Mike Phillips
Active member
- Dec 5, 2022
- 51,004
- 6
How to remove Hard Water Spots from a fleet of EZ GO Golf Carts?
Anytime I get questions via e-mail, a PM or a FB message I prefer to invest my typing time where
A: It's easier for me to share links, pictures and videos.
B: More people can read and thus benefit from the information. (no just one set of eyeballs)
The reality is, most people that contact me found me via an article I've written or a reply I've written on this forum. The thing is, instead of figuring out that the whole reason they are contacting me is because they found me via an article or answer I wrote on the forum that they to should bring their question to the forum because not only will that help them.... but it will help a future "them". If I answer everything in a private e-mail or other touch point, no one would find and contact me. It's a cycle or pattern that repeats as long as everything is shared in the public domain.
The above is kind of wordy but re-read it slowly and it will make sense.
So I get an e-mail asking,
Mike,
Good evening. I just received a phone call from the general manager of a golf course in South Georgia, Gene asked me me
“what is the most effective way to remove hard water spots from a fleet of EZ GO golf carts”.
He says the hard water marks are due to water with a lot of calcium deposits in it.
Is there something I can buy from you to dissolve or remove these hard water spots?
Then, what do we apply to the finish of these golf carts to inhibit the hard water marks from reoccurring.
I look forward to your response.
Thank you,
Steve
Sent from my iPhone
Great questions Steve.
Just last week, or week before, someone joined the forum seeking help with a water spot problem. I started my answer to him the way I always answer water spot questions and that is to get your mind tracking in the proper direction, or in this case, get the mond of the General Manager of the Golf Course's mind tracking in the right direction and that is to say,
What's in the WATER?
Yep, people naturally tend to think about the problem - water spots. I think, what's the root cause.
If you cannot fix the root cause of water spots, even if you can remove them, they are just going to come back because the root cause has not been dealt with.
Example
A guy joined our forum, said he had water spots on one side of his car. I asked him,
Where to you park your car?
He said,
In a parking garage at our Condo. I have an assigned parking space. One side of where I park is next to some plants and there is a water sprinkler that is on a timer to water the plants each morning.
I asked him,
Can you change to a parking space away from the sprinkler?
He said "no".
I said it won't do any good to compound your car's paint and remove the water spots as they will simply come back again as long as you are parking your car where the sprinkler goes off.
Now onto your questions.
There are a number of products on the market that dissolve calcium deposits. A real popular product is called CLR, Calcium Lime and Rust Remover. You see commercials for it on TV. There are other products like this at stores like Lowes and Home Depot.
The only product I've "seen" work (I've literally watched it foam white when it was dissolving calcium), is a product from Optimum Polymer Technologies called,
Optimum MDR Mineral Deposit Remover 32 oz
And even though it did do a pretty good job of chemically dissolving the hard mineral deposits I still had to machine polish to get the surface completely perfect. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, my guess will be that the owner of the FLEET of Golf Carts will not undertake what will be needed to correctly remove the mineral deposits and then machine polish the golf carts and then chemically strip them and apply a coating. Just a guess.
As far as what to apply to prevent dissolved minerals in water from forming on a surface? I don't know of anything that does this perfectly or at least to the expectations of the masses.
The masses = people.
Most people or the masses want a quick, easy, cheap and simple fix to a complicated problem and that's what STOPPING mineral deposits, (the masses call them hard water spots), from forming on surfaces after the water containging the dissolved minerals lands on the surface.
There is no perfect solution to this type of product because as water evaporates it leaves behind the minerals. They may or may not form a BOND to the surface but they are still going to visibly be present on the surface.
So what I do with problems like this and for people with questions like this is I do my best to tell them what I've written above to edumucate them.
A person COULD try to apply a coating, which is the rage right now for sealing and protecting car paint and other surfaces and there are a plethora of these on the market. Optimum Polymer Technologies actually makes GREAT coatings and they would be worthy of testing.
All Optimum Products
I wish I have a better answer for you.
Anytime I get questions via e-mail, a PM or a FB message I prefer to invest my typing time where
A: It's easier for me to share links, pictures and videos.
B: More people can read and thus benefit from the information. (no just one set of eyeballs)
The reality is, most people that contact me found me via an article I've written or a reply I've written on this forum. The thing is, instead of figuring out that the whole reason they are contacting me is because they found me via an article or answer I wrote on the forum that they to should bring their question to the forum because not only will that help them.... but it will help a future "them". If I answer everything in a private e-mail or other touch point, no one would find and contact me. It's a cycle or pattern that repeats as long as everything is shared in the public domain.
The above is kind of wordy but re-read it slowly and it will make sense.
So I get an e-mail asking,
Mike,
Good evening. I just received a phone call from the general manager of a golf course in South Georgia, Gene asked me me
“what is the most effective way to remove hard water spots from a fleet of EZ GO golf carts”.
He says the hard water marks are due to water with a lot of calcium deposits in it.
Is there something I can buy from you to dissolve or remove these hard water spots?
Then, what do we apply to the finish of these golf carts to inhibit the hard water marks from reoccurring.
I look forward to your response.
Thank you,
Steve
Sent from my iPhone
Great questions Steve.
Just last week, or week before, someone joined the forum seeking help with a water spot problem. I started my answer to him the way I always answer water spot questions and that is to get your mind tracking in the proper direction, or in this case, get the mond of the General Manager of the Golf Course's mind tracking in the right direction and that is to say,
What's in the WATER?
Yep, people naturally tend to think about the problem - water spots. I think, what's the root cause.
If you cannot fix the root cause of water spots, even if you can remove them, they are just going to come back because the root cause has not been dealt with.
Example
A guy joined our forum, said he had water spots on one side of his car. I asked him,
Where to you park your car?
He said,
In a parking garage at our Condo. I have an assigned parking space. One side of where I park is next to some plants and there is a water sprinkler that is on a timer to water the plants each morning.
I asked him,
Can you change to a parking space away from the sprinkler?
He said "no".
I said it won't do any good to compound your car's paint and remove the water spots as they will simply come back again as long as you are parking your car where the sprinkler goes off.
Now onto your questions.
There are a number of products on the market that dissolve calcium deposits. A real popular product is called CLR, Calcium Lime and Rust Remover. You see commercials for it on TV. There are other products like this at stores like Lowes and Home Depot.
The only product I've "seen" work (I've literally watched it foam white when it was dissolving calcium), is a product from Optimum Polymer Technologies called,
Optimum MDR Mineral Deposit Remover 32 oz
And even though it did do a pretty good job of chemically dissolving the hard mineral deposits I still had to machine polish to get the surface completely perfect. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, my guess will be that the owner of the FLEET of Golf Carts will not undertake what will be needed to correctly remove the mineral deposits and then machine polish the golf carts and then chemically strip them and apply a coating. Just a guess.
As far as what to apply to prevent dissolved minerals in water from forming on a surface? I don't know of anything that does this perfectly or at least to the expectations of the masses.
The masses = people.
Most people or the masses want a quick, easy, cheap and simple fix to a complicated problem and that's what STOPPING mineral deposits, (the masses call them hard water spots), from forming on surfaces after the water containging the dissolved minerals lands on the surface.
There is no perfect solution to this type of product because as water evaporates it leaves behind the minerals. They may or may not form a BOND to the surface but they are still going to visibly be present on the surface.
So what I do with problems like this and for people with questions like this is I do my best to tell them what I've written above to edumucate them.
A person COULD try to apply a coating, which is the rage right now for sealing and protecting car paint and other surfaces and there are a plethora of these on the market. Optimum Polymer Technologies actually makes GREAT coatings and they would be worthy of testing.
All Optimum Products
I wish I have a better answer for you.