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This post claims that putting vinegar in rinse aid reservoir of a dishwasher leads to damage (similar claims can be found here and here):

on newer dishwashers, the rinse aid compartments have rubber components that aren’t really compatible with acidic things like vinegar.

On the other hand, this dishwasher manual from 2005 explicitly allows the use on vinegar:

Alternatively, it is possible to use household vinegar with a max. 5% acid content

Also, the book of Advanced Cleaning Product Formulations, Volume 4 lists the following recipe for rinse aid:

  • Deionized water - 30%
  • Mazawet 36 - 55%
  • Glycolic acid (57%) - 10%
  • Isopropil alcohol - 5%

So, in essence:

  • at least some dishwashers are not damaged by vinegar
  • dishwashers compatible with common rinse aids are not damaged by weak acids

Is there any evidence of an actual dishwasher which got damaged by regular 5% household vinegar? So far I have only seen two statements, of which neither can count as evidence:

  1. My repairman told me not to use it - it basically means that anything home-made should be used at your own risk.
  2. I started to use vinegar and my dishwasher broke down - Correlation is not causation.
Dmitry Grigoryev
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  • VTC as a random blog post is not a notable claim. – Ernest Friedman-Hill Oct 06 '16 at 11:28
  • @ErnestFriedman-Hill [here](http://dishwashers.reviewed.com/features/what-the-heck-is-rinse-aid-and-why-do-i-need-it)'s another one. How many do you need to call it notable? – Dmitry Grigoryev Oct 06 '16 at 11:34
  • Your second link has only one thing to say about vinegar, and it's "we'd speculate that loading vinegar in your rinse aid dispenser is probably not a great idea". That's a long way from even being a claim. – DJClayworth Jan 08 '20 at 17:39

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