New house = hard water = water spots

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Brunkel

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So I moved into my first house this summer after 8 years of the apartment life. Im the MAN

As soon as I started doing washes in my own driveway (woot) I noticed I was getting water spots like crazy. Talked to the neighbors and turns out our city water in this neighborhood is pretty bad. I tried to step up my game with my wash techniques and keeping the car wet every moment I could but still no luck. Every wash is giving me crazy water spots now. :(

I have a really nice set up now with a wide driveway and a recently renovated garage, but this water is killing me! I'm debating just switching to waterless washing...but I'm still a fan of the 2 bucket wash with hose...especially for those really dirty cars. I'm a weekend warrior and only do a couple cars for customers a month so I can't spend a fortune on filtration systems so I'm wondering what other options I have?

These seem more affordable but will it really fix very hard water?
Clear Inline Hose Filter Canister and Accessories

Thanks!
 
I use that filter, it does work, just need to charge or change out the filter often, but it lasts a good 6-10 washes, depending how much water you use. But its a life savor for water spots.
 
We have very hard water here in Phoenix. Add to that, it is exceptionally dry and I have a non-metallic black car, and you have a disaster. I found that i was actually swirling my car during the drying phase as you have to work so quickly, and use a bunch of pressure.

I have switched to rinseless for 90% of my washes and it has made a huge difference. I work one panel at a time and I can dry the car without having to rush.
 
I have hard water, switched to rinseless, never looked back, less stressful.
 
tiSS'er said:
We have very hard water here in Phoenix. Add to that, it is exceptionally dry and I have a non-metallic black car, and you have a disaster. I found that i was actually swirling my car during the drying phase as you have to work so quickly, and use a bunch of pressure.

I have switched to rinseless for 90% of my washes and it has made a huge difference. I work one panel at a time and I can dry the car without having to rush.
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Yes, drying has become a PAIN now too. Water just gets swirled around and I have definitely put some minor surface scratches in my paint from this.
chet31 said:
I have hard water, switched to rinseless, never looked back, less stressful.
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Are you guys using hot water from an indoor tap then? Garry Dean method? I'm tempted to switch...but I love being able to foam a car and just blast the dirt off. hmmm...
 
Inside my house, I have soft water. So I use one bucket of soft water, then Garry Dean method. Rinseless would work with hard water also, but soft water works better obviously - distilled water would work better yet.
 
chet31 said:
Inside my house, I have soft water. So I use one bucket of soft water, then Garry Dean method. Rinseless would work with hard water also, but soft water works better obviously - distilled water would work better yet.
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I have a family member offered their old water softener to me if I was interested. I'm assuming that only affects water inside the house and not outdoor hose spigots though right?

If going the rinseless wash route how does that affect your wheel cleaning process then? I suppose you could still use hose for that since with a focused firehose nozzle you can avoid the paint. I feel like you would still benefit from the high pressure when cleaning off the wheels and blasting the wheel wells.
 
Zero issues with filter and sheeting method follow by detail spray and waffle weave.
 
JMPC said:
Zero issues with filter and sheeting method follow by detail spray and waffle weave.
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Yeah I'm intrigued by the filter for sure. What detail spray are you using as a drying aid? I've been experimenting with V7, Sonax Brilliant Shine Detailer, and a few Megs detail sprays all as drying aids but haven't really noticed a difference in drying capabilities. I do like the gloss of V7 a lot though. I've been water sheeting as well but probably need to go back and look at my technique again.
 
I've got hard water as well, and combined with a drying towel that is probably passed its useable lifespan, it's just going to make the paint feel rough as all those water streaks pushed around by the towel eventually dry up on their own and leave that hard water residue across the paint. So as soon as I got my hands on those wax as you dry products, Meguiar's has one that I've used, and now I actually use Turtle Wax's Wax and Dry because it's more cost effective for me and comes in a larger size, that definitely gets the job done. I leave no streaking behind even using previously less effective drying towels, and the paint feels incredibly smooth and slick and then I go over the paint with a more durable spray wax like Ultimate Quik Wax for maintenance washes when the car is completely dry. Those products are a lifesaver for me.

Rinseless washes will work fine as well, but that's a different wash process and I personally still like to use the traditional method of washing with the hose out.
 
I know it wasn't amazing, but years ago when it 1st came out I bought the Mr Clean Auto Dry. It's a shame they stopped making it, it worked pretty well and you could buy the filters at most stores around here. Someone should make a similar system with higher pressure.
 
Are you sheeting the water off effectively before drying? I know hard water, Vegas has close to 450ppm of minerals compared to the max EPA limit of 500. Check out zerowater's website for a reading for your local area.
 
Brunkel said:
I have a family member offered their old water softener to me if I was interested. I'm assuming that only affects water inside the house and not outdoor hose spigots though right?
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The outdoor hose spigots bypass the softener in a typical installation. If you don't have a softener then you can cut in the bypass loop wherever you want and include the spigots on the softened system, which is probably not what you want to do if you ever want to water the lawn, etc.

However, you can do what I did, which is switch your driveway spigot over to soft (in my case I actually have it set up so I can send either hard or soft to that spigot). Prior to that I used to run a hose out the door from my laundry sink inside.
 
So what's more cost effective. This or a bigger system like cr spotless

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I live in Delaware and the water is horribly hard here . I do 2BM w/ distilled water and UWW+ mixed at rinseless , as well as pre soak each panel w/ UWW+ mixed at WW for added lube .. Distilled is 88 cents a gallon from Walmart which makes it fairly economical IMHO. My weekend car and daily are black , no issues here with marks . If either are more then light dust ,I go to the local coin op and use spot free setting to blow them off first . Although , lately it would seem the cat that owns the one a few blocks from me has gotten cheap and not replacing the filters or something . As the spot free is not so spot free ... Oh but he did raise everything , wash and vac etc.. by a whopping 50 cents .

I was in NC back in April for the 50th Anniversary of the Mustang , it sucked BTW raining everyday but one .Anyway , they have excellent water man . Least where I was at ,near the Race tracks .. Even their coin op car wash's did not offer a spot free setting but instead offered an air cannon of sorts to blow dry . It was sweet as heck man! Not to mention I was in amazement at how many minutes they gave you for $2.50 down there man . Like 20 dag gum minutes! That amount gets you like 6 minutes here .

I WISH our coin op car washes had the air thingy they had down in NC , shoot their car wash was overall nicer in everyway .

I did take all my detail stuff except bought buckets their and figured I give a rinseless wash a shot by using the tap from the shower . Worked great . So, yeah not every state has horrible hard water it would seem .

I wish our water wasn't hard , Id love to be able to foam . We need to make a foam that works like a WW so to speak , foam in a bottle ! :)
 
I use 1 gallon of distilled water, $1 at my local grocery store, and the GD method. When done, I still have plenty of solution left over to refill my 32oz spray bottle which I use to presoak.
 
I used a similar approach to Setec only I just went with two spigots a hard and a soft. The hard water spots no matter how I dry the car. The softened water offers a spotless rinse every time. If you have hard water you will probably end up with a water softener at some point. It sure beats scrubbing those calcium stains you get with hard water on all your plumbing fixtures, wash machine, dish washer etc.
 
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