watespots & hardwater

K

Kanchou

New member
help a beginner. I learned the hardway that I have pretty hard water supplied to the house and no method for filtration right now.



I have waterspots on my finish. Its time to wash the car, Advice? I HATE waterspots, and it makes me feel like a real tool that i can't even WASH the car correctly...
 
Kanchou said:
help a beginner. I learned the hardway that I have pretty hard water supplied to the house and no method for filtration right now.



I have waterspots on my finish. Its time to wash the car, Advice? I HATE waterspots, and it makes me feel like a real tool that i can't even WASH the car correctly...
Click to expand...



to get my waterspots out i had to use a buffer, unfortunately. the method i use afterward for avoiding future waterspots is BUY A FILTER (home depot) and to NEVER wash your car while there is daylight, since the sunlight will dry the water on your car before you can get to it. if the water can spread before it dries, you obviously won't get spots; hence, waiting till nightfall to wash the car gives the water plenty of time to stand on your paint without drying.



i wash my car at night and ever since i've had relatively few waterspots. the light ones i have on my car currently came from leaving my car unwashed for too long after a dirty rain. sunlight will tatoo that water engraving right into your paint. it's really quite annoying, especially if you live in an area where there is really dirty rain, acid rain, or just crappy tap water.
 
The best advice I can give you is to buy a car the color of waterspots and your problems will not be so bad. Filters are very expensive, specially in a hard water area where you may go through a $50 filter in 2-3 washes, I know, I tried and used a TDS meter to measure the results. At least where you are it it's insanely humid and the car doesn't dry so quick. Try drying a car in the desert southwest and watch water spots form before you put your hose down.
 
Clay, AIO (or similar), or a polish should take them out.



I have very hard water too, but I make sure to wash and dry the car quickly, or wait until low -light conditions.



My other alternative is just to use QEW. Wash one panel and dry right away. No spots.
 
Claying did a lot for me (Meg's kit) but there are still some left. I'll have to tackle those with the polisher I guess down the road.
 
It realy depends on the paint. I have cars where the waterspots are embedded in the paint, clay won't take them out and I have to get the rotary out but it's a truck so no biggy. I have another car where sprinklers hit it, lots of water spots and all I have to do is wash the car and spots are gone. And another car that's in-between, the spots are there but a claying or some time spent washing them out works. They are all waxed on a the same schedule with the same wax, the water spots come from the same water source so it must be the paint.
 
Kanchou said:
help a beginner...it makes me feel like a real tool that i can't even WASH the car correctly...
Click to expand...



Don't feel bad...if people could wash correctly we wouldn't be discussing polishes all the time. IMO washing "correctly" is among the most difficult things you can do detailing-wise.



Ideas about preventing the spotting- use a LSP that resists such things (Meg's #16 and Collinite waxes come to mind, as do products that "sheet"); don't let water dry on the surface (well, "duh" :rolleyes: I know...), dry quickly after "sheeting the water" by taking the nozzle off the hose; blow water out of nooks and crannies with compressed air/leaf blower/etc.



If you're sure they're mineral deposits from "hard" water, you might try distilled white vinegar (or the acidic "B" step of something like AutoInt's ABC system), the acid might dissolve them.
 
Buy a 1 or 2 gallon pump-up garden sprayer and a few gallons of distilled water. After you rinse with the hose, give it a "spot-free rinse" with the sprayer. This works great for getting the hard water out of nooks and crannies. When I used this method, I would wash/dry half of my truck at a time to keep the water from drying and spotting. I found that 1 or 2 gallons of distilled water was plenty to spot-free rinse my truck. A car would use less, I'm sure.



Or, you could just switch to Quick and Easy Wash (QEW). That's what I did, and I've only given my truck one regular wash this year. If it's particularly dirty, I will take it to the auto wash and give it a high pressure rinse (no soap) then bring it home for a QEW. This solved my spotting problems.
 
Other than buying a filter, QEW is a great way to avoid these issues. Takes less time, no water spots, work in the garage in the shade :xyxthumbs. Its my primary wash I might wash regularly every couple months or so to spray out nooks and crannies or if really dirty!
 
vinegar solution, claying, none of these helped the spots in my case. i had spots that wanted to leave their mark. you can still see some of them even after i used a 7424 on them for an hour. hopefully yours won't be as troublesome.
 
Here's the answer if you have REALLY bad, baked in waterspots.

This is my wife's SUV, parked outside and rarely washed, never waxed for about 3 years:

REALLY Bad waterspots that could not be removed with any amount of washing, vinegar, meguiar's scratch-x, various waxes, clay ---- NONE of these will work with serious water spots. I tried 'em all.



This is the appearance AFTER a full washing and IMMEDIATE drying -- the spotting you see iis not from the washing , but was permanently etched into the clearcoat, from years of neglect.



water_spots_left_not_done_yet.JPG




Here is the same view AFTER:

rubbing_cmpd_final_appearance.JPG




You can see the details on my web site - click on Scratch Remvl"

nothing to sell there - just my own page.



The bottom line:

1. washed with Dawn dishwashing liquid to remove all wax.

2. 3m perfect - it II fine cut rubbing compound. Apply by hand with terry towel, rub and rub until dry, then buff off with dry towel.

3. really did NOT use 3M swirlmark remover afterward - I tried it, but it made the surface look WORSE, so I then had to go over it again with the fine cut. you may or may not want to use the swirlmark remover.

4. Then sealed with Meguiars NXT.





Took some work, because I didn't have a Porter-Cable, so was all by hand. Went over the entire hood 4 times to get this result, but it was worth it. Hopefully you have not abused and ignored your paint as badly as we did with this car. But if you did, the 3M products will do the trick, and you don't have to buy a PC to use them. :grinno:
 
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