How did my Water spots disappear??

I

imported_Intermezzo

New member
A little while ago, my wife's car got hit by some sprinklers and there were water-spots all over the car. The spots dried in direct sunlight and she also drove it around all day without doing any cleaning or even telling me about it. Needless to say, that weekend I got a very unpleasant surprise when washing her car.



Obviously by this time, the spots were etched into the clear-coat. I initially wiped down all the spots with vinegar to get all the excess minerals out. I then tried FI-II by hand on a single area....didn't work. I then tried FI-II via PC with a yellow compounding pad on the same area.....helped a little, but they were still there. I decided that only a rotary would be able to do the job. The following week, I borrowed my friend's rotary and got set to work....but much to my surprise....with the exception of a one small area near the door handle, the water spots were ALL GONE. I tried viewing the car under intense halogen lighting and still couldn't see anything. The "Lizard-Skin" appearance that was there just one week ago were no longer there. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I'm not complaining or anything, but can anyone offer a hypothesis as to how this happened?



What's truly surprising is that most of these water spots disappeared with only the vinegar treatment. The FI-II was only done on a small portion of the water-spots. Does vinegar often worked in this sort of delayed fashion?



Thanks.



Intermezzo
 
Do you wear glasses?

Do your glasses sometimes get water spots on them>

Did you clean your glasses recently?;)



Actually, it sounds pretty weird. If the car had had another water rinse, either rain or washed, after the vinegar, it's possible the vinegar softened the deposits and they washed away. I would not have thought they would be softened enough that they would blow away.
 
CharlesW said:
Do you wear glasses?

Do your glasses sometimes get water spots on them>

Did you clean your glasses recently?;)
Click to expand...



Yes, yes and yes. :D



The only thing I can think of is that I might not have wiped down the vinegar properly and throughout the course of the week, the residual amounts left over completed the job and there was no etching after all. I've even examined several areas using a loupe and couldn't find anything.
 
Hmm, weird. :nixweiss



I recall someone else having a similar experience a couple months ago though. He was having this big waterspot problem and tried a bunch of things, and then mysteriously they vanished all on their own. :confused:
 
same thing here i detailed a navigator when it rained it didnt get any water spots when driving then it got hit by sprinklers on a sunny day had water spots all over this was last week this week it looks fine without hardly any water spots. I guess they just come out over time or something but if you go over them with a wet wash mit you can see the etchings.
 
I thunk on this one.....



I remember back when the guy in germany had bad water spot....remember...and with time it went away.....



Kinda like the clear soaked up the water and minerals and left a cloud for this guy but eventually it dried up and went away.....



Looked horrible,,,,,



For yo INTERMEZZO...maybe the etching you saw was not etching.....did you use magnifying glass????....I bet it was just some more minerals or gooky stuff still on paint that did not wipe up with vinegar.....
 
No, I didn't use a magnifying glass with the initial inspection. I just assumed it was etched because the compounding wouldn't remove it.



At this point, I would say that there wasn't any etching because like I said before, the spots went away and also, the laws of physics still apply on the clearcoats of black BMW's......yes even ones that are Zaino'd! :)
 
i've had the same thing happen. they were very stubborn, but they seemed to disappear over time on their own.
 
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