Water spotting question

[john.r2k]

Im new to all this detailing, so apologies if this is a silly question. From what I understand you can't rinse a car using a hose or pressure washer and let it air dry because of water spotting issues. And technically you cant really dry it with any sort of contact because chances are there will still be a lot of dirt to scratch the car. Question is when it rains and rain air dries, does that not cause water spotting? Is there any prewash foam that can go in a foam Lance that can be used to just spray on and rinse for in between contact washes?

[randlemarcus]

Rainwater doesn't contain the minerals that cause spotting. Solution - wash the car in the rain

[_Hoppers]

john.r2k said:

cant really dry it with any sort of contact because chances are there will still be a lot of dirt to scratch the car

You should be fine if you rinse it well. Rather than dragging a drying towel over the car you can 'pat' it dry to avoid swirl marks.

[Summit_Detailing]

1 Pressure wash
2 Shampoo/Washmitt wash
3 Pressure wash
4 Dry with a drying towel

Job done.

You can swap #3 for a rinse down with pure water through a hose, this will also mean you don't need to to #4.
https://juicy-details.co.uk/shop/pure-final-rinse-...

Some product links for steps 2 & 4 -

https://www.exceldetailingsupplies.co.uk/product-p...

https://www.exceldetailingsupplies.co.uk/product-p...

https://www.exceldetailingsupplies.co.uk/product-p...

cheers,

Chris

[RLK500]

As above. I don't have a pressure washer so rinse wit a hose, but use two buckets for shampoo/mitt stage, rinsing the mitt after every run over the car. This reduces the amount of crap that gets dragged on the paintwork and should reduce scratches and swirls. Glass comes up sparkly every time, without water marks. Keeping the car out of direct sunlight when washing, also helps to reduce water spots.

[InitialDave]

Rather than using a hose gun or nozzle with a spray, try rinsing using just a bare hose end, "chasing" the flow of water across the panel. It can help the water sheet off more and reduce what's left to be dried.

If you're really committed, you can get filters to remove the offending minerals etc from the water, which should prevent water spots in the first place.

[Gad-Westy]

Water spotting used to drive me nuts. Think our area may be particularly bad for it. And I never really found a way of drying cars that wasn’t soul destroying. Quick detailing after letting it dry naturally worked okay but a bit of a pain. I ended up buying an aqua gleam filter. Not cheap and will probably need to be replaced every couple of years but it just makes the process so quick and easy. I’m very happy with that choice.

[Piersman2]

To get rid of water spotting issue where I live with really hard water.... DI Filter and resin.

Not cheap, just ordered another 50L of resin for £180, but the last same size order was over a year ago.

Put the filter in the hoseline and viola! No spotting, just pure water that evaporates away leaving nothing behind.

[bolidemichael]

Bilt Hamber produce a product called Auto QD (Quick Detailer). Here is what they say:

"Can be diluted with water to provide extremely economical LSP preservation which is particularly suited to auto-balm and as a drying aid to prevent water-spotting of hard water."