Autopia Clean Wtare Filter Review

[spacecowby]

I got my deluxe water filter kit from autopia.com a couple of days ago. Yesterday I spent a couple hours building a box for it to stand on as I rent now and didn't want to drill onto the concrete. When I woke up to day I was super excited to try this out. The unit is very sturdy and seems to be constructed well, however the fittings that are used on the two hoses I received could have been better as they sprayed water all over when I was using it. The filter kit dramatically reduced the overall pressure of my water. I still had enough to use my foam gun but with this kit you won't be blasting bug guts off. I wen through my was as normal; wheels, foam, wash mitt, and sheeting rinse. At this point I was very impressed. Almost all the water was gone and the water that was left came off easy. At this point I decided to do a little experiment. A couple weeks ago I bought a cheap inline filter made for RV's off amazon.com and I swear it made the hard water spots worse. So I filled three cups full of water. One with no filter, one with the blue filter (amazon), and one with my deluxe filter. I then put one drop of each on my car and let them dry. Much to my dismay when dried they all looked the same! The deluxe filter seems to have done nothing for the hard water spots. When I ran my finger across all three I will say that the deluxe filter spot did not feel as harsh. After I wiped them off the blue filter spot was still visible, so it did somehow make the spot worse than having nothing. At this point I'm about to give up I am not sure what else I can do.

[camarozzzz]

Honestly friend, I have found water filters to be sort of a scam...went through the same kind of thing you did here. :(

[spacecowby]

I hope that's not the case. Maybe Todd will come in here and help explain.

[Todd@Autopia]

Originally Posted by spacecowby

I hope that's not the case. Maybe Todd will come in here and help explain.

Water softeners work by exchanging the hard mineral ions for sodium ions. If you have a really hard water, then you will get a lot of sodium ions in return as the softener works. This may result some 'spot' like residue, which should be sodium vs calcium/magnesium, which can damage paint.

The 'spots' should wipe away with ease. They will not damage paint. Even lightly towel drying or blowing the car after washing will pretty much eliminate these light spots from forming.

If you want a 100% spot free wash, then we offer the CR Spotless systems which use de-ionized water instead of softened water.

[spacecowby]

So with the CR there would be absolutely, 100%, no water spots?

[Iomcamaro]

Originally Posted by spacecowby

So with the CR there would be absolutely, 100%, no water spots?

Exactly. It will depend on how hard your water is to determine how many washes you can get before you have to change the resin, but there will be 0 water spots because it removes EVERYTHING. Your water will be 0 ppm or very close to it.

[Todd@Autopia]

Originally Posted by spacecowby

So with the CR there would be absolutely, 100%, no water spots?

Correct, provided that no dust lands on the paint during drying and all soap residue from the wash has been rinsed away.