In between washes, I've often used the california duster (a small paraffin coated mop on a stick). It worked great to pull of dust. Since I only used it on my 91 Stealth, which had an old paint job on it, I was wondering if it was safe to use on my new, factory perfect paint job without causing scratches and swirls. Any advice?

 

I,ve been using one on my last 4 new cars including the RX8 and it never caused any scratches or swirls. I've gone thru about 5 new ones by now and I used them about every other day in California. By the way Pep Boys sells a large round one that is much larger than the original mop.

 

I use a dust mit for the INSIDE :D

 

Cool. Thanks for the advice. Do you clean your duster, or just get a new one?

 

Don't listen to him.. Dusters cause serious swirls..

Think about it.. your swishing around dirt on a completely dry surface.. How would that NOT cause swirl marks...


Be WARNED.

 

Listen I'm just relaying my experience with the duster, I've never had swirl marks on 3 Audis, 1 VW and I've been using it for 1 month on my Winning Blue RX8.

It works for me and I never heard of anybody having had problems with swirl marks, most people on the Audi forum are using one.

Anyway, I'm not going to stop using mine, anybody is entitle to an opinion.

 

This is actually pretty funny - alarabie uses California dusters regularly, and has no problems with swirls after many years of use. He also had great success with 3M Imperial Hand Glaze for removing dealer-created swirls.

You, on the other hand, don't use a Duster, and have terrible problems with swirls, and can not get any swirl remover product to work on eliminating your swirls (was it 13 you tried?!).

So who should we listen to? :p

Regards,
Gordon

 

Dusters is the reason why I have swirls in the first place, daddyo...

WITH the original *California Duster*.. To think it recommends not buying any other brand, as it it mattered.... And NO my dusters have never been dirty, I know better...

Who knows, maybe it's just a perception thing, but honestly, I have to say I try my best to be objective about this and when I do my tests, I look for improvements, even the tiniest.. I have found none of them really yield siginficant improvements to make it worth the effort.

Before you brush me off, just consider that different environments give different levels of dust as well as different abrasive levels too, such as sandy windy areas where the dusts contain more silicates. Dust and dirt trapped in fibers drawn across the surface of the car is the #1 cause of swirl marks. The fibers themselves are not the cause.. It's the dust.

But who knows maybe I have supersensitive vision and can see these things, but I don't think so. All I know is everyone I've seen who have used dusters have swirl marks...

But if you insist, by all means, nobody is stopping you.. Just giving you *my* experience, that's all. Everyone's entitled to do whatever they want. But don't say you haven't been warned.

 

What to do....what to do.....

 

I've used the California duster on a black XK8 and TBM (very dark blue) Miata and on my black RX8 without any problems. You should be careful though not to apply ANY pressure. Just lightly dust. DO NOT RUB. If you have to apply pressure, it's time for a wash. To clean the duster, just shake it out. Let a new duster sit on newspaper overnight to get rid of the excess paraffin.

For dusting the interior I've found that Swifter and Grab-it cloths work great. I generally keep a couple in the glove box.

Dave

 

I use a Duster on my ti Miata and the wife's MB without any problems. Just remember it's a DUSTER! If the car is dirty, wash it! A duster is for DUST.

 

Black 8, been using the duster. The only swirl marks I get are :

- very fine,
- are in the topmost coating of wax (which gets smoothed back out the next time I wash and wax again), and
- are by far less noticeable than the coating of dust that would be the alternative,

Since I don't have time to completely wash and dry my car before work just about every day in August and half of September, I choose to use the duster.

However, Squidward, I do get what you mean about supersensitive vision and such. I think some people's ideas of swirl marks are the kind we'd cringe at... the ones you can't help but notice unless you're truly legally blind, and then there are those of us who are looking directly into the reflection of the sun on the paint and wondering if the spiders that caused those webs are still around and creeping up behind us.

So, for me, it's dust (lightly!) and make sure to keep a good coating of wax on my baby.

my 2 c

 

I'v ebeen using a California Duster for over 4 years on my (previous car) Celica and my girlfriends Miata, no problems. I dust the cars every night after the body panels have cooled to the touch, Of course the cars have muliple coats of Zaino on them and I don't rub it across the paint, but rather kind of just pulling it while hovering above the finish.

 

California duster is good ****. Use it. One word of advice, I use to keep it in my trunk when I drove around. DO NOT DO THIS. If it gets warm, the wax on the duster will smear all over your paint