Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

I waxed the car Tuesday and it was filthy by Friday, so I persure washed it thinking it would all just come off the wax, ended up with water marks, buffed most out with a polishing cloth. So I thought r get them all out with a clay bar and polished then rewaxed the car again , but this time they were worse, there were White water marks like depth of light sracths, like goshting , of the settal shape.( Bit like bird poo, when ur left with the outline, I got them from rinse in down the car, washing with warm soppy water and then rinsing again with cold hose. Could it be the lackqure? Blistered under the heat, they wouldn't clay out or polish or buff with a chamos. They look gone when wet? Iv even tryed srach remover, the paint squkes when u run ur finger tips across it. ( so I'm asuming it clean bare paint )

I had similar watermarks on the bonnet of my MG Midget a loing time ago and I eventually had to T cut them out then polish and wax it to get the shine back, no doubt they could be machine polished or cut out with cutting compound nowadays, I know it wasnt the laquer as it had no clear coat in those days. From what I have seen of the clear coat breaking down it tends to look like a bad sunburn blister and you can feel the edge of the clear coat. Maybe the car was too warm when washed or something in the air where it has been parked. You could always take it to a friendly bodyshop and see what they think.

t3rra,

It also depends on the water quality in your area. You might need to run an aqua filter in line with your hose to get rid of the impurities out of the water which can cause the milky marks on the paintwork after washing. Dark cars are terrible for showing up all the marks. Clay bar will only remove top surface contamination. If polishing it is not removing the marks it may well be the lacquer.

Ben

Could be bird poo as at this time of the year the birds eat berries so their sh...poo is VERY acidic. Had some marks in the lacquer on my Alfa 75 because of this.

I'd be very careful how you treat your fresh paintwork as I seem to remember you've only had it painted a few weeks ago. It sounds like you simply had water marks (maybe from washing a dark car in bright sunlight), but trying to clay them off, polish them off, or attacking with a pressure washer is going to cause untold damage to your fresh paint that hasn't finished hardening up yet.

If you have to wash a dark car in direct sunlight then dry it immediately with damp microfibre cloths or terry towels

I'm with Paul on this one, fresh paintwork should be treated very carefully, and no paint should be polished outside in the type of hot weather we had this weekend, as this can cause the paint to possibly bubble

highly likely to be lacquer etching. You will know if you are down to paint !!

Continual polishing by hand will get there, but if its bad it will need a rotary or DA (dual action) in my experience and many serious bufties might disagree, Hand polishing will remove paint at about 1 to 3 microns per bloody good session. 1 micron is .000039 of an inch, so its not a lot !!!

usually as an average a car has a depth of paint circa 120 microns of which about 40 -50 will be laquer (more on luxury cars...like ours... hooray). if there is any laquer etching you will have a lot to play with but removing just 10% is hours and hours of work. Hence why people get frustrated when hand polishers leave the mark.... and why its a bloody long old job.

If you cant remove by hand then get someone who uses a paint depth gauge and a machine.

Dull post I know.. but it shows why machines beat hand jobs. On the other hand.....

I thought that was Jeremy Beadle. On the one hand it's small but in the other it's massive...

Ben

Mate at work had a brand new beemer specified black metallic paint, works in Dover, Seagulls aplenty, car had to go back to the factory as paint hadn't hardened and the gulls had left their mark... Car looked like a black and white cow (Jersey me thinks !)....

Not sure how it happened given baking ovens and the like but taught me to be very careful around new paint and to wash off swiftly any seagull visitations...

Good luck