Need Help! How do you get rid of water spots?

[Cyber_P]

Acidic cleaners are not for daily use, I'm using them for spots/stains. I copiously hosed down the panel to neutralize and remove such chemicals.

As for the acidity of vinegar, the hibachi places that clean their stovetops daily and my stainless flat top stove at home in direct sunlight disagrees. To each their own! The Tesla Service Center gave the alcohol suggestion when their CT cleaning guru came out.

My suggestion was white vinegar and elbow grease for the tough spots on initial pickup or really resistant spots.

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[Ward L]

When hand washing in the driveway out of the sun, is it ok to use common car wash soap with a small micro-fiber towel, hose down and dry with a beach towel? You know, the same way I’ve washed my cars for decades? The CT may be the ugliest vehicle made, but it sure demands to be cared for like a beauty queen!

 

[CyberGus]

As for the acidity of vinegar, the hibachi places that clean their stovetops daily and my stainless flat top stove at home in direct sunlight disagrees. To each their own! The Tesla Service Center gave the alcohol suggestion when their CT cleaning guru came out.

My suggestion was white vinegar and elbow grease for the tough spots on initial pickup or really resistant spots.

I'm not suggesting acidic cleaners are contraindicated, but rather there are better products for common dirt/smudge removal.

 

[Alto]

I've been trying to get rid of these water spots for a couple of weeks - with no luck. They are all over the truck.


Here's what I have tried so far:
- Regular car soap wash
- Windex
- 70% Alcohol
- ONR Car wash: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GG9FK2M?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

None of these have been able to remove those water spots.

I have this Bar Keeper's Friend Soft Cleanser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JGZ1XSP?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

But I have not used it yet because of this video:

It says don't use BKP because it scratches the stainless steel. In a subsequent video, he had to repolish the steel to get it back to normal:

Any advice on what to do to get rid of these water spots without harming the steel?

--

Zip car wash by Turtle Wax works for me. You need to dry the car with a shammy.

 

[Bartman]

I've been trying to get rid of these water spots for a couple of weeks - with no luck. They are all over the truck.


Here's what I have tried so far:
- Regular car soap wash
- Windex
- 70% Alcohol
- ONR Car wash: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GG9FK2M?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

None of these have been able to remove those water spots.

I have this Bar Keeper's Friend Soft Cleanser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JGZ1XSP?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

But I have not used it yet because of this video:

It says don't use BKP because it scratches the stainless steel. In a subsequent video, he had to repolish the steel to get it back to normal:

Any advice on what to do to get rid of these water spots without harming the steel?

--

Just get used to the natural beauty of it.

 

[Crissa]

Here's what I have tried so far:
- Regular car soap wash
- Windex
- 70% Alcohol

None of those things remove water spots.

Every cleaner specializes in what it removes, and puts into solution.

• Soap removes oils and dirt, by surfactant action of binding with water on one side of the molecule and dirt or oil with the other.
• Windex is a base, which binds with oils to turn them into soaps.
• Alcohol is a solvent which lifts soaps and oils differently than water - and watch out, isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) and ethyl alcohol (the stuff we drink) work differently as solvents, but they both can break up different resins and bring them into solution.

You need something that will remove the water spot crystals - so acidic things like CLR, Barkeeper's Friend, Line-A-Way, citric acid, etc.

The point is that once you have it in solution, then you need to wash it away - so liberal action with more water, towels, etc, so that it doesn't redeposit when the water (or whatever) evaporates.

-Crissa

 

[agordon117]

Alright, for anyone who was following along with what I was saying earlier... I did some experimenting.

The 12v battery powered buffer mentioned in that video early in the thread works very well in combo with the soft buffing disk and spray BKF. it takes off discoloration that would normally be very difficult to scrub off manually. It also allows you to effectively clean much more area at a time within the 60 second time that you have to start removing the BKF in.

As far as panel refinishing... The maroon scotchbrite on that buffer perfectly matches the factory finish, and may even be a hair less coarse. I had a whole door from the factory that was not the correct sheen vs the door next to it, and this process completely solved it in a way that nobody would ever know the process was done. In the video the guy says to press very lightly, this was not my experience. Pressing very lightly puts swirl marks in because the oscillation isn't happening correctly. I had to press pretty firmly (and as I increased the speed, had to press harder). You do not need the blue scotchbrite as I had theorized (and the blue stuff used in the video does nothing, because it's a non scratch pad).

The maroon pad can achieve an even better sheen than from factory (depending on how they finished yours, mine has 3 or 4 different levels of sheen on various panels) if you make enough passes. In some cases it's possible to not have to refinish a whole panel, but those would be case by case, and you can't take very many passes if you do that.

If you attempt this process, you are going to be tempted to finish a small portion to get the process down, and then go further along the panel as you get what you are looking for. Do not do this. It will make your job much harder. You want to touch every piece of each panel the same amount. If you do what I did here for my test, and then try to apply it to the whole panel, it becomes more difficult to blend what you did as a test with the finish on the whole panel.

You can see below what I was talking about with the weird mismatched finish on my doors. Left of the door seam is OEM finish on the rear door. Right of the white line is OEM finish on the front door. Between the door seam and the white line is where I used the red scotchbrite pad on the battery powered buffer, and it is a very good match for the rear door now.

Seeing how easy this is, I'm probably gonna just do the whole truck myself. I don't really care if the panels are shiny or not shiny, but I want them all to match, and they simply do not match from the factory.

The parts I listed from mcmaster are completely the wrong kind of thing, and I'm gonna remove it from my previous post. The grits may be right, but the pad isn't soft enough to conform to the truck.

 

[heems]

When hand washing in the driveway out of the sun, is it ok to use common car wash soap with a small micro-fiber towel, hose down and dry with a beach towel? You know, the same way I’ve washed my cars for decades? The CT may be the ugliest vehicle made, but it sure demands to be cared for like a beauty queen!

That’s all I do. The rest is the natural look of the surface and I don’t fuss over it.
Ps. She is brutally beautiful to me. Nothing ugly about it.

 

[QQQSB]

I've been trying to get rid of these water spots for a couple of weeks - with no luck. They are all over the truck.


Here's what I have tried so far:
- Regular car soap wash
- Windex
- 70% Alcohol
- ONR Car wash: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GG9FK2M?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

None of these have been able to remove those water spots.

I have this Bar Keeper's Friend Soft Cleanser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JGZ1XSP?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

But I have not used it yet because of this video:

It says don't use BKP because it scratches the stainless steel. In a subsequent video, he had to repolish the steel to get it back to normal:

Any advice on what to do to get rid of these water spots without harming the steel?

--

 

[QQQSB]

I've been trying to get rid of these water spots for a couple of weeks - with no luck. They are all over the truck.


Here's what I have tried so far:
- Regular car soap wash
- Windex
- 70% Alcohol
- ONR Car wash: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GG9FK2M?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

None of these have been able to remove those water spots.

I have this Bar Keeper's Friend Soft Cleanser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JGZ1XSP?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

But I have not used it yet because of this video:

It says don't use BKP because it scratches the stainless steel. In a subsequent video, he had to repolish the steel to get it back to normal:

Any advice on what to do to get rid of these water spots without harming the steel?

--

Mine had terrible water marks like this. I finally figured out it was because the water I used was very hard, high mineral content.
I went to one of those do it yourself car washes (with spray wands). They have a setting for soft water rinse, that brought back the original finish.

 

[cyber415]

I'm back! From your advice - I tried a couple of things and finally found a way to get rid of the water spots.

• White vinegar & Microfiber cloth - Did not work
• Bar Keepers Friend Spray foam cleaner & Microfiber cloth - Did not work
• CitriSurf 77 & Microfiber cloth - Did not work
• Bar Keepers Friend Soft Cleanser & Microfiber cloth -This worked!
  • I just softly rubbed it around with the microfiber, not much effort was needed to remove those water spots
  • After application with microfiber, I wiped off area with another microfiber
  • Then sprayed with Windex and wiped off with another microfiber

I was initially afraid of using BKP soft cleanser due to potential of scratches - but the microfiber seems to have worked out with no scratching.


Shoutout to Crissa for providing a great breakdown on what various products are meant to do:
https://www.cybertruckownersclub.co...-you-get-rid-of-water-spots.15171/post-293217

 

[CyberTruckeeTheOne]

Huh?

I just slightly moist a paper towel and it's gone?

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