Hard Water + Glass = Spots
 

I have to say that I have never had this problem this bad in the past. I spent many hours using Zaino on my 09 for the first time and when I get to the last thing which is to clean the windows I see spots...covering the windows. I figured I would get them off like normal with the glass cleaner I use on the inside....DENIED!! :mad: So far these have even resisted the wiper fluid even!!

So this brings up 2 questions...

1. what can I use to get my glass clean again?

2. Since our water at the house is getting harder (which is hard to imagine) how can I prevent this in the future on both paint and glass?

Thankfully my house doesn't have too hard of water, but lots of my customers have terrible water here in the Austin and surrounding areas.

I have a few specially designed glass cleaning towels that only require water to clean windows. These will get some of them out if you have caught them quickly enough.

For the really bad ones, I literally go over the windows like I would on the paint with the buffer and the Tropi-Care Swirl Cutter product that I use to remove the swirls on the paint. This removes ALL the water spots, is safe for the glass, and according to my customers, they seem to think it prevents the spots a little bit the next few times so they aren't quite as bad.

It's a great trick when you are having to detail in 110 degree heat too. Water spots up in about 10 seconds :D

That is what happened this weekend. Since my truck will not fit into my garage too well I had to do the wash and wax outside in the 90+ heat and clear skys. Let's just say that the water was drying almost as fast as I could spray it on. :(

I have used in the past an RV hose filter and it seemed to help but cut down on the already low water pressure at my old house. When I moved into this house 2 years ago the water was great and didnt hardly spot. But they seemed to have taken off the filters because I am getting calcium deposits at all the water sources in the house.

Plenty of hard water here.

A few things I personaly do and feel helps

Prevention:

Keep a coat of wax or a good coat of RainX on the glass at all times
Do the best I can not to wash if the windows are in direct sunlight
(I wash in the mornings and evenings and use the houses as shade for this)


Removal:

Good Quality Soap, wash & MF dry seems to work most of the time.
Sometimes an aggressive claybar (white ones don't do squat to these spots)
Suprisingly enough a new coat of rainx will remove a lot of it. (I'm guessing due to the high alcohol content.)
Paint polishes with cleaners in them.
I've actually done some tests with Meg's PlastX with quite good results.


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never wash your truck in direct sunlight, youre just asking for trouble. i always wash mine at night under the house flood lights. works perfect.

Barkeeper's Friend can remove waterspots.

My understanding is Optimum No Rinse has a water softener in it. Try washing with that instead?

I had the same problem and this is what I did but with a da and it took a little while.
http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31751

M04 with a rotary makes very light work of water spots. I had really stubborn water spots that I couldn't get off for years with all kinds of stuff. I finally got around to trying it out a couple weekends ago and it worked like a champ. The da will take a bit longer because of the clutch in the da not allowing you to apply enough pressure. You would probably get better results by hand with m04 than with a DA. Don't quote me on that though.

interesting info...

Please keep the info coming as I am sure more than just us have had to deal with this.

Lol I personally got nowhere by hand. I used an orange pad and the DA on speed 6 and it took some time but the results were amazing and like you I tried everything. LC has a glass pad with cristal chips imbedded in it that is suppose to work good. I have it but havent used it yet.
http://www.autogeek.net/lc-glass-polishing-pad.html

Like I said, don't quote me on that. With the rotary, I did my entire back/side window in less than 5 minutes. I just imagine by hand you could use more pressure but at the same time your arm may fall off so there's that trade off.

I used the heavy duty glass polishing kit from ADS and got nowhere on light swirl marks on my rear window. I did three passes (about 5 minutes each) on a 1x1-ish area and only improved it a hair. I was very dissapointed so I think I'll avoid any LC glass products from now on. They may work on water spots. I didn't try.

Im planning on using the LC polishing pad with #4. ESF on a side note after you polished your glass did you apply any product after that.

Zaino has a glass polish in the arsenal of products. It has worked very well for me, but then all the Zaino products hae worked well. I also do not wash my truck in direct sunlight. You are only asking for water spots if you do.

fine steel wool and glass cleaner for the tough ones never had a problem