Help With Waterspots

[Cochese]

Help With Waterspots


Ive have a 2017 Focus RS in for some paint correction.

The car looks to have watermarks/ spots but they are only visible under LED lighting you cant see these spots in direct sun light.

Like most I start off with the least aggressive product so not to remove too much. I have been able to remove water spots in the past without going to wet sanding. Wet sanding is something I dont feel comfortable with and will be upfront about that.

I started off with #80 and then bumped up to #83 and then to #105 using a new orange cutting pad for each step with a G110 using speeds 4 and 5.

Unfortunately Im not making any progress with these spots and Im not sure what to do next.

The paint on this RS is pretty soft and I dont want to risk damaging the paint. These spots are definitely not what Im used to for water spots in my area, this car does get garaged and barely driven in the rain and only has 10,xxx miles on it.

Any help in direction or advice will be more than greatly appreciated.



Here are a few photos after Ive gone over in a test spot. I apologize for the cell phone photos.

[Mike Phillips]

To me, those look like stains IN the paint.

If they are stains in the paint, whatever caused them must be somewhat corrosive to penetrate INTO a urethane clearcoat, which is pretty stout to start with.


I'd recommend finding someone experienced, hopefully on this forum, that can take a look before you continue buffing.

[Cochese]

Thank you Mike I greatly appreciate the insight. I hope to get some kind of resolution to this and not to cause any damage.

I will add. These spots seem to mostly be on the hood, areas around the window frames, and rear hatch. These spots are not on the glass or mirrors and I dont seem to see any on the roof , door panels below the windows and bumpers. Its really the strangest/ oddest thing.

I know this is going outside of the detailing world but with this being a 2017 and 10,000 miles Im wondering if it is a stain in the paint if it is something that if taken to Ford they would cover a full respray.

[SWETM]

Did a little googleing and found on a RS forum where these stains seems to be not so uncommon on the RS modells. Seems to be something when they have wet sanding the base coat layer and not getting the residue off. And the clear coat layers trapp this residue in. Some have gotten them out with bakeing the paint so it's evaporate through the clearcoat. But most seems to be contacting Ford for a warranty claim with a respray. Seems also not be any problems with getting the warranty claim accepted. So I would go with contacting Ford for a warranty claim. And stop trying to correcting it until you get more

DetailKitty here on the forum is a RS owner which maybe can have more information about this.

/ Tony

[Cochese]

Thats awesome news, the owner of this RS is the second owner not sure if that will affect anything but definitely worth passing along. Thank you so much!