depechek

What I usually do is wash the car regularly (using ur standard hose) and a high quality shampoo. For the final rinse I attach the Mr Clean attachment and use the final rinse setting. This is the only time I use the Mr Clean. Works Perfect! No spotting. Extends filter life.

However, since I cannot find my Mr Clean anywhere (6months now) as a final rinse step I remove the spray attachment from my hose and just keep a steady splash-free stream (less splash the better). This aids in the natural properties of water (cohesion and adhesion sp?) So basically less water on the surface of the car = less towels and time to dry. Try it!!! Works like a charm.

Oh yeah I am in Houston, we are known for hard-ass water. And no I do not have a home softer system.

depechek

I am no scientist but I will try to answer ur question. Probably get flamed for it in the process. Basically, hardness and softness of water is based on the pH scale. Hard water is more alkaline and therefore has a higher pH (7<). Vice Versa for water softness. Pure water pH is 7 and that is the magic number you want to try to achieve. So a water softer helps hard water to become softer, more neutral or a pH of 7. Either extreme is bad news for your paint, too low on the pH scale and water becomes very acidic. So something like Mr Clean (I believe) has two tasks: It is a water softener and it filters metals (naturally occurring in water and picked up from its enviroment such as your pipes).
Extreme pH's in water or traces of metals in the water can etch ur car's paint aka spotting. Ok that is all for "Keeping ur Shit Blingity Bling 101". Gotta hit the books. Damn DAT!!!

djweaver

Let me try a crack at this ...

What is hard water?
Hard water is water that contains dissolved chalk, lime and other materials. Rainwater is naturally soft, but as it percolates in to the ground through chalk and limestone it dissolves and collects these minerals (Calcium & Magnesium). Rainwater which falls on hard rock remains naturally soft. The hardness of the supply of water to your home is dependent on where you live and the source (river or ground water) of your water supply.

What are the effects of hard water?
The minerals contained in the hard water settle out as an unsightly and difficult to remove deposit of hardness scale whenever the water is heated, or when cold standing water evaporates, like your car drying.

How is hard water softened?
To soften water fully the minerals (calcium and magnesium) which cause hardness must be removed.

How is water hardness removed?
Water hardness is removed by ion-exchange. Fitting a domestic ion-exchange water softener is the only process specifically designed to remove all hardness completely from your water supply.

Here's a cheaper version that can be bolted to the house. It also includes a nice little sediment filter.

Clear InLine Hose Filter Canister

petraidm

Don't blame me ... you asked for this:

The U.S. Department of the Interior classifies hardness based on the grains per gallon (gpg) concentration of the hardness minerals. Where hardness is concerned, water containing 1-3.5 gpg of the hardness minerals calcium and/or magnesium is classified as slightly hard; water in the 3.5-7.0 gpg range is considered to be moderately hard; at 7.0-10.5 gpg water is considered to be hard; and very hard water is classified as water with concentrations greater than 10.5 gpg. Soft water has a hardness of less than 1 gpg.

Softening hard water typically involves the use of ion exchange water softener. A typical water softener works on the principal of "cation exchange" in which the ions of hardness minerals (an ion is an electrically charged atom or group of atoms) are exchanged for sodium ions, effectively reducing the concentration of hardness minerals to insignificant levels. As the water enters the softener is passes over a resin bed in a special tank. The resin is made up of tiny beads of styrene and divinylbenzene which attract and hold sodium of potassium ions. The beads will exchange these ions whenever they encounter another ion such as calcium or magnesium.

BTW as a chemical engineer, this makes perfect sense to me! If you want even more details, let me know!

tcho82

I've tried this and haven't had good results. I used to use the Mr Clean system on my accord a year or two back, simply because I was lazy. With their shampoo wash system the whole thing worked incredible. No streaks, no spots, etc...

I used it using my own car wash and then rinsed it off with the mr clean system, it just didnt not rinse off as well. And there were still spots left. With the mr clean system, you dont really need to rinse much of the car off, everything kind of just sheets or falls off. You can really see the water fly off as if it is repelled by the coating left on the car. Without using their car wash, this effect was dramatically reduced did not work nearly as well as with their shampoo. I'm sure if you rinse the car off VERY VERY well it would work much better, but then that would be wasting the filter, and I think that defeats the purpose.