Drying mirrors?

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DigitalN.

New member
Hey all, I have a problem I would like to share.



I don't have a leafblower of some kind so I am stuck with drying with microfibers. unfortunately for some reason, whenever I dry a mirror I find it leaves very fine scratches on the surface that are VERY obvious when the sun shines on it. I am afraid to hit it with a polish of some sort for fear that the mirror finish will come off.



My question is, what should I do to dry the mirrors sans scratches? I am buying a new car soon and I would have for it to happen to this one too..
 
You're talking about side mirrors? Unless there's been some new development that I didn't get the memo on, these are still traditional glass mirrors, which is a piece of glass with metal coating on the back. Unless you have a polish that will remove 1/8" of glass down to the backing, I don't think you will be able to "polish the mirror finish off". OTOH, if you have scratched the glass, you will have a very hard time polishing it out--glass is hard!



If you are talking about the mirror HOUSING, that's a different story. Are they painted the same color as the car or do they have a black finish or something else?
 
DigitalN.- If you rub/dry glass with something that's soft enough to use on your paint (which is a lot softer than glass), it won't scratch it.



IMO almost all marring on glass happens during the wash, same as with the marring on the rest of the vehicle. Or it happens when drying but from *residual dirt*, not the drying medium.



Get all the dirt off safely (easier said than done!) and dry with something that passes the CD-test and you oughta be OK.
 
I am going to guess that on a sunfire they are indeed plastic and not glass, thats how it sounds when you tap it anyway.



I do think that it could be from washing, however I don't ever hit it with a wash mitt, I just let it soap up from a foamer, and then rinse it off so I don't have any scratches. Unfortunately that isn't working out for me.
 
DigitalN. said:
I am going to guess that on a sunfire they are indeed plastic and not glass, thats how it sounds when you tap it anyway.



I do think that it could be from washing, however I don't ever hit it with a wash mitt, I just let it soap up from a foamer, and then rinse it off so I don't have any scratches. Unfortunately that isn't working out for me.
Click to expand...



Perhaps it's exactly not touching the "mirrors" with your mitt that is not fully and safely removing dirt particles, which scrape and mar the surface when you later "dry".
 
could be true, but these don't look like dirt particle scratches, they are much finer and very consistent, I dunno maybe it is because of me not hitting it with the mitt, but I'd rather not risk messing up my mirrors from dirt from the rest of the body, since the mirrors normally don't get very messy.
 
DigitalN.- If your foamer has a fairly strong output stream, you might try using it in conjunction with a Boar's Hair Brush. If you just *barely* let the tips of the bristles touch the surface being cleaned, and keep spraying foamer output at the point where the bristles are making contact, you can effect a "dislodge and flush" action where the dirt gets gently whisked off the surface and is then carried away by the foamer output.
 
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