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Whole house water softener is the answer. You guys will bathe, cook etc with hard water in the house but it's not good enough for a car ???
Salt-based water softeners are specifically banned in my county and several others in Cali. I installed one in my Indiana house and would have here as well but HD and Lowe's will not even sell them here. I've heard that non-salt-based softeners do not eliminate spotting.
Natural spring water bought in 1 gallon jugs. Placed in the sun, charcoal filters clean the evaporating water where the vapors are then hermetically sealed in a UV protective container.
We have horrible hard water laden with minerals here in SoCal so I use a deionizing filtering system and heated air from a Master Blaster. I can actually let the car air-dry with a nearly perfect finish due to the deionized water.
I've been looking into this system. Glad to hear it works well. I need to repolish my car because I let some hard water dry on it in a few spots when I was trying to wash it a little too early in the afternoon.
Salt-based water softeners are specifically banned in my county and several others in Cali. I installed one in my Indiana house and would have here as well but HD and Lowe's will not even sell them here. I've heard that non-salt-based softeners do not eliminate spotting.
What on earth are they thinking? Salt based softeners do the job and they are the only things that do. We live in a "karst management" area, where the incoming water from the well is around 30 gpg, and our automatic softener really sorts things out - just need to keep it supplied with salt.
If I had the misfortune to live where you do, I would just mail order a proper softener and be done. Or take the truck and do a road trip.
We have well water, and it is terrible with hard water spots, I wash my car in the shade to avoid even worse spotting, what do you guys use? What's better town water with chlorine, or my awful well water, I rather wash my car at home, but it comes down to water quality. Thanks
I use the wet kind
Seriously...I used to use a water softener filter and then a separate mineral filter and it didn't really do anything for spots except cost me a lot of money and give weak water pressure.
The best thing you can do is wash towards the end of the day so the sun doesn't dry the car before you can get all the water off or wash in the shade.
natural spring water bought in 1 gallon jugs. Placed in the sun, charcoal filters clean the evaporating water where the vapors are then hermetically sealed in a uv protective container.
Rain water. We have a rain water cistern and use that (after filtering) from our hose. Also dry the car with a California water blade after-- but without hard water, i don't have to be as careful to make sure that all the drops are off. we don't really see water spots any more.
A Mr. Clean car washing thingy has a built in filter that use use for final rinse that gets most of the junk out of the water, i used to use that before i moved to my current home. Basically -- it has a switch on it -- soapy water, plain water, or filtered water. so you soap the car, wash it, rinse it with plain water, then flip to filtered water for final rinse. top to bottom like you are painting it. works pretty well....
Driven mine every day for the past 17 years and only "washed" it twice in the past two years. If you use something like Chadwick's you won't have to "wash" the car very often. I wipe mine down daily because it is black and the air is filthy around here.
When I do have to wash the car (i.e. get drenched in mud or something), I use hard tap water and then put a couple gallons of distilled water in a hand-pump pressure sprayer (like insecticide sprayer) and use that as a final rinse followed by blow-drying with Master Blaster...
You're the only one I know of who keeps their Vette in the house. Lol!
We have well water, and it is terrible with hard water spots, I wash my car in the shade to avoid even worse spotting, what do you guys use? What's better town water with chlorine, or my awful well water, I rather wash my car at home, but it comes down to water quality. Thanks
Do yourself a favor and buy a master blaster that blows warm air. After I wash all my vehicles I don't hand dry them with any rags. I use the air dryer to dry it off. Leaves no water spots. Then I use the Chadwick's triple play. Comes out awesome.
I have two black cars and live in sunny Arizona with crappy water so I just wait for the rain and then I hit the driveway washing the car while wearing my topless bikini.
Seriously, I use the hard tap water and keep the car completely wet while washing. A complete hose down when finished washing and then a real quick wipe removing most of the water before it turns to mineral crust.
I use the same method, not the topless bikini thing, nobody wants to see that!! Anyway, also have a black C5, keep it wet until time to give it a wipe, solves my hard water spot problem. Best wishes!
I must be lucky because I just use the water from my spigot with a shot or two of Mcguires car wash and a Griots microfober wash sponge on the paint and a regular sponge on my polished/uncoated rims, rinse off then blow dry the rims first, then the paint with my Sears 200mph leaf blower and I don't even need to touch the rims because they blow dry completely without spots and they are not clear coated. After I blow dry the body I use an Absorber to go over the windows and body but 90% of the water is gone without any spots and 2 of my cars are Black.
I use Alien waterless car wash. no silicone no residue no drip lines NO WATER!!!!the stuff is pretty amazing. trim, windows, paint, plastic, rims, use it on the whole car
I only use high purity heavy water, alto known as deuterium. Sure, it costs nearly $1000 for 1kg of it, but only the best for my Vette. I find the higher molecular mass really helps the water bead off better. lol
In all seriousness, on black cars I've owned previously, I washed them with normal tap water and made sure to keep them wet. Then I'd rinse with a bucket of RO/DI water that I keep on hand for my salt water reef aquarium. 0ppm water doesn't spot!
05-19-2017, 02:49 PM
Anyway, also have a black C5, keep it wet until time to give it a wipe, solves my hard water spot problem. Best wishes!
