Product Review: "Compatible" Water Filters

Just did a product review on Amazon.com so thought I'd vent here, too. 

Decades ago- right after we bought this house- we bought a Multipure water filter. They're pretty neat. Expensive, but neat. They take nearly everything out of tap water using a carbon block filter. We've been more than happy with it, but the filter replacements got more expensive over the years. 

Not too big a deal as we'd use one filter well past the supposed 12 month lifespan. I'd often leave the same filter in for two or three years. Earlier this year the wife complained the water coming from our last original filter tasted bad so I went to order another. The price had gone up considerably since last time we bought one so I checked Ebay to see if there were any that were less expensive.

I found a number of supposedly "compatible" filters that were much less expensive. Around $36.00 delivered for these copycat filters, as opposed to close to $90.00 (after taxes and shipping) for the original replacement. The statement on their Ebay listing seemed to claim the same filtering ability as the originals. I took that with a grain of salt. Still, for the savings, why not give it a try.

When it was delivered, I wasn't surprised to see it looked like an original. Screwed right into the fixture and seemed to work the same. Water tasted fine, too. I wasn't sure if it took out all contaminants as the originals but wasn't too concerned about that. Good enough for me, at least as it started out.

Then a few days ago the wife mentioned the water coming from the filter tap tasted bad. Once she mentioned it, I noticed it as well. I figured it was time to buy a new filter, although it seemed to me we'd bought this one around the first of the year. That's nowhere near as long as an actual Multipure filter lasts. But, if I had to buy two a year, that's still less expensive than buying an original. 

Except I'd usually use the originals for more than one year. Sometimes two or three, but I figured what the heck. I went ahead and ordered another phony filter. Then we started wondering exactly when it was we bought the last one. The wife thought it was in the last few months. I thought it was probably closer to January. 

I checked my Ebay purchase records and the wife was right. I bought the last one on March 28. With the filter not installed until around the first of April, that meant only four months use before something went wrong (bad tasting water from the filter, but wife says regular tap water tastes fine). That means we'd have to buy three or four of them a year making the high cost of authentic filters not so high.

I already ordered the phony filter by the time I figured that out. In a few months when that one stops working I guess it would make better sense to buy a filter straight from Multipure. Sometimes trying to save money doesn't save money.