What are these strange water pattern marks on glass?

M

Manix

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In the photo there are random pattern like marks. After hosing off the windscreen, I wipe a dry microfibre towel across the window one pass & the left over very small water that wasn`t picked up takes the form of these patterns. Even happens on cold days with condensation. Always same patterns, when glass fully dries there is no visible marks at all and the glass looks new.


I can even feel extra slight resistance when wiping the towel across glass, and a quick polish with something like m205 on a polish foam pad removes these marks & when I wipe MF towel across they don`t show.


They are all over the windows, after every wash I try to dry my car as fast as I can, it stays outside all the time.


Are these rain marks, or acid rain very lite etching? Or tape water not being dried off quickly enough?


Really looking to know what they are & how to avoid, as I don`t wan`t to polish my windows only to have them show up.


Please if anyone knows, cheers.
 

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Looks like some residue left on the windows from the rain. Could be a ton thinks, acid rain, air borne contaminants that land on the car then run off the car with the rain, I have seen washer fluid with rain x or like products do this, hard water dried on from washing, run off from over application of car care products sealant or spray wax or trim or rubber dressings, hard water from a sprinkler system hitting the car when parked, .......................

Most likely it would come off pretty easy with a glass polish like Ceriglass or many others. May only need a quick hand polish to remove most it.
 
What car soap do you use?

It`s not uncommon when useing a wash and wax soap that has very little protection in it. Or overspray from a spray wax or qd.
 
That is a residue of some type of product that needs to be removed to get it off the glass.
I know that sounds kinda redundant from what you said but I wanted to restate the obvious.

There are two basic ways to remove from glass or any type of surface.

1) Chemical - This could be anything from CLR, Rain-X® X-treme Clean™ - Disolve.
2) Mechanical - This could be 0000 steel wool, single-edged razor blades - Abrasive.

Each of these methods has their own "special" process to accomplish the task without damage.

Let`s start with the basics. Do you have a Dual Action (DA) Polishing machine?
 
Be careful using steel wool on vehicular "glass". Lots of today`s autoglass deserves those scare-quotes, sometimes it`s very soft compared to the old stuff from when I was a kid. Usually not as soft as the Jag`s early early TriPlex, but still *way* softer than it used to be. I`m even a little leery of using steel razor blades on it, though they oughta be fine unless there`s an oops.

Manix- After you`ve polished the [stuff] off (not surprised the M205 works OK, but be sure to get the oils off/out of the glass), maybe one of the Glass Coatings would keep it from getting nasty again, or at least slow it down. Looks to me like maybe the rain in your area could be the culprit, though IMO it`s one of those "gee, who knows?!?" sort of things.
 
Do you have a DA machine?

If so, I’d use a 3” backing plate and Rain-x Xtreme first.
 
Accumulator said:
Huh, never heard of the Xtreme.
Click to expand...

I’ve been using it for many years to get funk off glass. It has a gritty feel like M101. It works by hand or machine. Funk comes off better with machine and your arms won’t hate you the next day.

It is a “glass” compound so taping off the surrounding area is suggested. It has been a go-to of mine for funky streak removal.

Another thought would be an APC or CLR. I’ve had good results with them.

If you have not tried Rain-X Xtreme then I’d suggest you add it to your arsenal to remove those stubborn lines in the glass that laugh at everything you try.
 
Merlin- Ah, OK, thanks for the info. That one slipped right under my radar.

Fortunately, once I`ve done the new-to-me-vehicle cleanup, I`ve always been fortunate with regard to glass issues, but I do like to keep up with what works. Ya just never know...

(It occurs to me once again that our vehicles are just *so* pampered these days...lucky me!)
 
Merlin said:
That is a residue of some type of product that needs to be removed to get it off the glass.
I know that sounds kinda redundant from what you said but I wanted to restate the obvious.

There are two basic ways to remove from glass or any type of surface.

1) Chemical - This could be anything from CLR, Rain-X® X-treme Clean™ - Disolve.
2) Mechanical - This could be 0000 steel wool, single-edged razor blades - Abrasive.

Each of these methods has their own "special" process to accomplish the task without damage.

Let`s start with the basics. Do you have a Dual Action (DA) Polishing machine?
Click to expand...

Sorry for late reply, not much internet access in my area. Yes I do have a D/A & all the foam pads. I did remove an area of this residue with a lite polish with D/A, but If i`ts going to keep reappearing I think its a waste of time, polishing is time consuming & messy. Might try CLR by hand.
 
I must have missed this thread a while back. Thanks for posting about the Rain-X Xtreme, I might have to find some of that. I had that funny pattern on my car especially the wiper pattern etched into the glass and now I am noticing it on my truck. i don`t want to get into the expensive glass polishes myself and something simple and cheap is what I am looking for.

What ever happened to the use Bon Ami for glass cleaning? I thought that was a big thing years ago. I have never tried it. I just did a quick search on it and looks like it might not be for glass anymore or there are 2 different types. I am going to do some more searching on that stuff and find out.
 
Any cheap polish and a pad should remove road film off of a windshield. Clay will not remove it 100% in my experience. I tried some of that Rain-X clay years ago and was not impressed. Of course at the time I was trying to remove Baked on water spots from a 20 year old car. Now I know better.

On a similar subject. While perusing eBay yesterday I found some cerium oxide powder in a kit for cleaning windshields. It was pretty cheap. I’ve still got some CarPro Ceriglass that I have (and may) never used. Anyone got another purpose for Ceriglass other than polishing glass? How does it do on polycarbonate? Ceriglass and Iron-X Paste seemed like a good idea at the time, but never needed them.
 
skibik- Maybe approaches like Bon Ami lost their appeal when Autoglass got so soft/plasticy.

rlmccarty2000- Isn`t the polycarbonate softer than many kinds of glass?

The whole Cerium Oxide thing makes me nervous...I don`t want to be the guy who had a feeling it`d be a bad idea but did it anyway only to regret it. So many people have trashed so many windshields with "stuff that oughta be OK"...
 
Accumulator said:
skibik- Maybe approaches like Bon Ami lost their appeal when Autoglass got so soft/plasticy.

rlmccarty2000- Isn`t the polycarbonate softer than many kinds of glass?

The whole Cerium Oxide thing makes me nervous...I don`t want to be the guy who had a feeling it`d be a bad idea but did it anyway only to regret it. So many people have trashed so many windshields with "stuff that oughta be OK"...
Click to expand...

Yep polycarbonate is much softer than glass. I’m afraid Ceriglass would just marr it up. Bad purchase on my part.
 
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