White residue under glasses in Bosch Serie 8 dishwasher — annoying persistent issue since purchase, how can I fix it & is it normal?

[wholelottared]

Hi everyone! Hope you’re all doing well

I’ve been dealing with a frustrating issue ever since I bought my Bosch Serie 8 (SMS8YDI82T) dishwasher last year, and I still haven’t been able to solve it, so I’m hoping someone here might have insight.

The issue:
On both the middle and top racks, whenever glasses or other items are positioned in a way that allows water to pool on top of them, they come out with a white residue in those pooled areas (even though everything is fully dry at the end of the cycle). Technically, it's impossible to angle them an another way as their glass design is that way.

Some informations:
— I always use rinse aid
— I always use salt
— We have hard water (my water provider says it's currently°E21.7) so my salt setting was originally set according to our water provider to: "°E 21–26 (hard) 3.0–3.7 mmol/L".
— Rinse aid level has always been set to maximum (Level 6)
— Detergent: I used both Finish Ultimate Plus & Fairy Platinum Plus, they both had the same issue.

At first, I thought the salt setting might be the problem, so I experimented:
— Lowered it to °E 13–15 (medium 1.9-2.1 mmol/l) which is the current setting now → no real change
— Increased it to maximum °E 39–62 (very hard 5.5-8.9 mmol/) → still no change
It seemed slightly better when I lowered the salt level, but the residue never disappeared, so that was probably just placebo.

Next, I suspected the rinse aid level might be too high. However, everything I’ve read on Google suggests that too much rinse aid causes rainbow streaks, not white residue, so that doesn’t seem to explain it either.

Other settings:
— “Extra Dry” → always enabled
— “EfficientDry (auto door opening)” → always enabled
— Tried the “Shine & Dry” feature→ no improvement

One more detail that might be relevant: when I take these glasses out and simply touch and rub the white residue with a wet finger, it disappears instantly. It’s that easy to remove, no scrubbing at all. Because of this, I end up having to rinse those glasses under water every time before putting them away.

At this point, I’m honestly out of ideas. It’s especially confusing (and frustrating) that a high-end Bosch dishwasher leaves these kinds of stains. Angling every glass so that water never pools on them just isn’t realistic.

Does anyone know what could be causing this or how to fix it? I’ll add example photos along with my current salt and rinse aid settings. I still feel like it might be happening due to my settings, but you guys know better of course.

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated, thank you so much!

 

[rich1953]

Rinse aid is too high, try it in the middle.

 

[wholelottared]

Rinse aid is too high, try it in the middle.

I suspected that might be the problem, but Google said too much rinse aid causes rainbow streaks instead of white residue so I wasn't sure.

I just lowered the rinse aid setting to "Level 3 (Medium)" after your comment, let's see if it will change anything on my next wash. Thanks.

 

[rich1953]

Sorry that I didn't say this, but I would also check to be sure that your filter is clean, I would clean it and also use a dishwasher cleaner with the longest/hottest setting. I also have a Bosch and had the same problem. Once I cleaned it thouroughly and reduced the amount of rinse aid, the problems stopped. Good luck! BTW, I wanted a Bosch and I hate it, lol.

 

[jrap330]

I suspected that might be the problem, but Google said too much rinse aid causes rainbow streaks instead of white residue so I wasn't sure.

I just lowered the rinse aid setting to "Level 3 (Medium)" after your comment, let's see if it will change anything on my next wash. Thanks.

Bosch has the settings default at 5, utterly stupid, at that rate I had to add Rinse aid in a few weeks I do not have hard water but I want to save $$ so I set my Bosch at 2.

 

[jrap330]

Sorry that I didn't say this, but I would also check to be sure that your filter is clean, I would clean it and also use a dishwasher cleaner with the longest/hottest setting. I also have a Bosch and had the same problem. Once I cleaned it thouroughly and reduced the amount of rinse aid, the problems stopped. Good luck! BTW, I wanted a Bosch and I hate it, lol.

Hate it but Bosch and Miele are the best .

 

[whitewhiskers]

A few weeks ago I noticed the dishes and overall interior of my Bosch dishwasher wasn't as clean as it used to look. Turned out the thing wasn't draining completely between cycles. The clue was when I looked down the sink drain where the dishwasher also drained, the drain water was almost to the top of the drain basket. Clearing the drain was very difficult as the blockage was past the trap. An hour of aggressive plunging and swearing got the drain flowing freely. Just something to investigate, make sure your dishwasher drain is clear.

As others have mentioned, make sure the filter at the bottom of the machine is rinsed out. I sometimes scrub mine with a used toothbrush under running water. I like the Affresh tablets. Mom used to put Tang in the dishwasher, back when white vinyl racks turned brown.

 

[henene4]

That looks like a bad combination of detergent, salt and rinseaid.
Given the detergents you mention are pretty much "full service" products and you use separate rinse aid and salt, that could interact weirdly.

But if I converted your water hardness correctly, that's damn hard water.
Do you have any residue issues on the surfaces where the water doesn't pool?
Even though the manual says you shouldn't, you can slant the upper rack to improve drainage from those pooling areas. My mum has one side set to the higest setting to fit tall plates below and the other to the lowest to fit wine glasses above.

 

[wholelottared]

That looks like a bad combination of detergent, salt and rinseaid.
Given the detergents you mention are pretty much "full service" products and you use separate rinse aid and salt, that could interact weirdly.

But if I converted your water hardness correctly, that's damn hard water.
Do you have any residue issues on the surfaces where the water doesn't pool?
Even though the manual says you shouldn't, you can slant the upper rack to improve drainage from those pooling areas. My mum has one side set to the higest setting to fit tall plates below and the other to the lowest to fit wine glasses above.

Thanks!!

Yes, my area has really hard water sadly. I converted it for you directly from my water provider incase if you were wrong, and added a screenshot to this post.

About the rack thing, wouldn't making the middle rack tilted affect the spray arms and how they work?

I actually ran my first program since I changed the rinse aid setting to 3 & made this thread, it's currently drying and has 10 minutes left, I'll share the results here.

What if only the rinse aid was the problem so I shouldn't have touched the water hardness setting at all? Because I lowered it both

About the detergents you're talking about, how does using an all-in-one detergent affect the final result though? Aren't their rinseaid/salt features get drained away with all the rinses after the wash?

 

[wholelottared]

Results after lowering the rinse aid setting to "Level 3 (Medium)" and lowering the salt setting to "°E 13-15 medium (1.9-2.1 mmol/I)"

Really disappointing I feel like it might've gotten even worse, but I can't make sure as I can't directly compare.

Idk what to try anymore. Should I keep the rinse aid setting the same but make the water hardness higher or something?

Some of the glasses still had some water pooling btw, if I waited for everything to fully dry, I could've taken even more pictures.

 

[DADoES]

That looks to me like hard water/mineral deposits.

 

[me]

Thanks!!

Yes, my area has really hard water sadly. I converted it for you directly from my water provider incase if you were wrong, and added a screenshot to this post.

About the rack thing, wouldn't making the middle rack tilted affect the spray arms and how they work?

Some models do state they can be used with the rack tilted, eg:-


https://www.currys.co.uk/products/b...ze-wifienabled-dishwasher-white-10261950.html

I usually get a white deposit on the bottom of my stainless steel teapot. The water here is a bit harder (357.5mg/litre, 25.025 English), and dishwasher is a much older model, so probably uses more water etc and the softener may not work as well as it once did.

Maybe adding some Sodium tripolyphosphate might help.

 

[henene4]

The user manual always stated you can't.
The service manual I got my hands when I worked there (even though it clearly was just the same paragraph copy and pasted for the past 2 decades) said you can.
My mum has hers set that way for 2 1/2 years now and she had no issue what so ever.


It's the same as with their ovens.
For YEARS they said you could clean the baking trays in the self clean cycle.
Then someone's bird died, they went to the press, it was a fuzz. They changed nothing about the appliance except the manual and suddenly, supposedly, you can't self clean the baking trays.

 

[magic_clean]

As mentioned, the residue appears to be hard water residue. Calcium etc. What is the hardness of the water in the dishwasher sump after a fill. This should help in pointing you in direction of what is the next step.

-LP