removing water spots

[CBsaksiri]

last week i rinsed off my car with the garden hose to clean debris off a section. i pulled it into the garage and left it to dry, and discovered later that i had made a bunch of water spots on my hood.



can anybody recommend a technique for removing the water spots? i tried a search but nothing came up...



i have a Porter-Cable 7424 polisher and am planning to use either 3M Swirl Mark Remover or 3M Finesse-It Machine Polish (the latter being more abrasive). I have scratches and swirls to get rid of, too.



Some questions I have:



- will the less abrasive SMR be enough to remove the water spots? i was originally planning to use it just for removing/hiding swirls, but now am thinking of using the more abrasive Machine Polish to make sure i get them out.



- should i clay the car first? if the clay is an abrasive as well, does it matter if i clay it first or not?



thanks for any advice you guys may have.



here`s a pic of my Blackfire`d car, by the way!

[Jngrbrdman]

what have you tried so far? Personally I`ve always had good success with washing the car with a vinegar wash. Mix vinegar in with your wash water and they should come off. Pour a bit on an area with waterspots and see if that takes them out first before you wash the whole car with it. If the spots have been there too long and in the right conditions they can etch into your clear coat. If that is the case then you`ll have to whip out the PC and some of your abrasives to get em off.



I would definitely clay it anyway. FI-II should take care of the waterspots. I wouldn`t waste time with the SMR though. That has too many fillers in it to be effective on waterspots. Try the vinegar. If that doesn`t work then go for the clay and the FI-II. That should work for ya. :xyxthumbs

[CBsaksiri]

wow, thank you! that is exactly the info i was looking for regarding FI-II and the SMR... i was reading about the fillers in SMR and figured that it might not be what i am looking for.



thanks for the tip about the vinegar wash, though. this just happened on Thursday (5 days ago), so it is fairly recent and i haven`t tried anything yet, except for washing the car on Friday. it was in the garage over the weekend and only saw a few hours of sun today...



i was thinking the same thing about leaving the water spots there and am worried about them etching into the clearcoat... it seems odd to me that they would form so easily given that the surface of the car was cool and the car was in my garage, and that the water was mostly clean (although the water drops picked up some dirt from the hood). i was planning to take care of it this weekend with the abrasives and my PC but i`ll try the vinegar wash today.



thanks again!

[CBsaksiri]

oh, one more question...



regarding the vinegar wash: do you think this will strip my wax? i`m going to have to strip it anyway, if i do the whole Finesse-It, re-polish, re-wax process, but i`m just wondering if it will be safe to leave my car alone after the vinegar wash.

[Jngrbrdman]

You`ll probably want to wash it again with normal soap and water minus the vinegar afterward just to be on the safe side. Your car is going to smell like vinegar anyway. I wouldn`t expect any wax to survive it but I don`t have any proof to back that up. The FI-II would take care of it anyway. Actually, the clay would probably take care of it before you got to the FI-II. I wouldn`t worry too much about it.