I have a Panasonic DCS12W counter-top dishwasher which has run fine for a while, but yesterday started to give me cause for concern. Following the instructions, each wash has hitherto been soaped by half a tablet only. I use Ecover tablets.
Noticing that everything in the last wash felt greasy when it came out, and that the filters at the bottom looked dirty, I took them all out to clean them. I was horrified to find that their undersides were caked in congealed grease, approaching the consistency of hard wax. It was astonishingly difficult to remove, but after using general kithchen cleaner and a scouring pad on them for a while, I did manage to clean off nearly all of it.
Thinking that most of grease must have come from empty peanut butter jars over a long while, I reckoned I'd rather hand-clean the jars rather than the filters, and decided to leave them out in future.
I then did a wash with a single plate as a test, again with half a tablet, as I had a half left over. Although the plate was not pristine afterwards, it didn't feel greasy and the filters and the water in the bottom looked a lot cleaner. I also realised then that I hadn't put any salt in for a while, so I put in all that I had left, a reasonable amount but not enough to fill the container, put back in all the previous greasy wash with a whole tablet, and set it going.
Today, when I came to empty the machine, I was again astonished. There were some brown marks on the cutlery, which, note, is stainless steel. When I tried to remove these with a scouring pad, I realised they were RUST, on stainless steel? Further the surface at two or more marks appeared to be pitted and damaged for good.
Can anyone explain from the above history why it appears to be that the dishwasher suddenly seems to be eroding my cutlery?