Customer Reviews

PUR 2-Stage Water Pitcher Replacement Filter, 2-Pack

5 star:		(245)
4 star:		(86)
3 star:		(47)
2 star:		(32)
1 star:		(52)

 

 

I've been using this filter for many years now and we feel good that PUR filters filter out more unhealthy stuff in the water than other brands do. However, the new design for this replacement filter doesn't come with the red moving reminder (for you to know it's time to change the filter) anymore. I don't know the reason why PUR would give up such good design. Now they tell you to just change the filter after a certain time. I still think the reminder design is more accurate since it goes by how much water that's gone through the filter, not by how many days.

I'm currently a college student living with 5 other guys and we use Brita filter at the apartment. When you cook with Brita filter, you can't taste a thing, but when you just drink the water, it taste like tap/toilet water. It also leaves those black stuff (part of the filter) on the bottom of the container. Personally, that's just weird and nasty, but maybe people like eating those filter-particles.

Back at home, my family use Pur water filter and I have to say, you can definitely taste the difference. I think that the water filtered by Pur taste like Fiji water. It's awesome. Instead of buying those ridiculously-good-looking bottled Fiji water, I bought huge water containers and take water filtered from home to my school apartment and just drink it myself.

The only downside of Pur water filter is that it costs more than Brita filter. Being an Economics major, I calculated the cost of water per gallon (filtered). With each filter (Pur or Brita), it filters 40 gallons of water. Pur cost $24.99 for a 3-pack (Amazon.com), this means that it costs $.208 to filter a gallon of water (excluding the cost of water itself). Brita filter cost $15.99 for a 3-pack (Amazon.com), this means that it costs $.133 to filter a gallon of water (36% cheaper than Pur). Although it costs more, I still think it's worth the money. I rather spend the extra $.075 per gallon of water than to drink toilet water.

I was shocked when I saw that the new filter we bought from store didn't had red indicator. We thought we bought inferior 2-stage instead of 3-stage. After hours of searching, we realized that our previous filter was CR 950 which is now discontinued by P&G and the new filter is CR 950Z which doesn't have red indicator any longer. Both were 2-stage filters. The phone# for PUR is 1-800-PUR-LINE. According to 70+ reviews from frustrated customers on Amazon, P&G decided to remove red indicator because it was "inaccurate". However my guess is that they might want to simply reduce the cost. Other reviews suggest that 950Z isn't certified for lead any longer (although package do says it does) however from NSF website it looks like PUR they never made broader claims. From same NSF website, however, it looks like 950z is certified for zinc reduction while 950 is not. Those who are opting for 950 instead of 950z should keep this in mind. There was another type called 950L which supposedly was the best of the best in line of the PUR filters (although 950 was labeled as "Ultimate" probably purely for marketing reason). I'm not able to find absolutely anyone selling 950L right now.

In any case, 950Z looks downgrade. My guess is that PUR is more and more leaning towards reducing prices to beat Brita and in the process compromise the quality. They will definitely snatch more consumers from Brita who usually asks for reasonable quality at lowest prices than the best quality at twice the price. So I tried to see if there is anything better on the market than these two brands that serves needs of more demanding consumers. One of the filters I found was 10-stage filter from New Wave Enviro. But this looks like fad because it is not certified by NSF (which is lot difficult than EPA) and it works off of faucet at same speed - which can never be as good. Market is full of other bogus filter many of claiming to make "live water" and "hexagonal crystals". What a BS!

After hours of search and reading reviews, one excellent filter I found was from Crystal Quest. They have this 6-stage Filter Cartridge - ULTRA RC-10 and its not only certified by NSF but they have even put their test results online (http://www.crystalquest.com/test1.htm)! Brita and PUR haven't had courage for this yet. Also from the diversity of Crystal Quests's offerings it looked to me that these guys are "water filtering" experts and knows their stuff. Some reviews on Yahoo Answer suggested that Brita/PUR have commodity filters design to satisfy average middle-class market but if you are willing to shell out more money and want best in the class then Crystal Quest is probably a way to go. One other thing that attracts me to them is they have "mini-coolers". I hate pitchers and I hate filling them up every now and then. I hate even more waiting for it to fill water. It's just a mess when guests are in the town. The mini-coolers that can hold enough water for 2-3 days and nicely sits on the kitchen top is the best solution.

Original Review(12/25/06): I ordered 11 boxes of these and confirmed before ordering from PUR200 product manual that it will work. PUR200 came with the filter which has a red indicator that moves as you consume water/filter. I bought this knowing that this filter (CRF-950Z) does *not* have the red indicator. However after putting the filters in, the top water bucket does not seat properly. These filters are about .25 inch taller than the one with red indicator.

This is a major inconvenience and really is the fault of PUR. They should specify the PUR water coolers this filter will work in. It may very well work fine in filters where it will fit properly.

Update 12/27/2006: I called 800-PUR-LINE and just spoke to Procter & Gamble about this issue. They said they are aware of this problem and CRF-950Z will not fit water cooler(and likely any water cooler) made by KAZ(PUR200, PUR300). They also mentioned that they dont know how long it will be before this problem is rectified. In effect, there are no filters available for this unit right now. One has to wonder about the quality control at PG/KAZ. At least these guys should issue a product recall on this.

My wife and I spent time in a town where the lead levels in the water are elevated from the plumbing in the old Victorian houses. The PUR filter claims to reduce lead significantly. But our physician found elevated levels of lead in our blood. We traced the source to the water, which we HAD BEEN FILTERING with PUR filters. The elevated lead levels most likely were the cause of a miscarriage we had.

We simply didn't understand how we got lead from the water since the PUR filters claim to reduce lead significantly. After a long bit of research I discovered that the PUR filters reduce soluble lead, but not lead particles (which is what our water contained).

So be sure to know if the water you filter is contaminated with lead. If so, find out if it is contaminated with lead particles (which PUR does not filter out) or soluble lead (which it does).

In my recently deleted review, I praised these PUR filters for their performance and the Automatic Safety Monitor. Removing the Monitor has now made the filter much less reliable.

PUR claims in an email reply that consumers prefer the calendar sticker to the Automatic Safety Monitor:

"Hi there,

As of June/2006, the PUR 2 Stage Pitcher filter no longer has an indicator life monitor; there is now a calendar sticker you put on the pitcher.

I'm sorry you are not enjoying the improved version of our product. Many consumers have contacted us praising the new version and telling us how much better they like it. A lot of testing and research takes place before a new product enters the market or before changes are made to an existing product. We test our products very thoroughly, not only to ensure the safety of our products, but also to determine and prove the benefits of the new or upgraded model.

Change is difficult because there are always loyal consumers who like a product just the way it is. Unfortunately, it's usually not practical to manufacture both the old and new versions of a product. Nevertheless, I will certainly share your comments and experiences with our PUR Brand team.

Have a great day.

PUR Team"

The newest reviews here are a more realistic reflection of how the average and once-loyal PUR customer feels. A calender sticker doesn't know the difference between a single user, a couple like my wife and me, and a thirsty family of six. People who rely on a PUR pitcher or dispenser for health reasons must now be especially careful to monitor the filter life themselves. Throwing out a filter before it needs to be replaced is expensive and wasteful. Using a filter past the end of its life will put impurities back into the water.

The filter's overall performance is on a par with competitors but the Automatic Safety Monitor was PUR's strongest selling point. Sad to say, Procter & Gamble has turned the innovator in water filtration into another also-ran.

This item is actually great. But, beware. Iordered this item thinking it is going to be the CRF-950L like they advertise. But I was sent out the CRZ-950Z instead. They are the same filter, except that the L as a monitor top as it says in the description and the box has the word Ultimate on it. The 950Z has neither feature. Again, they are the same filter (as far as I can tell), but this is not what is advertised nor what I purchased. I am now on my second return with Amazon and will continue to return it untill they send me the correct item.

**EDIT 10-28-06** Well I have returned this item several times and got no where with amazon. The item was supposedly unavailable the last week or so and now has been brought back with a different picture and is now listed as a 950Z. But, beware the description still list it has having a monitor. The 950Z does not have a monitor to let you know when to change the filter. This is not the first time that I have noticed discription problems with Amazon. Though neither were so bad that I could not use the items, they were just not as expected or slightly off as described.

I generally like pur better than britta. I think the water tastes better and it's supposed to be cleaner.

I used to have a faucet mount pur filter which I really liked but now I have a new sink which you cannot attach one to. So I had to get the pitcher type.

The water tasted OK but I don't think it's as good as the faucet mount one. I also discovered after I bought the pitcher and these filters that these filters DO NOT filter out flouride which I am not happy about.

So I think this filter is OK (better than britta's) but I really wish that it would filter out flouride. Hopefully pur will come out with one that does that.

Added-18 Dec. 2006.
Update a few months later.

The pitcher filter worked OK with the original filter pack and with another 3 pack that I bought. Then I bought another 3 pack a few months ago and it REALLY SLOWED DOWN when the meter said it was only half finished. I'm talking really slow--3 hours to filter a pitcher of water as opposed to 20 minutes when new. All 3 filters in that pack were the same way. Very lame.

I figured that maybe I'd gotten a bad batch so I wrote PUR asking about it but they never responded. (So much for customer support or relations.)

Then a few weeks ago I ordered 2-3 packs from amazon. As other reviewers have noted, the filters I was sent are not the ones advertised! These new ones don't have a meter. Instead they have a little plastic/paper dial that you stick to the side of the pitcher and you mark the start date so that you know how old the filter is. This is a pretty lame gimmick. The regular filter meter would gauge actual water used and not how old the filter was. If you make 20 pitchers a day your filter will obviously wear out faster than if you make 2. Time has nothing to do with it.

I decided to try the filters anyway since I'd already paid for them. At first they worked OK but within a week it was really, really slow. Again, a week old filter takes at least 3 hours to filter one pitcher of water. That's not really worth dealing with is it?

I'm not going to keep wasting my money on these filters if they are going to wear out this quickly. At this rate it's cheaper to actually buy bottled water!

It seems that with the removal of the filter life meters and the reduced life of the filters PUR has really decided to cut corners and make an inferior product. It's a shame. Pur was #1 for so many years but now it seems like they're just making junk. They've lost a long-time customer too! Bye bye Pur!

I have been using the 950Z filters for the past 6 months or so with my PUR pitcher. These filters start to clog up (all of the water does not flog from the top reservoir to the bottom reservoir) after only 25-50% of the rated usage.

I have had a Pur water cooler for about three years now, back when the filters were flat on top with the little gauge that showed you when to change the filter.

I love Pur water products but it you have anything besides the pitcher, I would not buy these online. Proctor & Gamble changed the design to the one currently pictured (with the very high domed top) and they DO NOT fit the coolers. I am pretty sure they are okay with pitchers though. Over a year later, the redesigned filters are FINALLY making their way to the stores, but given my recent experience buying filters online (through another retailer) there are now three different styles floating (the flat topped filter, the one pictured, and the brand new one) around in stores' inventories, and I think they all have the same item numbers.

The new design is still domed, but much shorter, plus there are three very distinct holes on the top, which you can clearly see on the packaging. Also, I was told by Pur customer service that the filter must have a lot number, stamped on the bottom, starting in the 8000s.

So, if you are trying to purchase these filters for your cooler, go to a store: you cannot rely on pictures and item numbers, at least in my experience.

Also, many reviewers seem to be upset because there is no longer a "gauge" to tell you when to change the filter. I never go by this- use common sense and change the filters when the water starts to taste bad.