Isopropyl alcohol

[jayhkr]

IPA is very weak on the totem poll as far as solvents are concerned. I wouldn't be worried about dissolving your paint. If that was the case it would be scary to get gas on your car. It's perfectly fine.

[sgtmillhouse648]

It really depends on the paint. Modern paints/clearcoats really cannot be described as paint. They really are more of a 2 part epoxy versus what would technically be a paint like farm implement enamel. When clearcoat is sprayed onto a car, it has an 'activator' which is added to it which starts the curing process. During this process, the clearcoat actually changes at the molecular level which transforms the clearcoat from a gel/liquid to a solid.

What many people tend to think of as 'paint' is more of an enamel like what is used on a house or comes in a rattle can. These use a solvent such as mineral spirits to actually thin the paint. If you ever try to use something like this in a clearcoat mixture to thin it up for spraying, you will be sorely hurting as the clearcoat will clump together and is not soluable in the thinner. But a typical household paint will never technically 'dry'. The carrier solution merely evaporates leaving just the pigment behind. This is why if you dump mineral spirits on the side of your house, the paint will soften and run off. You are introducing the carrier solution back to the pigment.

In automotive paints as I said, the carrier does not evaporate. It remains in the surface and undergoes the reaction to harden. Therefore, IPA is perfectly valid to use to remove polishes etc. and will not harm modern basecoat/clearcoat systems.

[Expert Car Care]

We have left spots when trying to remove pine tar with it. Fortunately we were able to fix the spots, but just barely.

[kimandbrad21]

do you think that it could hurt my clear coat on my 1991 toyota corolla? i know that the mirrors and rear bumper are single stage and i will not use anything on that other then reg QD to clean off polish etc. but the rest of the car is clear coated with no failure to date.

[superd]

I don't think a QD does the same thing as IPA so I would stick with IPA if you want to do this type of procedure. I also don't dilute it, but I don't think that it's important if you do or not. I just like how IPA dissolves quicker without water and leaves less streaks.

After reading what you and Jhawkr talked about I went out and bought some IPA 91% and diluted it by about 10% with water. I have to admit I was apprehensive (which is why I diluted it), but after using it I'll never go back!!!! It did just what you described, the paint was clean, and no streaks what so ever. I applied it with a mist sprayer and it was drying with one pass of a Cobra MF. I just finished using M205 with a PC on my wife's 2005 Acura TL and sealed it with WGDGPS and one layer of Fuzion. It "looked" awesome!.....It's been raining here the entire time I was working on the car and my wife took it out in the rain immediately after so I never had the chance to get any after pic's!

[Expert Car Care]

Good luck with the alchohol, pretty fumy, I guess I'm ok with just using Quick Detailer myself but best of luck to those that want to use alchohol. I'll keep it in mind if I have trouble cleaning up paint with QD.

[Da Fats]

I would think using a Qd'r you'd get alot of defect filling between the polishes themselves and the possibility of nuba in the QD'r not giving you a true inspection of the results?

[superd]

I would think using a Qd'r you'd get alot of defect filling between the polishes themselves and the possibility of nuba in the QD'r not giving you a true inspection of the results?

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If I'm going to use a sealant I want the paint pristine. I've used QD's in the past and I achieved better results with the IPA.