What is the best thing to take water spots out of your paint job?

 

There is a whole separate forum for paint detailing, just not under the jaguarforums.com site.

First thing to remember is that you are dealing with a multi thousand dollar finish on the car and that it should be treated appropriately to its value.

You need start with a Porter-Cable DA polisher, several levels of foam polishing bonnets and a liquid polish compound. Do not use a wool bonnet any time, under any conditions. I am in a local car club with the local major body and paint shop owner. He recommends 'Farecla G3' polishing compound which I have used. It cuts and polishes. The particles get finer with buffing so the polishing affect increases. Just use more for more cutting action. While scary, even a first time effort is controllable without burning through the paint.

After polishing out all the water spots, they are really acid etched spots, I would suggest Megular's Professional Show Car Glaze (#7) followed by Meguiar's Hi-Tech Yellow Wax (#26).

This is not a casual afternoon wax job. While the XK8's paint was in pretty good condition, the wife's '93 Miata needed some serious work. It took a week of 3-4 hours per day effort to bring it back to better than new.

 

If it is just a small localized area, I have had pretty good luck using a scratch remover product like one made by Maguires. The Maguires stuff comes in a black tube and is very gentle. It may take several hand applications to completely remove the water marks. I really really hate water marks. The trick to preventing these is to not allow beads of water to dry on the car. The are just like little magnifying glasses when the sun hits. If I get caught in a rain I generally try to at least smear the beads if I know it might be sitting outside.

Doug

 

Thanks guys.

 

some really sound advice above there Kev
You can try checking out our detailing section and ask Dave's advice and or go to detailingworld.com