How to deal with EXTREMELY hard water

[66olds442]

So i washed my camaro by hand for the first time yesterday. I have to use a coin-op place as I live at an apartment. I washed my car following the 2 bucket method, and when drying my car I used adam's Detail Spray. But when I finished drying the car I had a TON of hard water marks on the car still.

I looked up how bad the water is here for hardness and here is what I found. In San Angelo, TX water hardness is 576 mg/L and anything over 181 mg/L is considered Very Hard. So obviously thats why i got so much marks on my car. Thankfully the DS made it easier to get the marks off, but it still was extremely frustrating to make my car look good. Anyone have any recommendations on how to make my next wash a little less painful.

[bigwayne3000]

Not real sure. You really have no way around the hard water since its the whole city you said. What you may be able to do is go to Home Depot and buy water softner salt (salt that people use to lessen the hardness of their home water via filtration system) and put some of that salt in your buckets when you go to wash. The salt may help lessen the water but I'm not sure. I guess its worth a shot unless someone else has a better idea.

[garcmol]

autogeek.net sells an inline filter that goes from your spigot to the hose.



http://www.autogeek.net/clinhofianda.html

[rolnslo]

You should see if you can find a coin-op place that has a spot-free rinse option. Usually they won't filter the water used for rinse/soap/etc... but the spot free rinse option is usually low pressure filtered water.

If you can't find that, soak the entire car repeatedly with high pressure rinse water and dry it immediately in the shade with multiple towels. Do not let the water dry on the car by itself.

[rolnslo]

Originally Posted by garcmol

autogeek.net sells an inline filter that goes from your spigot to the hose.



http://www.autogeek.net/clinhofianda.html

I use something similar at home but it won't do much good if your only option is a coin-op wash. Mine works great though.

[garcmol]

I didn't notice you have to use the coin op. Sorry.

[MMC]

Do not add salt to the water! That is not how softeners work, they use the salt to regenerate the water softener when they back flush. You may want to try a Mr. Clean filter for the rinse, these use deionizing resin and that will remove some of the contaminents from your water. The inline filters will remove sediment but do nothing about the hardness of the water, inline charcoal will remove some chemicals but still nothing about hardness.
The solution is a softener, then a reverse osmosis system then deionizing resin beds and then no spots! This is not something you will want to have to pay for though.

[Adam's Polishes]

Easiest solution is to simply reduce the amount of water left on the surface before even starting to dry.

Take a garden watering can with an open ended spout like this one with you next time:



Fill it with water before you even start washing and have it on standby. Once you finish your wash routine and rinse with the pressure washer (work quickly to avoid letting water dry) rinse from the top down using the watering can - this is known as the 'sheeting' or 'pool rinse' method. The slow stream of water will push the beads of water off the surface and greatly reduce the amount of water you have to contend with in the first place. If done correctly there will be VERY little water to contend with.

Then dry quickly using DS and you should be fine. Also altering your start time will help... work in the earliest part of the day before the sunlight is harsh... afterall the less you let water dry the less chance for spotting there is.

[66olds442]

Thanks everyone for the help. I plan on doing what dylan recommended, I also am going to look around for other coin-op places. The one I used last was pretty crappy.

[MillerTime]

Originally Posted by Dylan@Adams

Easiest solution is to simply reduce the amount of water left on the surface before even starting to dry.

Take a garden watering can with an open ended spout like this one with you next time:



Fill it with water before you even start washing and have it on standby. Once you finish your wash routine and rinse with the pressure washer (work quickly to avoid letting water dry) rinse from the top down using the watering can - this is known as the 'sheeting' or 'pool rinse' method. The slow stream of water will push the beads of water off the surface and greatly reduce the amount of water you have to contend with in the first place. If done correctly there will be VERY little water to contend with.

Then dry quickly using DS and you should be fine. Also altering your start time will help... work in the earliest part of the day before the sunlight is harsh... afterall the less you let water dry the less chance for spotting there is.

Might i add that also doing this will reduce the amount of time that the towels are contacting the surface of the car and will reduce scratches as well.

[redirish]

Originally Posted by garcmol

autogeek.net sells an inline filter that goes from your spigot to the hose.



http://www.autogeek.net/clinhofianda.html

I Installed a water softener in my house but I never tried soft water to wash my car. Is it safe and will it really make a big difference as far as water spots?

[garcmol]

Originally Posted by redirish

I Installed a water softener in my house but I never tried soft water to wash my car. Is it safe and will it really make a big difference as far as water spots?

Honestly, I don't know. I don't have the hard water issue. I don't let water (from the hose) sit on the car long enough to have had a problem with spots and I do not have this filter.

I would think that as long as your not allowing water from the hose to just sit and bake on the car there wouldn't be an issue. But again, I don't have a hard water problem where I'm at.