Happy new owner of an Obsidian/Cashmere SWB 460. Love everything about the car, except the fact that I tend to obsess over it! For example, my new coat of water spots. I have about 100 yards of gravel (read dust) road just before my house and after one week, my baby was filthy. Wife suggested I "hose it down and drive around". That was before I had read the water spot stories. I washed every surface, didn't wipe anything off and went for a spin. (I have well water that is fairly hard). By the time I got back from my drive there was a coat of bright white spots over the entire body. So, I got out the microfiber rags and washed it again, still with my hard water but using the rags. Now it's much better but the paint and glass still have the outlines of hundreds of spots if you look closely.

I'd rather not do anything drastic to the finish but I suspect I should address the spots. Vinegar? Clay? ONR? Wait til I take it back to the dealer in a week? I've read so many suggetions I don't know which one to start with.

 

wash and then clay it? i dont think water spots are hard to get out.

 

Well when you went for a spin, didn't you put a fresh coat of dust from that gravel road on your wet car?

I'd suggest once you get the spots off that you Zaino the car.

 

I may well have gotten dust in the water, but I tried real hard to go slowly. Nobody passed me the other way, which stirs up a cloud. The spots were quite white colored and looked a lot like scale I've seen build up on stuff in the kitchen (insert Homer Simpson *doh* here). I'm going to try to go to another house that has city (presumably softer) water, use some car wash stuff and rags again, and see what happens. Thanks for the advice.

Mark.

 

I'm with nospinzone here. You need to go through the entire process. Wash the car with Dawn liquid (removes all wax), then clay bar the car, then apply Zaino. It's amazing how the car looks afterward. Definitely well worth the effort IMO.

KB

 

clay will get rid of the water spot, make sure you use soap solution as lubricant.

also, seeing how easy you build up water spot, that means the paint has very little protection right now. definitely need to put on wax / sealant otherwise you are just going to kill it in the long run. zaino is a good option, pretty durable and shiny. or there are a lot of other wax material out there.

bottom line, if the paint on your car is carefully sealed / wax, even with water on top, it's not as easy to get water spot, or they should be relatively easy to remove. if the paint are not protected, hard water spots build up in no time

 

Clay doesn't get rid of water spots down here, unfortunately. I have to polish, then reapply the Four Star UPP and Souveran. A real PIA.

Water is incredibly hard here.

 

Have you looked into ceramic matrix coating? That's what I have on my car and it's awesome.

 

Lux,
Can you give us more info on what it is and what it does?

Thank you

 

LAMark, just a suggestion. Griots offers a full line of detail supplies, what's better is he has a handbook that tells you step by step on how to take care of your car. The handbook is more detailed than is DVD. Ask for a catalog, the on line catalog is hard to use. http://www.griotsgarage.com/

Pieces of everyones email will than make sense to you. It's an art to properly take care of your car. Most of the Griots products are the finest on the market and I think is the best all round car care products and support.

Zano is great stuff, maybe the best, even made right by me but is very specialized to use and not much support.

The Griots people are there 24/7 to help with questions on how to apply or use any of their products.

Congrats on the new car.....

PS Install a 3M shield now if did not already or the bumper and hood or it will soon look like swiss cheese from the rock dings.