I've never had a problem placing saucepans in my dishwasher and they've always come out pretty clean.
Just remove any residue from the saucepan or most of the food buildup as possible on the saucepans before putting them in the dishwasher.
Some manufactures don't recommend putting non stick pans in the dishwasher because they say it can cause the pans to lose their non stick quality.
But I personally never have had a problem putting either non stick or regular sauce pans or any pans that are metal or glass in my dishwasher.
They've all come out clean and never harmed the dishwasher or sauce pans or any of the pans I clean in the dishwasher.
Some people prefer to just wash the non stick pans by hand but I never had a problem washing the non stick pans in the dishwasher.