Need your advise on hard water spots. Had to park the car overnight at a resort, and the sprinklers left hard water spots all over. I wash the car but the spots are still there. What is the safest product and the safest procedure even a novice like me can do? I would prefer to do it by hand, since I don't have any experience with a electric polsher. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

Pick up Meguiar's Scratch-X or #82 from a local car parts store and a small, round micro fiber applicator pad... use the applicator pad with a few drops of the polish and do a 10"x10" area for about a minute or so, then move on... this will take you hours to finish the whole car and days for your hands to recover, so I would advise you take it to a quality detailer or invest in a machine yourself. Detail will cost you $200-300, machine+pads+polish+towels will run you about $150-200 so you might want to look into a small care package for future maintenance on your own car

 

Oh.. I forgot to mention... it's not definite that the mentioned polishes and procedure will remove the water marks, because I have no clue how long they were on there, how hard the water was, etc. but it's a good place to start

 

^^ Hitting on what he said, if they haven't been on long you could try and clay them off. If you had a good wax or paint sealant on the car they might not have etched the surface at all yet. A clay could remove them as long as they are not overly severe.

As he said though, if claying them doesn't remove them, I would just pay a pro to do it as the materials to do it yourself will cost you at least half the cost of a detail, and the results from the pro will be profoundly different.

 

Thanks
I will buy the polish and give it a go.
And if success is not immediate, off to the detailer again.
Much appreciated.

 

This happened to me once. Same situation - parked my Mercedes sedan at a resort and the damn sprinklers just covered it. I removed the stains by hand like you are thinking of doing. It took me almost 10 hours and I was absolutely beat afterwards. I managed to get all the spots but it was a total pain in the ***. If I had it to do all over again, I would just take it to a pro detailer.

 

I read somewhere that you can dilute vinegar with water and use that solution to help get out water spots. Has anyone else ever heard this? I've never tried it as we don't have hard water where I live.

 

The vinegar does work but only on very light spots AND I wouldn't want to put it on my paint.

 

Depending on how hard the water was, and if it was reclaimed, had lime, fertilizer, etc. in it, zymol hd-cleanse works great by hand. If that doesn't usually do it, then using a Porter Cable or FLEX and some Menzerna will do the trick. And don't worry, you won't damage your paint with either polisher.

 

Distilled white vinegar breaks the bond of spots, but if they are really bad Chemical Guys waterspot remover and rotary compounding(wool pad) will be required not a step for the novice detailer, a quality sealant would have protected a great deal in this case.

 

Gave it the old college try without much luck. Took it to Jim at Clifornia Detailing with great results. These guys are really good. Jim told me minerals in the water, specially reclaimed water from golf courses are the worst. He was upset that I ruined his detail job 3 weeks ago, at least he cares. I'm very happy with this company, and highly recommend them.

 

Yeah reclaimed water is HORRIBLE.

Good to see that he fixed everything and that you were really pleased.