Can I Get Some Quick Guidance With My New CarPro Products?

D

Dreichler

New member
Joined
Jul 8, 2016
Messages
34
Reaction score
0
So my car is already ceramic coated with cQaurtz TiO2. Based on my previous post of the troubles I was experiencing with it after a few months, it seems I need to do a decontamination (decon) wash. Thank you for everyone that helped me out with my last post!

So I went ahead and ordered CarPro Iron X. I also got a free sample of CarPro Spotless.

Now, can anyone give me a quick how-to on the decontamination wash with Iron X?

As far as I understand, I will:
1) Wash with reset
2) Rinse everything off with water
3) With water still on the car, spray the whole car down with Iron X
3) Should the car be dry? Should I do one panel at a time?
4) Let the Iron X sit for a minute or two
5) "Agitate" it with a wet microfiber or mitt
6) Wash off
7) Wash with reset once again
8) Dry and detail as normal

In regard to the Spotless:
1) Should I do this prior to the Iron X wash?
2) Anyone have any tips or a quick how-to on how to use this?
3) I only have a few areas no bigger than 3x3 inches that I need to remove water spots on.

I appreciate all the help from my previous post and any help on this one as well!
 
Iron X works better on dry panels so it’s not diluted. But don’t let the product dry, give it a few minutes and spread with a mitt if you want but rinse it off before it dries.

Spotless you can try after Iron X and clay bar but you’ll likely be disappointed, it is pretty useless on spots that didn’t come off with the rest of the decontamination process. It will likely require polish/compound to be removed.
 
I usually do my iron-x on dry panels. I also never touch the paint while the iron-x is on.
 
BSoares said:
Iron X works better on dry panels so it’s not diluted. But don’t let the product dry, give it a few minutes and spread with a mitt if you want but rinse it off before it dries.

Spotless you can try after Iron X and clay bar but you’ll likely be disappointed, it is pretty useless on spots that didn’t come off with the rest of the decontamination process. It will likely require polish/compound to be removed.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input! Hopefully the spots come off... Honestly not a big deal if they don't- there's only maybe 5-6 individual water spots on the whole car so it's not a big deal.
 
ntwillie1 said:
I usually do my iron-x on dry panels. I also never touch the paint while the iron-x is on.
Click to expand...

So you just spray it on and let it sit? Do you do one panel at a time? Also, how heavily do you spray?
 
I spray the whole car. I also spray it very liberally. Smells bad so wear a mask. Takes a few min to go around the entire vehicle. I let sit max 4-5 min and then I rinse off. Often times I spray it on while my car is still dirty. I like seeing all the purple run off, lol.
 
I would not bother with spotless. If you have fresh water spots then it works. But anything older than a week or two and it won't do anything. Its been a constant miss for me as has Optimum MDR.

So you have a couple options with irnox. You can either spray it on dry paint prior to your wash if the paint is not too dirty.

If it is too dirty proceed with you wash and blow dry the paint. It is ok if there is still a little water on the surface. At this point spray ironx and agitate with a damp microfiber or wash mitt. This will be more effective than just spraying it and letting it dwell.

Best to not use it in direct sun or on windy days as both will dry it out quick.

I would not clay unless you have the 22ple non-abrasive clay bar. No sense in inducing marring onto your finish with a regular fine grade clay bar.
 
I normally use the entire 16oz bottle in one car so that tells you how much to apply. I also don’t want to store the bottle because it stinks so bad. Normally can do the entire car at once but if it’s a hot day I do half and half to avoid letting it dry on the paint.
Last time, I washed the car, then applied iron x to a paint that had a little water but wasn’t too wet, then spread with a mitt (first time doing that). Needless to say, that mitt is now in a ziplock bag to be used only with iron x. Washing it twice didn’t remove the terrible smell from it.
 
Just to chime in,


I normally use iron removing products as a part of a PREP WASH, not as a part of maintenance or restoration/cleaning.


For you situation, here's what I would do.



Step 1: Spray Iron X over body panels of the car - avoid any anodized trim - like common around windows.

Allow to dwell 2-3 minutes but don't let it dry on the surface.


Step 2: Rinse off entire car including Iron X



Next, wash like I show here using CarPro Reset as your wash.


How to safely wash a ceramic coated car by Mike Phillips - Traditional Hose & Bucket Approach





:)
 
After washing - inspect the paint and let us know the results.

As for the water spot remover, I'm like Michael, most of these products don't work unless the water spots are HARD WATER SPOTS and are FRESH.

What is a HARD WATER SPOT?

Great question, glad I asked.

A hard water spot is the MINERALS left behind on the surface after any water has dried or evaporated off the surface.

A water spot remover will break the bond between the minerals and the surface so the minerals can be wiped or flushed off the surface.

here's the deal - MOST water spots WE will ever deal with on our cars are NOT this type of water spot but some type of etching, stain, imprint ring. And these types of "water spots" are only removed by abrading the surface.d


Yeah I know - no one like to see, hear or read the above. Everyone wants a magic elixir that is simply sprayed -on and then removed and PRESTO - the spots are gone. In my 30+ years of detailing cars and a LOT of cars with water spots I'm here to tell you - in about 99.9% of the instances of some type of water spot - if you want and expect it to bed 100% removed you're going to do one of the below,

  1. Machine apply a cleaner/wax also called an AIO
  2. Machine apply a dedicated polish
  3. Machine apply a dedicated compound
  4. Wetsand



And that's just the reality of it.


And notice I did NOT include the use of any paint cleaners.





:)
 
Thank you so much everyone for the advice and guidance!

My IronX and Spotless will be coming in the mail later today. Hopefully I’ll have time to do everything and it doesn’t get delivered too late.

As for the IronX, I think I’ll start by doing one panel at a time to see how it reacts in my environment- South Florida heat...

As for the Spotless, thankfully, it was only a free sample size, so I guess we’ll see how it goes.

I really hope the IronX decon wash revived my ceramic coating!
 
Other reason I wouldn't use spotless is because it kills hydrophobic properties on coatings. I used it once, never again. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure how much damage Spotless does to coatings and other protection forms. It does work well for cleaning dirty rims though..
 
That's good to know! I had purchased the larger size bottle of Spotless and was extremely disappointed. I'll use it to clean wheels now rather than let it go to waste.
 
Interesting, never heard of anyone using Spotless to clean the wheels.
 
Mike Phillips said:
Just to chime in,


I normally use iron removing products as a part of a PREP WASH, not as a part of maintenance or restoration/cleaning.


For you situation, here's what I would do.



Step 1: Spray Iron X over body panels of the car - avoid any anodized trim - like common around windows.

Allow to dwell 2-3 minutes but don't let it dry on the surface.


Step 2: Rinse off entire car including Iron X



Next, wash like I show here using CarPro Reset as your wash.


How to safely wash a ceramic coated car by Mike Phillips - Traditional Hose & Bucket Approach





:)
Click to expand...

To share my results, it did not go well.

Here was my process:
1) Washed my car with Reset
2) Dried with leaf blower
3) Sprayed IronX generously to cover each panel
4) Let it sit for about 2 min
5) Agitate/smear with damp microfiber mitt very lightly
6) Hose off
7) Wash again with Reset
8) Detail with ECH2O

It seems as if parts of my coating that were beading water fine before doing this, are now performing worse. And for the parts that were not beading water before, they remained unchanged, if not worse.

I guess you can say that the paint/coating feels a little smoother as if there were actually contaminants lifted from the surface, but it did not fix my beading problem. I am not sure what else to do.

I can tell some contaminants were removed because prior to this, if I lightly ran my fingernail(s) along the paint, I can feel the contaminants- very tiny and raised from the surface. Whereas now, they are still there, but not as much/many/significant.

On the bright side, the paint looks great. I think lifting the contaminants really brought out the black color, gloss, depth, and shininess... I just wish it would have brought back the coatings properties.

At this point, I am very disappointed with myself. I feel like I applied the coating wrong from the start and just made matters worse. I almost want to just remove it and use Meg's Hybrid Ceramic Wax as I have that on 4 other vehicles and it is giving better results than my ceramic coating.
 
BSoares said:
I think in the other thread he said he was around an hour and change from Stuart.
Click to expand...

I remember that too. But last I remember, his shop/store was not taking public visits at the moment :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top