My only concern would be the long term effects on the cars finish, that will probably not be known for years to come. Also, in Calgary it is illegal to wash your car in your driveway. The soap must be fairly strong to remove dirt and grime with cold tap water (unless you are lucky and have a hot water bib) and relatively low water pressure. Asif will probably chime in on this as He is the detailing Guru.

 

I wonder if you could put Zaino soap in there instead.
[Don't tell anyone this but ....... psssssst ........
You can wash your car on your driveway as long as the run off doesn't go out of your property and into the storm sewer. Also, someone must report you first, however, this person can be almost anyone (your neighbour, a by-law officer, police, fire dept. personnel, etc.)]

 

Interesting.. I dunno, about MR Clean.... xviper, try zaino soap and get back to us is the filter really what helps stop water spots???

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by HondaGal
Interesting..

 

Cdn Tire sells the kit for $29. I did see it in the flyer (Walmart or Zellers or Rona I believe!) for $25. I should double-check on the exact location and the flyer.

Is that the case in Edmontont too? I did not know that it is illegal to wash your car infront of your house??? Since my first car back in 99, I wash them infront of my house half of the time.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Seks

 

I'm going to "spill the beans" here. I just came back from a meet with "Cocker Rat" and he has just tried this Mr. Clean product for the first time and I saw the results. I'm sure he will make his own post soon with his own opinion. All I can say is .......................................

Maybe our water in Calgary is a lot harder than in Edmonton, but his whole car was covered with tiny little while spots. When I arrived, he was going over the entire car with Zaino Z6 spray and even this, did not get rid of the little spots. I don't know about the rest of you, but I for one being in Calgary, will not try this product.
Both of us, having used filtration technology have concluded that the filter used in this product cannot be effective at the volumes and pressures that go through it (in a place like Calgary). If you live in a place that has "softer" water, it "might" be OK. What I saw this morning was a most disappointing display.

 

The same here is sask.. especially in our provincial parks.. You can't let your "dirty"water go.. this means water from showers, dishes etc... it is the soap!!!

It is a pain if you are a camper and your tanks fill quick.

 

Ahem... that's "Coker" rat. Comes from a past life running oilsands upgrading units (fluidized coking). The reactor walls build up a black coal-like foulant on its walls called coke, and then on turnaround guys go into the vessel to jackhammer the coke off the walls. They come out filthy and we called them Coker rats.

Anyway back to this Auto Dry. It blows. One caveat, I did not use the Mr. Clean soap routine (Zaino soap in a bucket w/ wash mitt) and merely rinsed thoroughly with the Mr. Clean filtered water.

My reasoning for thinking this product might work is that it claims to deionize the water, same end-result as with industrial boiler feedwater for steam generation... in industry, deionizing water effectively is not one-step process but you could theoretically put ion exchange resins or something similar into a filter pack and remove most ions. However it would be expensive and short-lived.... but I thought I'd give it a try. Note that this is completely different from softening that some people do on potable water.

As xviper said, it left spots all over the car. Many of the bubles were very small, which the product touts as "microbubbles". Yup, and they left microspots wherever they dried. Some spots collected water together to a large droplet on flat unsloped surfaces (specifically on the NSX, top of the front fenderwells, rear quarterpanels and roof). It looks terrible. I might try it one more time for sh*ts and giggles using the Mr. Clean soap first, to see if it IS relying on something in the soap to make this stuff perform. If that doesn't work, I'm going back to Walmart to return this dud. Calgary has exceptionally hard water and it is entirely possible that it just overloads this thing. Might work fine in other cities. This also might work better on silver or white cars where a lot of small spots are not as noticeable as on red or black.

BTW, the box says you shouldn't use any soap but what comes with it, or the filter will plug up.

Re: the bylaw... It has single-handedly established a market for coin-op wash bays and sky-high service station washes. I discovered the other day at Esso that a BASIC WASH is $7.50!! The coin-op places filter and recycle their water, resulting in dirty water at many locations. This whole concept is stupid. I hope my neighbours would understand why I wouldn't wash such a car at a coin-op bay using a) ditry water and b) a brush previously used to scrub down somebody's muddy truck.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by xviper
I'm going to "spill the beans" here.