, 40A, 3 pole: $253.91
- Bearing assembly: $137.22
- Rinse probe assembly: $100.30
- Temperature control kit: $91.43
A second retailer independently stocks an AM15 maintenance kit at $216.97, an upper manifold kit for the ventless at $528.17, a wireform assembly at $441.94, and a pump-to-tank gasket at $8.36. Two independent channels still carrying the model years after it left retail is the definition of a supported orphan.
What we do not have is an installed labor total. Parts prices are not repair quotes, and we are not going to add an imaginary labor multiplier to make one. On the CMA side, Parts Town stocks CMA-180 straight, TS, and UC parts, timers and overlays and drain hardware, but no line-item pricing surfaced at all. Compare the two paragraphs above and you have the real argument for the Hobart.
The recall check, and why most pages get it wrong
We checked CPSC for both brands. Neither turned up a recall. That answer is worth less than the method behind it, so here is the method.
CPSC's own search filter is broken for automated checks. The ?combine= query on cpsc.gov returns the same generic list of about twenty unrelated recalls, fire pits and mattresses and ceiling fans, regardless of what you search. We proved it by feeding it "scotsman," a brand with a known 2010 CPSC ice machine recall, and getting back the identical generic list. Any page that says "we searched CPSC and found nothing" using that tool has found nothing about anything.
The method that does work is the static category page. CPSC's dishwashers recall listing is a real page, and it shows exactly one entry: ASKO, September 26, 2019, a power cord fire hazard. No Hobart. No CMA.
We will be honest about the strength of that finding. A category page could in principle omit an older or reclassified recall, and the official search-by-company tool is JavaScript-driven and could not be exercised by our fetch. So: no recall found, checked properly, with a recommendation that a human run search-by-company once before anyone calls it closed. That is a different claim from "recall free," and the difference is the whole point.
What actually breaks, from the service side
On the CMA, the documented failure classes are specific and mostly about water chemistry and electrics. The booster pump can be killed by electrical problems, incorrect wiring or a damaged capacitor, rather than by the motor wearing out. Spray pattern degrades when the inlet screen at the water connection clogs. A solenoid valve that will not open fully needs coil inspection and electrical testing rather than replacement on sight.
The heating story is the one to inspect for. A burnt-out element means total loss of heat, but the more common problem is not failure at all: the sustainer heater gets blocked by mineral deposits and scaling. And a scaled-over rinse temperature sensor gives false readings that prevent heating entirely. A machine that will not come up to temperature may have nothing wrong with its heater. It may just be full of limescale, which tells you what the previous owner's deliming schedule looked like.
CMA's own service training material adds two facts that change a purchase decision. The detergent and rinse-aid chemical pumps are not programmed at the factory and have to be adjusted on installation. More importantly, those chemical pumps cannot be field installed at all; they must come from the factory that way (00:04:12). If you are buying a used unit expecting to add chemical dosing later, that door is closed.
The good news on the CMA is that the wash pump seal is a documented, teachable repair. It is a three-piece kit on AO Smith and Magnetek Century motors, and CMA's own video walks it end to end, including the trick of using pot-and-pan detergent to ease the new seal onto the shaft (00:01:48). The chemical pumps come off with two locking clamps for bench service.
On the AM15 side we have less. No AM15-specific troubleshooting article exists that we could find, and two AM15 repair videos on YouTube have no captions to mine. What we do have is Hobart's own service guidance for commercial dishwashers generally, which names the checks to run before assuming a real fault: clear debris, confirm the wash arms and strainer are in and oriented the right way round, and check that the door and door seals are clean and intact (00:00:55 to 00:01:13).
We can also read the failure profile out of that 613-item catalog, and this is inference rather than a sourced failure study, so treat it as such. The parts stocked as standalone items are the float switch and low-water probe, the rinse probe, the water solenoid valve, the bearing assembly, the rinse arm assembly, and the contactor. Catalogs get built around what people actually replace. Probes, valves, bearings, arms, contactors. That is your inspection list.
How long they last, disagreement included
Two class-level sources give two answers and we are not going to resolve them by splitting. General commercial dishwasher guidance says 10 to 15 years, varying with volume, maintenance, water quality, and detergent choice. Door-type specific guidance says 8 to 12 typical and 12 to 15 well maintained. They disagree at the bottom end, 8 against 10, and neither is model-specific to the AM15 or the CMA-180.
Both sources agree on the swing factor, which is the useful part: regular deliming and cleaning is what moves a machine to the top of whichever range you believe.
Which one to buy
The AM15 is the better used buy on the evidence we have. It is cheaper on the observed comps, it has a 613-line parts catalog with published prices across two independent suppliers, and the successor's $17,600 to $27,900 new pricing means nobody is going to replace these casually, which keeps the parts channel alive. At $3,000 to $5,000 for a tested unit you are buying at the bottom of a supported market. At $7,499 you are buying somebody else's refurbishment, which is a fair trade if the work is documented.
Buy the CMA-180 if you specifically need the ventless VL configuration, which is a real capability the AM15 base model does not offer and which is why VL units hold their price. Forty racks an hour, a 12kW booster, ENERGY STAR certified. Just price it honestly: $8,999 pre-owned against $14,896 new street is a discount of about 40 percent, which means you are paying roughly 60 percent of new for a machine with no warranty and no service history. Ask what that 60 percent is buying.
Walk on either if the machine will not come up to rinse temperature and nobody has checked the sensor for scale, if the booster shows weak or pulsing flow at the rinse nozzles, if the cabinet has visible mold, or if the seller cannot tell you when it was last delimed. On the CMA specifically, confirm the exact submodel before you accept any price comparison, because every clean figure in this market is a VL figure and the straight models are a market we could not price at all.
One thing neither machine gets you out of: the water. Both of these fail through scale before they fail through wear. The deliming log is the condition report.