Which water treatment system?

[Jeffro]

Which water treatment system do you prefer and why? We are located in the city, on city water which isn't particularly hard per se, but it will leave spots in short order. With the interruptions I get, sometimes a "quick" phone call winds up costing me time I don't have!

I'm having a hard time choosing between

Deluxe Clean Water Filter Kit, 2 step water filter system, water filter for car washing, inline hose filter (http://www.autogeek.net/deluxe-filter-system.html)

and

CR Spotless Wall Mount De-ionized Water Filtration System, deionization system, water de-ionizer, purified water systems, cr-spotless, spot free (http://www.autogeek.net/cr-spotless-wall-mount-system-300.html)

Up front, the CR de-ionizer is more expensive (over twice the cost).

Both are supposed to eliminate water spotting. What about maintenance costs for both? Replacement resin vs. reconditioning salt?

I appreciate any and all informed opinions, either way! Thank you so much-

Jeff

[Setec Astronomy]

Those are doing two different things. The first is a water softener, which is doing an ion exchange, exchanging the hard mineral ions for sodium ions. With this system, your TDS will be the same before and after. The second is a deionization system, which will remove the hard mineral ions, after which your TDS will be zero.

The difference is with soft water, you will still have spots, they just will be soft spots, with DI water you will (theoretically) have no spots.

[af90]

It depends on your TDS (Total Dissolved Solids), which is a measure of how hard your water is, 500 is the max EPA allowed.

I recently looked into the CR Spotless system as I'm moving to Vegas soon which has one of the highest TDS in the nation at 400+. But the resin it takes to deionize that high of a number, I would likely get less than 20 washes from it. At 40-50$ per bag of resin it was just too much.

Try to research yours if it's high its ultimately your choice, but personally I'll just dry my car by hand until I can afford a Master Blaster or just a 1-step final polish every 2-3 months to remove any minor swirls that may have been incurred.

[Dadillac]

I went to Lowes and bought two whole house filters and some fittings to mate them together. I use a sediment filter in each filter and my water spotting is practically nil. Whatever spotting I do get wipes off while drying the car

Don