Taking out water spots and doing a first time polish from my buddy's BMW M235I (Mineral Gray Metallic) Sunday. Need some tips...

[Matador]

Hey Everyone,


So I will be working on a buddy's car on Sunday (with his help), polishing it all out and taking out some water spots. They were REALLY bad before, but he did some hack using vinegar and surprisingly got a good amount out. A little backstory on how he got it: Lives in a pretty nice apartment complex. Front staff suck bad though. Because they're so bad at their job, they forgot to charge him for his parking spot. He never spoke up about it, but then he got these really bad water spots because of the garage leaking water. He hasn't complained cause of the money he's saving lol.

I plan to try to take out the rest with :gulp: Megs Wheel Brightener w/Water at 2 parts water 1 part full strength brigthener (tip I saw somewhere else). Going to wear a massk, gloves, glasses, etc. cause of how fearful I am of this stuff lol. But I am hoping it gets rid of the water marks so I don't have to compound it.

Here's a pic of what his car looks like, although not his car. When done...will look better. :




Pics of the damage (kinda blew them out pretty bad with editing on the iphone to show the waterspot damage):



For the glass, I may try to just see if a razor blade will take off the remaining calcium.









I didn't have a chance to look fully at his car yet, and I am waiting on pics for him to send me around what the condisition is on scratches. I don't think it's THAT bad, and it's not like it's a black car...so I was thinking of just doing a 1 step polish and then wax.

Here's my choices:



Or maybe using an AIO like Speed with a green pad? It would be my first time using speed. I bought it not too long ago, but never got around to using it yet.

I know how popular it is.

In the past, I was a big Menzerna fan boy, but since then the market has blown up with so many good if not better options!

But...I was thinking of still going with old reliable for german paint, the 2500. If bad enough, an orange pad with FG 400? Or is that too much? Maybe just orange pad with 2500 or speed?

Never used the Griots stuff either. Curious to try the correcting cream as well. Got that through a kit I bought for their G8. Haven't used that yet either....


I will finish it with sealing it again, with old reliable in Powerlock. Feel so old school lol but love it so much and not into coatings.

What do you guys think?

[Bruno Soares]

That looks like a lot of damage, and BMW usually has really hard paint so you might have to break that Menzerna 400. But definitely try 2500 first, maybe you get lucky. I doubt Speed would be enough, and Griot's correcting cream is also pretty mild for a compound, I'd say that's similar or less cut than the Menzerna 2500.

Do you have pads that aren't foam? Wool or microfiber? Might need to start with that if that car has paint as hard as I'm guessing, then finish with foam.

[Matador]

If needed, I got sonax maxcut ready along with a ton of Megz DMC MF Pads.



Compounded my rock hard Audi S4 paint couple years back with the then GF and now wife (what made her a keeper).

Hope it doesn't come to that and the acid/water mix can take it out....

[dgage]

If needed, I got sonax maxcut ready along with a ton of Megz DMC MF Pads.



Compounded my rock hard Audi S4 paint couple years back with the then GF and now wife (what made her a keeper).

Hope it doesn't come to that and the acid/water mix can take it out....

Sounds like a good plan. I agree to probably start with 2500 but I doubt that is strong enough so move on to slightly more aggressive if needed. Go slow with 400 since it is so coarse, check progress often to see if you’ve done enough. But if you have to use 400 for any real length of time without fully removing the defects, the paint may be too far gone already and you don’t want to go too far and make matters worse by compromising the clear.

[Matador]

Soooo.....it worked out! The goal was really to get those stupid water spots out, and we did! Not to mention adding some sweet gloss and shine to the paint (which was in pretty good condition as it was as well).



We started by doing a whole wash on the car, then decontaminating it with Iron Remover and then Tar X. I also used some Koch Chemie Eulex on parts where there was little tar chunks (took it out with ease. Great Product).

Then went to the 'clay' step. I used the Nano yellow grade (Medium) wash mitt. It worked well, I just wonder if I should go back to the Medium yellow 6 inch pad I've used in the past. I feel that 'scrubbed' the paint better overall than using a mitt (but more time consuming). May switch back that depending on time and level of effort I am feeling like that day (I only detail friend and family cars for fun).

I ended up using Menz 2500 on the whole car. My buddy used vinegar to wipe off the old water spots a couple of weeks back (took a lot of it out), and then I used a mix of '2:1 Wheel Brightener' on the remaining spots. It did a better job, but there was still some remaining residue. What was left, was easily taken out by the 2500. The only bad areas were on the trunk which I did have to compound in small areas with the Sonax Maxcut back there, but it took it out. It's good to know the old girl still can get things done (Menz 2500)!

There was some small water spots I took out on the glass with a razor blade at a really tight angle. Scraped the calcium right off and worked perfect.


Here's the pics of the final product. Not too shabby! Car was actually in better condition than I imagined, too. I took my headlight (scangrip) to the whole car, and barely found any RIDS (ones that were there, he could live with). My buddy didn't care for compounding and turning it 'perfect' so this result is his 'perfect' which made me happy since we didn't have to go 2 step.


Pics right after on the driveway:




Some pics my buddy sent me shortly after that he snapped in the city (pretty sweet backdrop):





All in all, it went faster and better than I imagined. It was supposed to be the hottest day in July too yesterday.... but we got lucky and it didnt' get too hot and my garage in the shade is really cool. Great day for detailing.

And this car is pretty sweet. 6 speed, twin turbo'd, has a really nice throaty Dinan exhaust that I just love the sound of. Wish my supercharged Audi S4 had something like that.

[Bobby B.]

The BMW looks great. I'm glad you were able to remove the water spots.