Rainy days what would you guys do?

[Newcarsmell]

So i have two cars (mercedes amg 45 hatch) that I take out accordingly and my other toyoto camry I drive to work etc.. I park the mercedes in garage and I would say I take it out 2-3x a week (more or less depending on situation). So since it rains 150 days a year in Seattle, I can't avoid the rain. November gets hit around 18 days according to google and since I got this car not too long ago looking to get prepared for what kind of action to take.

I do know about waterless and rinseless and been doing this in garage. (waterless when light dirt etc.. and rinsless when more debris). However, doing this for every rain visit would be little too much. ( I try not to go over 2x washing a week which is still a lot. Sundays, i will do more thorough cleaning)

Anyways questions.
1). Seattle air is pretty clear so the rain water won't be too bad. If you leave it in the garage, will this cause water spots if left overnight (i'll prob be tired after coming back usually) and have to do rinsesless or waterless next day.
2). Did some search on here and saw that hosing it off will cause more water stains as hose water has more minerals etc. So if driving through seattle puddles and accumulating lot of mud splatters etc.. I'm guessing hosing is fine and go into rinseless wash afterwards.
3). What would you do if you drove the car and started raining then went home? Leave it in garage and rinseless next day? (2 days?)

I'm just suprised that if it rains 150 days a year here I don't seem to see many water stains on cars that much. Could it be that people leaving their car outside gets like free showers and removes light water stains during process so frequent rains isn't too bad?

[SWETM]

I think that it's just about how you think about the looks of your vehical. Dryed rain water even with the road film and grime from the roads is a no problem. If you wash weekly or every other week. I don't think it's more problems if it's dirtier for longer times either and especially not on a well protected vehical. Can just reference to my own environment with harsh winter weather here in Sweden. It can go 2-3 months sometimes before I'm able to do a wash. The dried road salt and grime and contaminants that accumulate during this time is pretty bad. But it's not a problem since paints is pretty impresive to protect on it's own. It's more the undercarriage and wheel wells that needs to be haveing a great protection. And this is the protecting bodysprays and such that you inspect and keep up and ad some where it's needed.

The water spots from rain and snow rarely does any damage on the paint even if unprotected. A protection is great to have but that's more for the longhaul that's years of neglected can be doing damage from this. In short term as of days and weeks and even months. The protection gets it to a non issue IMO. The water spots you see during the short term and from rain or snow. Is just dirt that is left from when the water has evaporate. And with a great beading protection this can actually be more noticeble than if you have a great sheeting from the protection or unprotected. It's also able to be self cleaning ability from it as the dirt don't bond as hard on some protections.

It's the well water and the tap water where you have minerals in it that is of concern. The beads when the sun hits it acts like a magnifying glass. This makes some minerals very coarse and can etch your paint and other materials. Some protection do has some protection for this. The other part is that it's bonding so hard on the paint. So it's hard to be washed off if left on the paint for a longer time before getting to wash it. And in some environments it goes really fast to get it to etch your paint. The tap water is useally filtred in some way. And even if it's not any problems for us humans to drink or to get it on us. The residue from these chemicals that cleans the water is lime scale. This is the almost white residue you get on your car if you don't dry it after the rinse off. If it's left in the sun to dry it can etching but if it's slowly evaporate in the shade or the garage. It leaves the lime scale after evaporated. This useally don't etch your paint but looks not good and often clogging your LSP from behaving great. But it can be very hard to get off. Water spot remover has some kind acidic chemicals in that release the bond from the lime scale and makes to a soluble solution that you can rinse off or wipe off. On water spots like this if it's no high concentration of lime scale a water spot remover is effective. If it's been baked in the sun it can be harder to release and even polishing can be hard to remove it in extreme cases. A dedicated water spot remover can be usefull to have in your arsenal when you where to get water spots from lime scale and remove them as fast as possible before they bonds too hard or etching the paint. You often wipe in the water spot remover and this makes it more effective. And if your LSP is sensitive to acids it can desolve it and need to be reapplyied or topped up.

And so it's much if you can get sprinklers water on your vehical or any other source of tap water and well water that has minerals in it that's the problems mostly. Also if your environment you live in has minerals in the earth that the rain water sometimes can be haveing from these environments that's also a problem. Or if you live near a big harbor or environments with a lot of fumes in the air. This gets to when it comes up into the air and rains it transform to the acid rains that you can be seeing in protection products descriptions. And this is useally not something that you notice directly and it's builds up over a longer time and etch or bonds hard on the paint. If you look at the water lines on boats there you have the yellowing/orange colored contaminants. This is like acid rains damage but it's transformed on the surface of water and dries on the boat and create the dirty water line on them. This you desolve with acid based cleaners or polishing it off. Oxalic acid in powder and mixed with water is useally used in Sweden to take care of this water lines. And basicly it's like an iron remover too. Don't know how effective the bleeding kind of iron removers is on these water lines. But you can do iron removal with oxalic acid on the paint. It's just not visible as a bleeding reaction from it. Also it's why an acid based wheel cleaner is so effective on wheels. If you use that you will hardly see any bleeding reaction from a wheel cleaner or iron remover if used on wheels maintained with an acid based wheel cleaner.

So IMO if you don't get rain water and dirt of the vehical right away. This would not be a problem to get off on your maintance washes weekly or every other week. If you can stand out with a dirty vehical that is LOL.

[Coatingsarecrack]

I live in Washington south of Seattle and long as I have a good LSP I'm good with rinseless/waterless once a week in rainy season. Garaged at night sits outside at work. No issues with water spots at all. If heavy crud from puddles will pressure wash at car wash or home depending on weather.

I will pre spray with a waterless let sit 5 min before pressure washing. I really like McKees 914 or griots brilliant shine rinseless for our weather on my coated car. I use CP Ech20 as drying aid.

Recommend ceramic/quartz coating with our weather. Makes it pretty easy to clean. If you stay on top of it sealant or wax should be Ok also.




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[Newcarsmell]

I live in Washington south of Seattle and long as I have a good LSP I'm good with rinseless/waterless once a week in rainy season. Garaged at night sits outside at work. No issues with water spots at all. If heavy crud from puddles will pressure wash at car wash or home depending on weather.

I will pre spray with a waterless let sit 5 min before pressure washing. I really like McKees 914 or griots brilliant shine rinseless for our weather on my coated car. I use CP Ech20 as drying aid.

Recommend ceramic/quartz coating with our weather. Makes it pretty easy to clean. If you stay on top of it sealant or wax should be Ok also.




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Well , you were aware of the Thunder show yesterday. So it was pouring, then stopped then pouring and so forth. So what would you do if your car has wax on it and drove around this and went home. Would you
A). leave it in garage and call it a night wash next day
B). Hose it down with garden hose (yesterday had lot of muddle puddles) then rinseless in garage
C). leave it there in garage for 1-x amount of days and do nothing and drive off then do weekly clean

As mentioned more concerned about water spots as stains were removed via polish for me last time (but not sure how the water stain appeared.. THinking it was garden hose and being dried in sun.)

It sounds like I'm overthinking this etc.. but when i see youtubers detailing they are more worse hahah so i'm ok.. lol

[Newcarsmell]

I think that it's just about how you think about the looks of your vehical. Dryed rain water even with the road film and grime from the roads is a no problem. If you wash weekly or every other week. I don't think it's more problems if it's dirtier for longer times either and especially not on a well protected vehical. Can just reference to my own environment with harsh winter weather here in Sweden. It can go 2-3 months sometimes before I'm able to do a wash. The dried road salt and grime and contaminants that accumulate during this time is pretty bad. But it's not a problem since paints is pretty impresive to protect on it's own. It's more the undercarriage and wheel wells that needs to be haveing a great protection. And this is the protecting bodysprays and such that you inspect and keep up and ad some where it's needed.

The water spots from rain and snow rarely does any damage on the paint even if unprotected. A protection is great to have but that's more for the longhaul that's years of neglected can be doing damage from this. In short term as of days and weeks and even months. The protection gets it to a non issue IMO. The water spots you see during the short term and from rain or snow. Is just dirt that is left from when the water has evaporate. And with a great beading protection this can actually be more noticeble than if you have a great sheeting from the protection or unprotected. It's also able to be self cleaning ability from it as the dirt don't bond as hard on some protections.

It's the well water and the tap water where you have minerals in it that is of concern. The beads when the sun hits it acts like a magnifying glass. This makes some minerals very coarse and can etch your paint and other materials. Some protection do has some protection for this. The other part is that it's bonding so hard on the paint. So it's hard to be washed off if left on the paint for a longer time before getting to wash it. And in some environments it goes really fast to get it to etch your paint. The tap water is useally filtred in some way. And even if it's not any problems for us humans to drink or to get it on us. The residue from these chemicals that cleans the water is lime scale. This is the almost white residue you get on your car if you don't dry it after the rinse off. If it's left in the sun to dry it can etching but if it's slowly evaporate in the shade or the garage. It leaves the lime scale after evaporated. This useally don't etch your paint but looks not good and often clogging your LSP from behaving great. But it can be very hard to get off. Water spot remover has some kind acidic chemicals in that release the bond from the lime scale and makes to a soluble solution that you can rinse off or wipe off. On water spots like this if it's no high concentration of lime scale a water spot remover is effective. If it's been baked in the sun it can be harder to release and even polishing can be hard to remove it in extreme cases. A dedicated water spot remover can be usefull to have in your arsenal when you where to get water spots from lime scale and remove them as fast as possible before they bonds too hard or etching the paint. You often wipe in the water spot remover and this makes it more effective. And if your LSP is sensitive to acids it can desolve it and need to be reapplyied or topped up.

And so it's much if you can get sprinklers water on your vehical or any other source of tap water and well water that has minerals in it that's the problems mostly. Also if your environment you live in has minerals in the earth that the rain water sometimes can be haveing from these environments that's also a problem. Or if you live near a big harbor or environments with a lot of fumes in the air. This gets to when it comes up into the air and rains it transform to the acid rains that you can be seeing in protection products descriptions. And this is useally not something that you notice directly and it's builds up over a longer time and etch or bonds hard on the paint. If you look at the water lines on boats there you have the yellowing/orange colored contaminants. This is like acid rains damage but it's transformed on the surface of water and dries on the boat and create the dirty water line on them. This you desolve with acid based cleaners or polishing it off. Oxalic acid in powder and mixed with water is useally used in Sweden to take care of this water lines. And basicly it's like an iron remover too. Don't know how effective the bleeding kind of iron removers is on these water lines. But you can do iron removal with oxalic acid on the paint. It's just not visible as a bleeding reaction from it. Also it's why an acid based wheel cleaner is so effective on wheels. If you use that you will hardly see any bleeding reaction from a wheel cleaner or iron remover if used on wheels maintained with an acid based wheel cleaner.

So IMO if you don't get rain water and dirt of the vehical right away. This would not be a problem to get off on your maintance washes weekly or every other week. If you can stand out with a dirty vehical that is LOL.

First off thanks for taking time to write a well thought out accurate post . Just didn’t have time to thoroughly read it and think about what I wanted to say. I do agree that stronger LSP (wax , sealant etc), dirt and stuff will slide off.
To summarize. You mentioned that tap water has minerals in it where sun hits it will magnify certain parts and etch the paint. Never heard this before. Would have thought the tap water would be more clean but guess not. So rain doesn’t have much minerals and mostly just dirt then? I know acid rain and pollutants can be issue but Seattle is pretty clean air so don’t think need to worry about that.
Sun drying tap water will cause etching I’m sure but if its in the shade (like garage for me in this case), you are stating that it will evaporate and less of a outline/etching but leave the car bit dirty. But how does it affect (or clog as you say) the wax or sealant etc? and its hard to get off?
That’s the problem I’m trying to avoid. Water stains are pain to remove and polishing only removed it lol
Anyways as mentioned, overthinking this but there are far more worse then I lol. Leaving the car in garage with the rain beads still there and not doing anything is bothersome but seems fine after your explanation. Just not sure how long until my OCD kicks in to wash it off lol

[Klasse Act]

Is it coated[emoji848]

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[Coatingsarecrack]

Well , you were aware of the Thunder show yesterday. So it was pouring, then stopped then pouring and so forth. So what would you do if your car has wax on it and drove around this and went home. Would you
A). leave it in garage and call it a night wash next day
B). Hose it down with garden hose (yesterday had lot of muddle puddles) then rinseless in garage
C). leave it there in garage for 1-x amount of days and do nothing and drive off then do weekly clean

As mentioned more concerned about water spots as stains were removed via polish for me last time (but not sure how the water stain appeared.. THinking it was garden hose and being dried in sun.)

It sounds like I'm overthinking this etc.. but when i see youtubers detailing they are more worse hahah so i'm ok.. lol

My car is coated and I was out in the thunder showers. From 10 feet away looks completely clean. If I felt the need to clean a simple waterless would suffice.

If I wasn’t coating and used a sealant (I don’t use waxes for protection. I liked for looks). I usually just let it go till days off and used a waterless.


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[SWETM]

First off thanks for taking time to write a well thought out accurate post . Just didn’t have time to thoroughly read it and think about what I wanted to say. I do agree that stronger LSP (wax , sealant etc), dirt and stuff will slide off.
To summarize. You mentioned that tap water has minerals in it where sun hits it will magnify certain parts and etch the paint. Never heard this before. Would have thought the tap water would be more clean but guess not. So rain doesn’t have much minerals and mostly just dirt then? I know acid rain and pollutants can be issue but Seattle is pretty clean air so don’t think need to worry about that.
Sun drying tap water will cause etching I’m sure but if its in the shade (like garage for me in this case), you are stating that it will evaporate and less of a outline/etching but leave the car bit dirty. But how does it affect (or clog as you say) the wax or sealant etc? and its hard to get off?
That’s the problem I’m trying to avoid. Water stains are pain to remove and polishing only removed it lol
Anyways as mentioned, overthinking this but there are far more worse then I lol. Leaving the car in garage with the rain beads still there and not doing anything is bothersome but seems fine after your explanation. Just not sure how long until my OCD kicks in to wash it off lol

The last that you mentioned is what I would be doing and do as in just leave it as is. Then it's just about how much dirt you can stand out with haveing LOL. Most organic dirt is not so aggressive in to do any damage. The paint first reason it come to be made was so the steel/iron metalls would not rust. Then it was refiened to be better at protecting. Then it came to be used in different colors. What I try to say is what most detailers don't won't to hear is that modern is a very strong protection on it's own. But you can make it even better with adding more protection to it. And mostly it's to get a way better visual looks from it. Don't get me wrong I like to have as defect free paint as possible that looks awesome.

Don't know if it's makes sense but water from the state that is delivered to your house. Or if you well water and it has minerals in it. Often if not always goes though some kind of cleaning to be certain that it's not get so easy contaminants from things that us humans are sensetive to as bacterias and stuff. Hope it's mainly comes through what I mean as english is not my native language. So if I where to chose from washing with rain water or tap water without drying the vehical. Every time I would chose rain water. Then it's about how you would gather all of the rain water but just say it's done in a cleanly way. You can have a very clean tap water depending on where it's taken and how they do to and how much they need to be doing to get the water clean. The more treatment they need to be doing the more bad it is for us who likes to wash our vehicals and keep them nice. So it's much of what you have in your water that depends how the water gets and if they cause damage as in etching or just the residue from when it has evaporated off. If left in the full sun to dry when it's standing at the highest around noon you can have the magnifying effect on water beads even. I say can as it's not a thing that always happens. Then you would have seen many worse vehicals with water spots etching around. And I don't exactly know which minerals or other things in the water that causes the damage on clearcoat from the magnifying effect or just being heated up by the sun. But generally if rain water evaporate even in full sun it should not be making water spots or etching in the way that it's hard to be removed or damage the clearcoat. You can possible have dirt on the vehical before or rain water runs off from something that is dirty and landing on the paint. And this in some way is causing a reaction that leaves hard to remove spots or damage the clearcoat. Sprinklers is what can cause trouble outside of the washing. And especially on those that use a recycled water.

So take the water spots you can get from the water when you wash. It's the water that's left after the rinse. That's mainly the problem. With working in the shade or in the garage and even in lower temperature. Is what makes water to evaporate slower. So the less of the time this stands on the vehicals the better you avoid water spots and also the clogging of your LSP. The best thing is to get it off as soon as you can. Now you don't need to be getting crazy with it and it's also depending on the water you have. So if you wash your vehical out of the sun and dry it with mf drying towels or blowdry them. Before the water evaporate too much. The chance of getting water spots is minimal and damaged clearcoat even lesser.

The clogging I mentioned is what can happen over time if your water has a lot of minerals or solids in it. This can be building up on the LSP with the little of water that is unvoideble to get off before you are able to dry it. The little of water that's evaporates can leave enough of say lime scale as that's the common I know of to clogg the LSP so you get a less performance from it. As in water beading and sheeting from it and the self cleaning ability from it. This is mostly on longer lasting LSP as in ceramic coatings. In rare cases you can have problems with this on waxes and sealants that's longer lasting durability. Mostly you won't notice it as you will be reapply the LSP before it's showing. But who knows as it's hard to know if it's a clogged LSP or if it's a failed LSP as in it's been worned off. Some can be thinking that their LSP fails sooner than others does. And one of the reasons can be that it's just clogged and still protecting the paint. So it's easier to trouble shooting it on coatings. As it's pretty aggressive to unclogg it and most waxes and sealants would be failing by doing so. While a ceramic coating is very chemical resistant you have the ability to be unclogg it. An Italian company has made a car soap that is slightly on the acidic side. To use as maintance for ceramic coatings to use every other month or so. To desolve the lime scale build up before it gets such as build up so it degrade the water behavior and self cleaning ability. Then they have a little stronger product that you can use if it's already clogged by the lime scale build up. And also the even stronger than that when you have gotten a water spot.

So if you want to remove the water spots that are mineral based. It's an acidic based products that you use as water spot removers are. Then they have come far with the chemical technology so they can be mixing in acidic chemicals and use other chemicals so the ready to use solution gets ph balanced. But the reaction on the water spots is still an acidic one. The chemical either transform the lime scale to be able to get rinsed off or wiped off. Or it change the charge of it so it's released from the paint easier. If you have a ceramic coating I would get their dedicated water spot remover. As this is useally not too strong to degrade the coating. If you have a wax or sealant get a recommended water spot remover. As you want to be reapply these where you have used the water spot remover or at least top them up. That said some sealants can be great on resist the water spot remover. Don't know which sealants so it's trial and error. If it's degrades the water behavior directly or if you see it degrade where you have used the water spot remover faster than the other parts of the sealant. And the faster it's done the easier the water spots will get off. If you have had the water spots on for a longer time it can be needed to be doing more than 1 application of the water spot remover. And if it's too big amount of the water spot or that it has etched the clearcoat it's needed to be abraded off with polish or compound.

It's also important to look up that the water spot remover is safe to use on the glass. Some acids will be etching the glass. If you use another product than a water spot remover that is acidic based. I would stay away from getting even overspray on the glass. Some use acid based wheel cleaners as a water spot remover. Some of these can be bad to use on the glass and other materials than you have on wheels and their surroundings. And as with all of the chemical products you don't let them to dry on the vehical.

A waterless wash or rinseless wash has some kind of water softerner in it. So either use as a drying aid or do a wipe down with it after the wash. Useally takes care of fresh water spots. Some QD and spray waxes also has the ability to remove water spots. I even know of a glass cleaner that's also is a water spot remover on the paint. And even some car soaps claims to be acting as being less prone to get water spots on the paint after the rinse. But it's still important to drying the vehical.

In your case where your tap water seems to be able to etching the clearcoat. I would get a dedicated water spot remover to have at hand. If you where to see some water spots a while after you have washed and dried the car. And it's not coming off with the product you use as a drying aid or as a wipe down with after the drying. But as long as you are properly drying your vehical after the wash. And don't dry it too long after the last rinse. Also out of the sun and you won't be getting a problem with water spots. If you feel like it's gone a little longer time between the last rinse and the drying. And you also see some water spots do use a drying aid or do a wipe down with a QD or spray wax that is great for you. If you are carefull and still would get a lot of water spots. I would look for a DI water system to be used with at least the last rinse off.

[Newcarsmell]

My car is coated and I was out in the thunder showers. From 10 feet away looks completely clean. If I felt the need to clean a simple waterless would suffice.

If I wasn’t coating and used a sealant (I don’t use waxes for protection. I liked for looks). I usually just let it go till days off and used a waterless.


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from 10 feet? i seem to get too detail with the whole portable light thing.. seems i'm crazy like that. I don't have a wax on yet as still need to claybar first (and polish when i get chance) meanwhile using spray on wax.. is that considered protected? i mean i do it weekly as i know it comes off easier then regular wax

[Coatingsarecrack]

from 10 feet? i seem to get too detail with the whole portable light thing.. seems i'm crazy like that. I don't have a wax on yet as still need to claybar first (and polish when i get chance) meanwhile using spray on wax.. is that considered protected? i mean i do it weekly as i know it comes off easier then regular wax

Spray wax not the best protection but using it monthly should work? Again not a wax fan for protection personally. Self cleaning (ability to shed dirt especially with our rain will kind of wash it) is key for me. In our weather look at kamikaze overcoat or Polish Angel Cosmic spritz. Not cheap but beads up and sheds dirt and water almost like a full blown coating.

Lots of videos available on both on the googles. I wouldn’t personally clay the car till your going to polish.

Also if you want to clean daily I think a good waterless (McKee’s 914) in a pump sprayer with height quality micro fiber will work.

Your way too worried about this.

Order a gallon of McKee’s 914. A bunch of TRC Eagle edgeless towels for using the waterless or rinseless (I like the 600’s better but the come in grey only and like lighter towels to see the dirt I wipe off. Griots garage PFM drying towels (2 16x16 towels should dry whole car). Look up “Gary dean method” to learn a safe rinseless method.

Do that once a week and waterless with the eagles and PFM’s when you feel she needs a clean. Unless theirs mud (thick debris) or its snowed I wouldn’t worry to much about pressure washing.

I’ve done a lot of research and personally used these methods in your same weather and it’s worked.


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[rlmccarty2000]

Rain leaves spots on my coated cars but the spots come off easily with a rinseless wash or a QD. Do not leave water from the tap or sprinkler to dry on your car or you may have to polish it off.

[PaulMys]

Zero issues with water spots from rain here in NY using a hybrid sealant/wax (476s) and either DG Aqua Wax or Bead Maker.

But then again..... Here we go with the opinions. Lol

(This is why I love AGO. OPINIONS. Not venomous arguments.)

[Bill D]

No issues with acid rain etching up there?

[PaulMys]

No issues with acid rain etching up there?

No sir, William.