Is Hard Water Bad for Washing Your Car?

Are you getting white, unclean spots on your car after you wash it? Chances are it has been cleaned with hard water.

Anytime you wash your car with hard water, it leaves blemishes and ruins the texture of the paint if not cleaned properly.

So, it’s recommended not to use hard water for your car wash if you really want to protect the expensive paint coating.

Instead, if you get such water from your supply, it’s good to soften the water before using it for your vehicle.

Can you use hard water for car

But what is hard water, after all? And what are the other effects of using hard water to clean your car?

How can softening the water benefit your car wash and how to soften your water?

All these questions and more will be answered in this article. So let’s dive in…

What is Hard Water?

Various ions, minerals, and possibly pesticides, can be found in well water.

The most prevalent minerals discovered in wells are calcium and magnesium, which are the consequence of the interaction between limestone and water beneath the earth.

Although the mineral interaction creates negative health consequences when the water is ingested, the mineral residue left on a car’s paint after it has been cleaned may make the automobile seem dirtier than it did before going to the car wash.

Water spots on your vehicle can also be the reason for hard water due to something called total dissolved solids, TDS for short.

These are the components that remain after the water evaporates and leaves stains.

It can be difficult to remove the spot at times, and if you use harsh water to remove the spot, you will just keep cleaning and ruining it in a cycle.

Why is Hard Water Bad for Car Wash?

If you use hard water for a car wash it will etch into the paint finish of your car and will make it a difficult task to get rid of them with a simple wash.

Also, as it evaporates, it leaves minerals behind such as calcium and magnesium.

The longer these mineral deposits remain on your vehicle, the more firmly they will adhere.

These stains hamper the paint quality of the car, necessitating more complicated procedures such as a complete repaint, which will cost you a lot of money in the process.

When you use auto wax or soap with hard water to clean your car, it will not respond properly.

The present mineral content increases the surface tension of the hard water, which makes it nearly difficult for other solutions to react and provide a decent finish.

how to soften hard water to wash car


How To Soften Hard Water for Washing Your Car?

When we soften hard water, calcium and magnesium (the minerals responsible for the hardening of the water) are replaced by sodium.

The TDS of softened water is nearly identical to that of hard water, as soft water is low in calcium and high in sodium.

Softening is beneficial to the vehicle wash as it leaves little to no stains and also is simpler to remove.

Spots will still appear in softened high TDS water. But they’ll fairly be easy to remove.

Soft water is also the greatest choice for using with detergents and presoaks since it allows you to use less soap while still getting a clean rinse.

But, how do you soften the water for a good car wash? Here are a few simple tips you can follow…

1- Boil your water

Because boiling water only eliminates specific forms of hardness (referred to as “temporary hardness”), it will not work everywhere.

To check if it works for you, try this once. For a few minutes, bring the water to a boil.

Allow it to cool for a couple of hours so that white minerals should sink to the pot’s bottom.

Siphon or sweep up the water’s surface, leaving the minerals behind.

2- Use cleaning solutions

The minerals in hard water interact with the chemical makeup of soap to generate “soap scum”, which is often known as lime soap, which is a solid white buildup that may be seen on water fittings.

They form as a result of the positively charged calcium atoms in the water.

Because of these atoms, soap molecules cannot dissolve, the undissolved soap molecules stick to and aggregate on surfaces.

Furthermore, they facilitate washing the soap away very easily, which prevents scum formation.

3- Fit an ion exchange filter in your tap

The most effective way to make hard water soft is the ion exchange method only.

This type of filter exchanges calcium and magnesium ions with sodium or potassium ions which are present in hard water.

After all the ions have been exchanged, the water softener goes through a regeneration phase to empty the system of surplus ions and reload with fresh sodium ions.

4- Do Chelation

Chelation is a technique for conditioning hardness-causing ions in water so that they do not react with other compounds in the water to produce lime-scale.

The primary distinction between ion exchange and chelation is that the latter process does not eliminate hardness ions from water, but rather alters their charge state, making them inert and less reactive with other chemicals.

The key benefits of this salt-free technique are its simplicity of installation, lack of water waste, low maintenance, sodium consumption, and low environmental effect.

Unfortunately, the conditioning is only temporary, and water that is left to stand for many days or is regularly cycled in a heating system will lose its conditioning and the hardness ions will re-activate.

As a result, water conditioning should be utilized only for water that will be used within 24 to 48 hours.

And thankfully in our case, since we will be using this water to wash the car.

So, after you do the chelation you should immediately use the water on the car.

5- Use Baking Soda

Washing soda is one of the most efficient techniques to treat hard water for cleaning.

It is a chemical composed of carbonic acid salts (sodium carbonate). It softens both temporary and permanent hard water.

Simply put, washing soda removes calcium and magnesium from hard water, and soft water is produced as a result of the removal of particular mineral ions from the water.

As a consequence, soaps will lather up more efficiently.

6- White Vinegar, Distilled

Calcium is inherently alkaline, with a pH greater than 7. White distilled vinegar, on the other hand, has a pH of roughly 2.5, making it quite acidic.

Vinegar can help with calcium neutralization in hard water in this way.

For cleaning, only use vinegar as a water softener.

Spraying vinegar on affected surfaces may also remove hard water stains and spots.

Conclusion

When you apply hard water to clean your car, it does more damage than good.

So, why not use soft water, especially when it’s so easy.

Just apply any of the aforementioned methods, and you should be able to use soft water for washing your car.

Other Related Posts:
Removing the Speed Limiter – Is It Safe? 
Speed-Limiter

The speed limiter is a device that is installed on the vehicle to limit its maximum speed. This is usually Read more

Can You Paint Over Bed Liner?

To discover if you can paint over bed liners and how easy it will be, first understand what it is. Read more

How to Turn Your Garage into a Spray Booth?
How to Turn Garage into Spray Booth

An auto spray booth (or a paint spray booth) is simply an area where you can spray paint your car, Read more

Ecoboost vs. Hemi – Which Engine is Better & Safer?

While both have been popular for many years, the Hemi and the Ecoboost are mechanically distinct engines with distinct strengths Read more

error: Content is protected !!