Just found this site, and very excited because my husband and I bought a house with an inground vinyl lined pool, and have no idea what to do with the pool. There have been two small tears in the vinyl lining (about 5 inches down from the water level top), that were always there, but never seemed to make any effect on anything so we didn't pay attention to them. Last week, we bought an aquabot (after loads of research into which cleaner to get), and we love it BUT yesterday the water level had dropped a few inches, we brought the pool people out (we still are using the same pool service the last homeowners used, until we figure out this whole pool thing) and they said it was because of the tears in the vinyl, and they are coming to patch the vinyl tomorrow. We fear that the aquabot exacerbated the tears, and fear using the aquabot on patched vinyl. (we also are not sure that this dip in the water level has anything to do with the tears, something similar happened before we even moved in, and we just filled the pool and the water level has been pretty consistent, but we figure that patching the liner can't hurt anything)...I called Aquabot, and they say that it can be used safely on patched vinyl, and searching online I do not see any information about this, so I hope someone can help! Since we just got the aquabot, and we got it from Costco, I can return it right now if I need to, but we were so happy with its performance that we really do not want to return it and start the search for an automatic pool cleaner again! hope someone can help? thanks so much in advance for such a great site!