Spotless Water Systems - DIW-20, Simple Window, Solar Panel, RV & Car Wash System, Works for All Vehicles, Motorcycles, Bikes, Boats, Planes, Yachts, Towel Drying Eliminated

This is a must if you have hard water. I was shocked that it left absolutely no hard water spots on my car and truck, even on the glass. Well worth the cost. Considering how much you pay for your vehicles, and this helps them last. No leaks. Works very well, and easy to use.

This is a fantastic product, if you're not as stupid as I was.If A few weeks ago while washing my car, I was too slow when drying my metallic black BMW 650i, and I ended up with some water spots on a small area at the rear of the car. Those spots turned out to be so impervious to any spot remover, that I eventually had to have a detailer buff them out of the paint, which of course removed the expensive Ceramic Pro coating I had. Before I reached that point, I decided that what happened to me, would probably happen again if I continued using hard water. After some research, the solution was clear. I needed a CR Spotless deionizer.I received mine on time, and couldn't wait to try it out. Assembly was a snap, with little to put together, and very clear instructions. Within 20 minutes, I was hooking the nice stainless steel clad supply line, up to my very hard household water supply, and connecting my water hose to the output side of the unit. I attached the supplied spray nozzle, and immediately began washing my slightly spotted car. After the final rinse was finished, I proudly strolled into my house, confident that I would return to an air dried car with no additional spots. To my horror, the entire car was covered in water spots. I contacted customer service at CR Spotless to find out what they had done wrong. I have to say, John, and the rest of the staff, handle things promptly, with courtesy, and a knowledge that gets things solved quickly.You see, if you take mineral filled, hard water, and put it through their DIC 20 System, the water will reach the output fitting mineral free. This is the important part of my review, and my main purpose for writing one.DON'T USE AN OLD HOSE ON THIS UNIT!The 10 year old garden hose I attached to the outlet, was so contaminated with minerals, that the deionized waterdissolved many of them on its way through the hose, and then redeposited the minerals on my black car. These spots we're so tenacious that I eventually had to have them buffed off, and my expensive ceramic coating reapplied.Switching to a new hose, dedicated to this unit totally solved the problem of spots. Now I can rinse the car and walk away with no towel drying. When I come back, the car is beautiful!Don't hesitate to buy this deionizing system, just don't use it until you get yourself a new water hose!It should be common sense, but I didn't think of it, so I hope this review keeps someone else from making the same expensive mistake I did.

UPDATE: After 3 months of use my TDS meter has gone from 000 to 007. I do not have a good idea of how many washes I have on the first two cartridges. I have ordered 4 more bags of resin which I think gives me 2 refills. I've also ordered an inline gallon meter so I can see exactly how many gallons between resin changes. Best I can estimate is I have about 20 car washes (2 cars) and 4 Large motorhome washes. Im assuming I'll get another couple of washes in, so maybe 30 uses and it's about $100 per recharge using CR Spotless resin. So maybe $3 per use? I'Ve been using the DI rinse pretty liberally so far. I think I'll set up a second hose for the initial wash and soap rinse off and just use the DI for a final rinse. Also need to make sure I'm not getting alge growth.I have 2 cars and a motorhome and I like washing them. They are all dark, metallic colors and I don't have a nice shady spot to wash them in. Being in Florida the sun can dry the car surface way before you can dry it by hand, leaving hard water spots that are make the car look worse than when you started. I'd been looking into building my own DI system for a while, but my time is limited and I could not find a good DYI project to copy. Another problem is that DI systems are lost in the noise of all the BS surrounding home water treatment systems which I mostly view as a scams. As usual, I figured the only way to know for sure would be to buy one, try it out and if it just doesn't work, send it back.I ordered the CR systems (the large one) which uses mixed bead deionizing cartridges. The cartridges are replaceable, or you can buy new mixed bead resin for around $40/cartridge. $80 sounds like a lot depending on how often you have to recharge your system and since I just got mine I have no idea how long these will last.Let me get the punch line out first. The system works great! I washed my Honda and Lexus and left them in the morning sun to dry. No spots at all. I washed the fender of my son's truck (dark charcoal) and rinsed it with the CR and let it dry. Then I sprayed about half of the area with normal untreated water and let that dry. See the attached picture for the results. The photo isn't great, but you can see on the left side obvious spots and nothing on the right side. The question of course is how long the systems will last before needing new resin beads. The manual says you should get between 800 and 1300 gallons per charge. We'll see. Another problem I've read about is that if you leave water in the system too long (I have no idea what "too long" means, algae grows and ruins the resin beads). Since I wash cars once a week, I'm hoping this won't be a problem. I also think the life of the beads has to do with how hard you water is and what types of contaminants are in there. I've just installed a new water softener for the house, so I'm assuming this will help increase the life between resin changes.As far as the design and construction of the system itself I'd give the manufacture an A all the way around. The unit is on a nicely built tube cart with wheels. It seems to be very well balanced and I don't think it will tip over very easily. All the parts appear well engineered and built well. The only problem is a slight leak at where you have to install the hose inlets and outlets. The manual says to put at least two wraps of teflon tape on the threads (tape is supplied, and I put 3 wraps on). But water still dribbles out of the connection a bit. I'm going to take it apart and put another wrap or two of teflon and try it again.Obviously this is an "out of the box" review with one day's use on it. I will update as I go.