In definite need! Water spots in UK!

[k1ng]

Hi, I have similar issue but am not as lucky. I had some nasty water spots on the hood from the rain last week. Like GreatAvalonI my car is also coated with Cquartz, I used Spotless and it worked very well and removed most of water spots. But there're a few left and it just wont go away even after i applied Spotless a few more times.

I'm thinking what should I try next. I want to try claying and Ultima Paint Prep Plus to remove the water spots but not sure whether it would affect the Cquartz coating. Anybody has experience using UPPP and claying on coated paint? If claying/UPPP does remove water spots, what do I need to do afterwards? UPGP? Reload? or just leave it as it is?

I just hope i don't need to polish it which will remove coating and I'll have to re-coat again.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Corey]

Hi, I have similar issue but am not as lucky. I had some nasty water spots on the hood from the rain last week. Like GreatAvalonI my car is also coated with Cquartz, I used Spotless and it worked very well and removed most of water spots. But there're a few left and it just wont go away even after i applied Spotless a few more times.

I'm thinking what should I try next. I want to try claying and Ultima Paint Prep Plus to remove the water spots but not sure whether it would affect the Cquartz coating. Anybody has experience using UPPP and claying on coated paint? If claying/UPPP does remove water spots, what do I need to do afterwards? UPGP? Reload? or just leave it as it is?

I just hope i don't need to polish it which will remove coating and I'll have to re-coat again.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

I would advise as follows if Spotless cannot remove it and you do not want the spots. For the panel that still has a few spots: Polish lightly or as needed with CarPro Reflect, wipe with Eraser, apply another layer of CQuartz, and then Reload a few hours later.

 

[k1ng]

I would advise as follows if Spotless cannot remove it and you do not want the spots. For the panel that still has a few spots: Polish lightly or as needed with CarPro Reflect, wipe with Eraser, apply another layer of CQuartz, and then Reload a few hours later.

Thanks Corey! Never use reflect before so need some advice. Would it remove CQuartz? I don't have any CQuartz on hand so would it be ok to skip the CQuartz step and apply Reliad directly? Also, what pad should I use with Reflect?

Also, would Reflect affect other coating like Opticoat? A friend of mine has similar problem and his car is coated with Opticoat. Would Reflect work as well or other paint cleaner like UPPP is better?

Thanks

 

[Wors]

Thanks Corey! Never use reflect before so need some advice. Would it remove CQuartz? I don't have any CQuartz on hand so would it be ok to skip the CQuartz step and apply Reliad directly? Also, what pad should I use with Reflect?

Also, would Reflect affect other coating like Opticoat? A friend of mine has similar problem and his car is coated with Opticoat. Would Reflect work as well or other paint cleaner like UPPP is better?

Thanks

Reflect is a finishing polish and would remove some or all the CQuartz on your panel depending on technique and tools used. If the rest of your car is protected by CQuartz I would suggest coating the panel like Corey mentioned as it will last a lot longer than Reload.

Reflect would remove some or all the Opti-Coat as well depending on technique and tools used. From the sounds of it the water spots are etched into the coatings. A light polish product like Reflect is most likely needed. I don't know much about UPPP and can't comment.

 

[Merlin]

I have a similar situation but I have not addressed it yet.

I have a mint white Celica that I recently installed CQuartz Finest on.
The client brought me the vehicle and it is loaded with dark water stains.
His initial thought was that my compound/polish got on the rubber/plastic trim.
The black rubber trim is white in sections but a moist rub and it comes right off
It looks like the black has run down the side of the white paint causing dark streaks.
So yes, upon a quick look it appears like the black trim has bleed down all the white sides.
Now upon further inspection the same dark runs and spots are coming down the sides from the roof.

Now to the short. The front bumper had what looked like iron water sprinkler stains all across the bumper.
I sprayed a little Spotless on it and it came right off. I haven't done the entire car yet but it needs it.
So yes, there was a concern that Spotless that is a little strong will diminish the integrity of CQuartz Finest.

What I thought I would do is Spotless the entire vehicle to clean off the water stains.
Then I'll clean the rubber/trim with IPA/mineral spirits then one more time with Eraser.
Follow that with a nice coat of DLUX to insure the rubber does not run for suite a while.

He stated to me that the car is outside all the time and he has never washed it since the CQF.
I don't believe the white stuff on the rubber is left over product. It appeared about 3 weeks later.

I'm glad to hear that Spotless will not harm CQF.

 

[zerix]

I had quite the conundrum today with some water spots...

My dad recently acquired a beautiful 2014 BMW M5 in Monte Carlo Blue and it's sort of been a great base for use of a lot of products over the last couple months. The week after he acquired it I went to town and did the whole 9 yards, polished the whole thing, eraser, CQUK, Reload 2013. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago I got some of the Reload 2014, applied that to every inch of the car, now 2 weeks later he had some nasty looking water spots he got on a Tuesday during lunch. He parked near a Crepe Myrtle and they had a hellacious downpour with lots of wind and he noticed when he came out there was buds from the Crepe Myrtle and berries all over the car. He picked most of the debris off and went back to work.

Now to today, I came over and helped him wash the car, obviously used Reset (which I love btw). Went over the hood 2-3 times after I saw how bad the spots were, thought that removed them but nope, they were still there and looked horrible. Most of the car was fairly spot free, only really the trunk and the hood had the spots but the hood was my main area of concern, they were really bad almost like hard water spots. My first feeling was I'll try some Optimum Power Clean diluted that I use to clean tires, nope that didn't work. Then I opened up my Spotless sample bottle, used that very sparingly at first one a single bad water spot. I let the Spotless sit for about 30 seconds then I added some more and rubbed quite hard. It made no difference at all. Then I put on some gloves and saturated a small area with spotless and worked it in for a good 2 minutes with back and fourth and circular motions where it created a nice lather. I rinsed that off with some UWW+ and it also made ZERO difference. I was pretty shocked after seeing some of the videos of waterspots that Spotless took out with ease. At this point I was a little stumped so I decided to get out the PC7424XP with some detailers coating prep polish on a white pad, tried that it also made zero difference. Next I thought long and hard about abrading the coating off which I didn't want to do but ultimately I decided to do it. First up was an orange pad with HD Adapt on it. This helped a LITTLE but still you could easily see the spots even with the crappy florescent lightning in the garage. It's almost like the HD Adapt cleared out the center of the water spots but the edges still remained. Next step was a Megs MF cutting pad and FG400. This combo turned out to be what looked like a winner... until I pulled it outside after doing the ENTIRE hood (took me almost 1.5hrs!). The lightning made it seem like the spots were gone but nope, pulled it out in the sun and they were ALL still there. I was absolutely stumped at this point. As a last resort I got out my other MF cutting pad and tried the HD Adapt instead of the FG400 and FINALLY we have a winner. I did 8 passes per section just to remove these things... 4 passes with extremely slow arm speed and lots of pressure (speed 6), 2 passes with light pressure (speed 6), then weight of the machine for 2 more passes (speed 5). Got out my LED flashlight to confirm and they were indeed gone at this point, did half the hood and pulled it outside and it looked tremendous again.

At this point the only thing left I had to put on the hood was the Opti-Coat 2.0 I had left over from doing his wheels so I applied that and then let the car sit out in the sun for about 3hrs. I'm playing golf with him tomorrow and I'm going to let it sit outside and bake the Opti-Coat on then afterwards I'm gonna clean it off with some Eraser and apply Reload 2014 on top.

However after all this I'm really confused still, why on earth were these spots so difficult to remove, especially after applying Reload 2014 on top just 2 weeks prior? Also if anybody remembered my post in the Reload thread I actually applied it on the hood very heavily so uneven coverage was definitely not the problem here. Also I don't know how in the world the spots were so etched in. I assume they were etched into the glass of the CQUK and that's why it was so difficult to remove them? The hood actually had 2 good coats of CQUK on it from when I did it back in June plus Reload 2013 and Reload 2014. My only theory is this... with this Florida weather these flash storms of torrential rain then the sun coming back out again are common, so the possibility of spots is quite high when it does this. Also I'm not sure how many people are familiar with how the F10 M5 engine is arranged but the turbos are in the middle of the V of the engine and generate TONS of heat under the hood, I'm just thinking the mix of this engine heat plus the sun just baked the spots in like crazy over the last 4 days accelerating the etching process of the spots. Just yesterday it was 97 here with a heat index of 108! It's been the hottest week of the year here in north/central FL.

Anyhow if anybody has any ideas or thoughts let me know!

 

[Corey]

Wow, I'm sorry to hear of your trouble! That is definitely severe and quite unexpected. I believe your theory certainly has a lot to do with it as those two factors are the the second and third worst things to contribute to water spots regardless of the protection. However something in these crape myrtles sounds as if it has something to do with it as well based on your mention of the spots being on the panels where the berries and all fell. So, maybe something extremely acidic in these berries that was spread out on the panel and left to bake in repeatedly with the sun and flash rains. I have had one other similar instance. In this case the customers landscaper cut bushes near the car and blew stuff up against and on it. Then it rained and the vegetation was left to stick to it and then sun bake. HOWEVER in his case the stains were the exact shapes of the vegetation and Spotless easily removed them.