You’re shopping around for a full detail car wash and you have a prospective company on the line. Naturally, you want to know how they’ll clean your car. They tell you the basics before moving onto the water they’ll use – it’ll come straight from the same source as your home’s water supply.
That can create a problem if you’re in Arizona. The state has “hard water,” which is the last thing that you want a car detailer to use when they’re washing your car. Here, we’re going to explain why hard water can be a problem and reveal what a good mobile car detailer will use instead.
What Is Hard Water?
“Hard water” is an interesting term. It sounds like another way of saying ice. After all, ice is just water only frozen to the point it becomes a solid. You obviously wouldn’t want your car detailer bombarding your car with ice. But that’s not what hard water is.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) defines “hard” water as any water that contains a significant amount of calcium and magnesium. Both are naturally occurring minerals that your body needs, which makes hard water safe to drink. However, the minerals in that water have a tendency to stick to whatever surface they encounter when the water evaporates. You’ve seen evidence of this if you have a dishwasher that uses hard water. Rather than being crystal clear, the glasses and plates you remove from the dishwasher have spots or a slight film on them. Hard water can also lead to limescale deposits forming in showers and coffee makers.
What does any of this have to do with Arizona?
Water is officially classed as “hard” if it contains between 121 and 180 milligrams per liter of calcium carbonate. Guess which state has water that fits this description. That’s right, Arizona. The state’s water is hard because each major city mixes its area’s already hard groundwater with Central Arizona Project (CAP) water. The more CAP that’s introduced to the water, the harder it becomes.
What Does Hard Water Do to Your Car?
Arizona having hard water isn’t a problem for your health. It’s actually beneficial as the water’s high mineral content is great for helping you get closer to your daily recommended allowances of calcium and magnesium. However, what’s great for your body isn’t necessarily the right choice for cleaning your car. There are two key issues that using Arizona’s hard water in a full detail car wash can cause.
Create Hard Water Spots
We mentioned earlier how hard water can leave behind spots or a sort of film on items you place in your dishwasher. The same applies to your car. When the Arizona water your detailer uses evaporates, it can leave behind hard water spots. These are white and chalky, with the spots being formed by the minerals left behind when the water evaporates. The problem with hard water spots is that they bond with your car’s clear coat or paintwork over time. If your detailer misses them and doesn’t wipe the spots away, they become permanent fixtures to your car.
When that happens, your only option is to rub the spots out using abrasive measures, which causes even more damage to your paint or clear coat.
Cause Damage to Your Car’s Paint or Clear Coat
Beyond the long-term damage that hard water spots create, there’s a more immediate risk to consider – the minerals themselves. Both calcium and magnesium mineral grains are tiny. The atomic radius of calcium is 0.197 nanometers, which is practically invisible to the human eye.
However, not being able to see them doesn’t mean these tiny grains of mineral deposits don’t exist. When your detailer uses hard water, they’re essentially coating your car with thousands of these microscopic particles of rock. Think about what that means when the detailer wipes your car down. Those minerals scrape against your clear coat or paint, causing micro-abrasions. You may not see these abrasions at first. But over time, they’ll cause discoloration and may leave your car’s paint job vulnerable to more damage.
What Will a Good Mobile Car Detailer Use Instead of Hard Water?
The main takeaway here is that Arizona’s hard water is a no-no for your car. It causes immediate damage to clear coats and paintwork due to the micro-abrasions that happen whenever a detailer wipes that water across the car’s surface. Plus, any hard water spots left behind bond to your car’s coating, forcing the use of an abrasive solution that can also cause damage.
So, how does a good mobile car detailer get around the Arizona hard water problem?
They don’t use it at all. Instead, a good detailer uses deionized water. This is a special type of water that’s created by exposing regular water to electrically charged resins. Those resins remove the salt and minerals from the water, along with the water’s negatively charged ions. What’s left behind is water that is as pure as science can make it.
Deionized water has been around for decades and it’s used in many fields – including the medical and microelectronics industries – thanks to its purity. But it’s not the best choice for drinking. Deionized water can pull ions from your body when consumed. Such pure water can also be susceptible to metal contamination when it’s drawn from a faucet. However, it’s ideal for a full detail car wash because it’s free of the minerals that can damage your vehicle’s paintwork or clear coat.
Ask your mobile car detailer about the type of water they use. If they’re in Arizona and say anything other than deionized water, you’ve just received a signal to steer away from that detailer.
