Our dishwasher suddenly “broke” a couple of years ago with the same problem. We finally broke down and bought a new one. For some reason the new (and expensive) one had the same problem. I found out a couple of things shortly afterward. Our community which normally has fairly soft water had to change something temporarily which made the water much harder, and I didn’t know that phosphates had recently been removed from my dishwasher detergent.
Turns out you can still buy detergent listed for commercial use with phosphates. I’m not in any way affiliated with and won’t even provide a link, but I found Bubble Bandit detergent and ordered a couple of packs. My community was also nice enough to fix the water issue (we don’t have a water softener in our home) and combined with our new detergent suddenly our problem was resolved. I just ordered a case last week which should last about two years and is cheaper than the typical commercial brands.
No idea what the cost of running vinegar in your wash is, but this solution is cheaper than even just buying Cascade (and not adding vinegar).
Pour in the vinegar, but omit the powder (or gel if that’s what you use).
But it doesn’t seem odd, and no, I wouldn’t think the vinegar would drain away. The dishwasher doesn’t drain at all–the water and vinegar get pumped through the sprayer, then get pumped out at the end of the cycle.
to everyone who recommended that Dishwasher Magic product. Our dishwasher was leaving everything with a white gunky film that had to be hand-scrubbed off. Vinegar didn’t do squat. Based on the recommendations in this thread, Mr. Shoe bought a couple of Dishwasher Magic bottles: ran one through the cycle, tried a cycle of dishes: "Hmmm … better … " and ran a second bottle through a cycle.
All dishes run through the dishwasher since then are CLEAN. Like they’re supposed to be.
For the record, the stuff comes in a bottle that is run through an otherwise-empty dishwasher. You set it upside-down in your utensil rack, and it has a little wax plug that dissolves in hot water to release the product, so they recommend running the nearest sink until the water runs completely hot, so it’s already hot in the line when you turn the dishwasher on.
It works - thank you, everyone who recommended a Thing That Works!
Someone upthread said they found it at the grocery store, but it wasn’t at my locals. The website for the product has a store guide - my husband wound up finding it at Lowe’s.
@JoeyP. usually by the time the dishwasher is full and ready to be run I’ve been rinsing/hand-washing to the point that the water is scalding hot.
Sorry the vinegar trick hasn’t worked for many of you.
All I can tell you is that it has worked for us…and maybe your machines were simply more gunked up to begin with. We have never once had a problem with our hard water and calcium build up since we started adding the vinegar, but prior to that, not only were glasses coming out with cloudy film, it was so bad we had even the wheels on the racks sticking and not moving.
