I once bought a new 1994 Chrysler van. It was white and loaded with rail dust specks. The lower section of the van had a medium gray metallic matte plastic cladding around the entire lower section of the van.
Anyways, this was before I ever knew of iron removing products, or even clay. They may not have even been mainstream available back then, I don't know. The first time I ever used clay was in about 1997 and Iron X in about 2015.
Long story short, the only way I could remove the rail dust was by lightly wet-sanding and compounding with a rotary polisher and wool pad.
That was more work than I wanted to do so I returned to the dealer and they said they had a chemical that would remove the rail dust. I had never heard of such a thing at the time so I was a little skeptical. I was adamant with them and discussed any potential chemical damage... They assured me there would be none so I let them proceed.
About 2 hours later when they brought the van out and said they were done all of the lower panels were stained. I was furious. They said they would repaint all of the affected parts and I said no way. I argued with them until they agreed to order replacement trim pieces that were luckily available with the factory finish. I then installed all of the replacement parts myself... There was no way I trusted them for anything at that point.
Point being, I don't know what chemical they used, or how it might compare to today's iron removing products, but to this day I think of that experience whenever I use an iron removing product and proceed accordingly.
