Water spots - how do you get them out of the paint?

If your buddy has tried the waxing also to no avail,then take it to a paint shop and get them to "buff" the water marks out of the paint. I have the same trouble here with my old Ford,water marks from the same circumstance,on an AU$9K paintjob. He said the marks will buff out too easy. Basically they just use a cutting compound paste and a soft electric buffing wheel. You can do it yourself,and do it all by hand,but it can take a while. And it costs bugger all at the paint shop. Hope this put you on the right track mate.

 

You're the victim of the infamous NE Acid Rain(been there all too often)...

If you've got a DA air sander, you can get a pair of 'egg crate' 3M foam polishing pads from an Auto Body shop. Use one pad with 3M™ Perfect-It™ II Rubbing Compound - Fine Cut, followed by 3M™ Perfect-It™ Foam Polishing Pad Glaze Swirl Mark Remover (dark 39009 or light 39109 cars) on the 2nd pad. You may have to disable the DA feature for the early stages with the rubbing compound, but keep the speed very slow, & switch over to the DA action as soon as the surface starts to look polished.

Finish up with your favorite car wax. You can use the DA sander to buff the wax with a terry pad over a thick foam pad.

Might be able to use a DA buffer, but I've never tried.

BTW, this will also take all the swirl marks out of your paint & leave a deep wet look shine.

Here's what 3M recommends for water etching/spots:
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Q9KzYsPDdaP0I8yizeID_Q01i_IcFQEAPxCunU!

 

I was amazed when the same situation happened to me, it was acid rain!! But thats what it is.

 

a RAO (random action orbital) buff is the go.....the non-circular action of the buff eliminates circular swirl marks

i use a bosch PEX400AE RAO buff...coupled with Meguiars W8006 soft buff foam pads

 

Before you go getting all crazy with buffers and DA sanders Just take a big breath and relax. A 50/50 mix of warm water and white vinegar will do the job. Have to use it on boats all the time. San Diego has REALLY hard water and if you park near sprinklers you are sure to get em.

Darrell.

 

DMOORE

yes good advice, however a buffer isnt simply used for hard cutting.

a polish and lick of wax will rmeove those spots AND leave the pant shimmering with a lovely deep WET gloss

i guess my advice was also general detailing advice, not just removing water spots

 

clay works for me!

http://www.advanceautoparts.com/english/youcan/html/ccr/ccr20030401cb.html

 

DMOORE,
Vinegar or clay will nicely remove water spots due to mineral deposits as you say, but rainwater doesn't tend to leave mineral deposits. Can't hurt tho, if they come off then it wasn't acid rain etching the paint.

[355],
The 3M 3M™ Perfect-It™ II Rubbing Compound - Fine Cut I recommended is equivalent in abrasiveness to most products sold as 'polish', it takes out fine scratches & etching w/o taking a lot of paint off. The glaze & wax will do the rest.

In the summer, I drive my car to work pretty regularly, & 2-3 times/season it rains during the day & when I get out & go to dry it off, there's those $@#$ acid rain etch pinkish spots that nothing but a light compounding/polishing, glaze, & wax will take off.

 

-wash
-clay bar
-compound by a pro

 

My experience is limited to Ohio & California, and I have not had experience with acid rain, but the paint used on modern cars is a plastic base (acrylic, urethane..) and acid really does not attack plastics. When you buy most acids it even comes in a plastic bottle? If it was the acid rain wouldn't all vehicles in a geographic area have spots?

Could there be some reaction with the rain water combined with the sun that has a reaction to cloud the paint like a water stain on a wood table?
Also, because it happened worse to one of the cars could it be a reaction with certain types of wax--perhaps the wax/rain/sun had a reaction to the paint.

Rain water is usually pretty clean. Even when I lived in Ohio I remember driving my Corvette into the garage in the rain and leaving it dry and the result would be no spots. The same thing happens here in Ca too.

Sprinkler water is a different story, but have successfully used vinegar for removing those spots. The spots I have seen from sprinklers are more like a mineral deposit and the paint is not harmed.

I would be curious to understand why one car reacted more than the other one--could you please post what kind of wax/wax products and paint you guys have on your car. Fresh paint can have permanent spots etched in by the sun, but fully cured paint should be impervious to this spotting.

Regards,

Mark

 

I had a black GTI when I lived in Cleveland (mid-'80s) and it had all sorts of problems with water spots from dried raindrops. Some of these were permanently "etched" into the paint, leading me to suspect that rain water is nasty.

If you follow the air quality index, you'll see it improves greatly after a storm, as the rain carries all of the pollutants down to earth and onto black cars.

 

My experience has been that wax condition has a lot to do with it.
With fresh wax I don't get water spots, or they polish right out with clay or maybe just fresh wax, but if the wax is a month or so old & has seen a lot of sunny days, I have to get out the compound.