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How long should a dishwasher's tank of rinse aid last?

4 years ago

My Bosch 800 series dishwasher started going through rinse aid at an alarming rate, requiring me to refill the tank after just a few days. I searched for the problem and learned it probably needed a new door on the dispenser, so I replaced it. Now it's been 5 months since I filled the tank and it's still not prompting me to refill it yet.

My question is, how long should a tank of rinse aid last? Please don't say, "it depends." That's all I ever see when I do a search, and that answer is useless. I need to know if I need to replace the whole dispenser. If it helps, I have the dispenser set to '2', I use Finish Jet-Dry, and I run the dishwasher once a day.

Thanks.

Featured Answer

Cavimum

4 years ago

Our Bosch 800 DW has the rinse aid set at the lowest dispensing setting, and is run generally every other day with a full load. I have to refill every six weeks.

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Comments (7)

kevinande
4 years ago
The answer to that is completely dependent upon the washer in question, capacity of the tank and how often you wash. Under normal circumstances approx once a day usage, I would GUESTIMATE about 3 to 4 weeks for an average dishwasher.
morz8 - Washington Coast
4 years ago
Do you have symptoms of something wrong you need to correct? Are your dishes acceptably dry and not spotted?
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LOL Gary, I saw that post by the person who filled that reservoir with soap. That would so not be pretty. I'm pretty sure that it's a similar style to yours. There is one long unit across the door, with two spring loaded doors. The seal on the rinse aid reservoir looks like the one you described. What I think is happening is that the rinse aid is leaking out of the bottom of the plastic unit. I'm hesitant to put anymore rinse aid in there, because it's such a total pain in the rear to get all the suds out of the DW when it gets overdosed with the rinse aid. Thanks for looking it up for me, though, much appreciated. I like your idea of putting a colored liquid into it--I might through some food coloring into some water and put it through, just to see what happens. I wish mine was still under warranty, but it's out by a good bit, even though we did have a Miele tech install it, so we got two years. I'm going to see if I can find out how the thing is attached to the door. Maybe that will give me an idea of where the problem lies. Cj
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M
4 years ago
We have extremely soft water. We have configured our Miele dishwasher accordingly. We run a load almost every day. And I think it only prompts me every six months or so that it needs more rinse aid.

As long as the dishes come out clean, who am I to second guess my dishwasher
wdccruise
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
How about this: if the dishes come out clean, ignore the problem as you probably don't need that stuff anyway. I use these Cascade Actionpacs -- no rinse aid, no dry cycle -- in my old Whirlpool dishwasher and the dishes come out near perfect every time.
dadoes
4 years ago
Rate of usage also depends how much a given dispenser releases per dosage, and how much the dispenser reservoir holds.

My dishwasher releases 0.5ML for each "notch" on the dosage adjustment, 1 to 5. It holds 50ML (smaller than most). Set at 2, releases 1ML per cycle, which would use up 50ML capacity in 50 days running once per day.

Some dispensers hold 104ML, others 150ML to 175ML. It depends. I didn't find anything referenced for Bosch on a quick search.

"It depends" is the only possible answer to your question unless/until you determine those specifics on your model machine, Perhaps you should call Bosch ...
carnivore
Original Author
4 years ago
I reprogrammed the rinse aid dispenser setting after posting this, setting it to 4 instead of the default 3 (not 2 as I had mistakenly written in the original post).

The refill light came on in 2 weeks.

I suspect the dishwasher may have somehow lost its saved programming and possibly wasn't dispensing any rinse aid at all until I reprogrammed it.

I'll track how long this batch lasts and try to remember to report back here. The problem with all the "it depends" posts is that they are no help at all to someone trying to troubleshoot a problem. Hopefully I can help users with a similar issue find an actual baseline to compare against.

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