pictures?

i will try to get some pictures when i can- though it wont' be easy- for the reasons i've already explained. so i will do my best to try to photograph them. the damage is most visible around dusk- ie when the sunlight is more orange. but, u can see them in regular daylight as well. my windshields are no longer "clear" because of it. keep in mind also that my car is always covered & parked in a garage. it's only seen rain once and i have only 4300 miles. i never thought mr. clean autodry could destroy my $35k car in less time then i could even enjoy driving it. this is a serious problem. and, i'm not joking around.

^^ damn and i just picked up the product on Friday. Guess its back to the normal way of washing and drying... I really liked it too, much easier.

that MAY BE why you are seeing this problem; in the product description, they specifically said 'the polymer in the autodry soap is clearcoat-safe and will wash off when driven in rain'

maybe they didn't foresee someone as meticulous as you that almost never let the car touch rain, thus allowing the residue to accumulate faster than they thought, and causing the mini-waterspots that you describe

you could always use another soap (Meguiar's come to mind) to use in conjunction with the filtered water, people have done that and reported very good result as well.

well, i think that a safe product shouldn't leave any type of permanent residue- period. i didn't see a disclaimer on it saying that if u don't drive your car in the rain that the finish will be ruined permanently. like i said, i don't know how it happened- just that it did. and, i'm just presenting my experience for everyone's benefit. if people like using it it's up to them.

Still no pics? Have you tried dedicating a nice Saturday or Sunday afternoon to the full Zaino treatment. Especially the claybar, perhaps that will get rid of those streaks. The weather's nice right now anyway, I'd give it a shot!

ah a well timed bump, because i just washed my 8 today with mr clean kit, still don't see any micro-watermarks yet!

i've replaced most of the glass & have been detailing about 1x a month using a porter cable & sonus polish. and, it's getting better, but it's a slow & painful process.

this is an earlier pix, before i started repairing. the spots are most visible from an angle, and less visible straight on. i'm convinced that it's definitely chemical residue in mr clean, because professional grade auto glass cleaning fluid, vinegar, alcohol, and even clorox bleach couldn't remove the spots off the windows.

oh wow, i TOTALLY DO NOT have that kind of water spotting on my car, and i look at it from all angles/lighting conditions all the time!!!

yes, I know exactly now what you are talking about! I had similar spots on my red '8 and it was even easier to see. It looked the car had some sort of weird skin disease or something. However I didn't use Mr. Clean. I washed it and dried it regularly, a little less than once a week, using a self service car wash. Mostly just because I didn't have access to a hose, so I needed the water. I'd wet the car down ($1.50), then apply soap by hand, then wash it off ($1.50). Then I'd go and dry it from bumper to bumper. And no matter what I did, I couldn't get the spots off.

Well, it took a long time, but in my case I finally figured out what caused those spots. F*#$ING SPRINKLER SYSTEM!! The apartment turned those on every other night, and the water would dry and leave spots.

The good news is, I was able to finally get rid of 'em by a thorough Zaino claybarring. Again, if you haven't tried that already, I highly recommend.

in my case, my car is always garaged and covered. so, no sprinklers or any other possible source of problems here. also. initially, there is no visible spotting from using mr. clean. if i'd seen this shit early on, i would've stopped using it in a heartbeat. it's over time when your guard is down 'cuz u think it's safe that the residue begins to build.

bump because today i made a change to my mr clean autodry usage.

instead of using the mr clean soap that leaves a film on the car (there's no doubt about that, they even say so on the product instruction), i filled the Mr Clean water gun with some regular Blue Coral Wash & Wax carwash soap. the result? the water definitely doesn't dry off as fast as using mr clean's soap, but i rinsed the car thoroughly with the filtered water and then pulled it into the garage to avoid any possibility of water spots etched in by the sun, and the result has been excellent, car's clean, no water spots whatsoever, i still don't need to bend down and dry the car by hand, and i'm using a 'safer' carwash soap that removes any suspicion of long term damage on the paint.

I still think the Mr Clean water gun contraption was a great design, it allows super easy soap and rinse without ever actually needing to dip your hand into a bucket, and the filtered water does work, so i'm gonna keep using the gun and buying filters for the foreseeable future :)

YMMV of course :)

good advice, my soap is running low but i have a gallon of the coral blue car wash. but with the mr clean soap and filter i've washed my car (black) in hot broad daylight and NEVER had a water spot yet with this thing, you could say i'm trying to get a water spot from it but it has yet to fail me.

Now i'll test it out with a different brand soap and see if the spot results are equal.

as an experiment, i filled a clear glass with mr clean filter water and put it in the garage. and, not surprisingly, it has not evaporated in over a month. in fact, it's been well over a month and there's still over 50% of it left. needless to say, i'm completely done with this product and have mailed all of my remaining product to them, along with a claim form.

good to hear u guys are having better success with it though.

you guys should use a better car soap than blue coral for your 8! pick up meguiar's gold class, or meguiar's nxt generation car wash. gold class is like $12 for 64oz

nicer soaps leave your paint slicker and would probably help w/ the rinsing/waterspot aspect

yeah i know, i just want to finish up this stash i have, i'm economical like that lol :Eyecrazy:

and unfortunately, i did find water spots, mainly pools of water that didn't dry off quick enough and dust was able to collect onto it, nothing a little bit of meguiar's quick detailer wouldn't fix though :D:

Good luck!

That can't be it. My car has only seen rain twice in 3 years and I don't have those sorts of spots anywhere.

it's good to hear that you guys aren't having issues, because honestly, i'd hate for anyone else to have go thru the hell that ive been thru with this thing... :(

based on your collective feedback, i can only theorize that the water in my area must be so hard that it's not get softened well-enough by the filter. and, if the filter isn't able to work properly, then logically there will be chemical residue and water spotting. i always used fresh filters each time (black) and always did multiple filtered rinse passes very thoroughly.

normally, a cup of tap water evaporates in about a week to two weeks over here, depending on ambient temperature & humidity. but, oddly, the mr. clean filtered water has taken over a month and still has not fully evaporated. so for my area, i guess it's not safe to use.

I'd be suprised if your water is that much harder than mine. Were on a limestone bed so the water is really hard.

I did notice that my car looks better if I don't use their soap, there isn't that grey haze and it doesn't collect dust as rapidly.

My first thought was that the window spots look like sap or something but then l looked at the patterns by the roof and they don't match a sap pattern so I dunno.

Detrich, did you regularly wax the car while using the AutoDry system?

no, i didn't wax the car until after i discovered the problem. since then, i've been porter cabling, waxing, & touching up the rubber/ plastic once a month. and, it's gradually getting better. initially, the chemical residue & spotting was all over my windows and moonroof glass as well. pro-grade auto window cleaner couldn't even remove it. and, that was the scariest part i think.

I think that if you waxed your car before you had the problem, you would've had a lesser effect on paint (obviously, probably same effect on glass still).

What are you using to touch up the plastic and rubber? I advise against Mother's Back to Black, because it leaves white residue when it wears out. I recommend Poorboy's Trim Restorer.

Glass water etching is difficult to remove, but it is easier (so to speak) to remove it from paint (because paint is softer).

For glass, you can try glass polishing (Diamondite, or Autoglym Glass Polish). I have some water etching in general on my glass (not too much, but some after 1.5 years) and I'm going to hit it up with a Poorboy's SSR 1 polish (light polish) and a white pad (light, polishing pad), and see how much it clears up.

What are you doing with PC (Porter Cable)? Which Sonus polish and which pads?

Our paint is pretty hard, so it takes a strong polish to work faster with PC. I recently purchased Menzerna Powergloss to see how well it works on the paint. I found that Poorboy's SSR 2.5 wasn't working as fast on my car as it did on my friend's Mitsubishi.

A friend of mine had pretty bad water etching on his black Mitsubishi Lancer. The car was never waxed for 2 years... his entire car was covered in water spots similar to yours, just from sitting out in the sun and the New England rain. I was able to hit his hood up with Poorboy's SSR 3 two or three times and that took care of 90% of the water spots. I then followed up with SSR 1 to buff out the microhazing and it looked much nicer. We never did the whole car though. His roof was pretty bad.

After that experience, he pledged to wax his next new car on a regular basis.

Anyways, I may sound like I know what I'm doing, but I'm just a hobbyist guy like you. Sorry to hear of the damage to your paint.

i've been getting help from a fellow forum member with detailing experience. and, he has me on a 1x/ month prescription of pc + sonus sfx 1 & 3 with the light orange cutting pad + p21s wax. for the plastic i've been using a very small amount of armor-all. and, it's made a big improvement- tho there is still a ways to go. for the glass, ive been using 'spray away' and on a small amount of zaino window cleaner, since it has a mild abrasive. none of these products gets rid of everything in one shot, but should gradually over a few months make a difference. and, so far so good. i guess it makes some sense, because the damage didn't just happen overnight. so, i shouldn't expect to get rid of it overnight, but gradually so as not to go overboard.

thanks again for your advice astral. i'll look into poorboy's trim restorer. i'm totally a newbie when it come to detailing. so, this has been quite the learning experience.