Blue streaks left on paint!

[spencers94]

Hi everyone,
I am new to Meguiar's Online and had a few questions/concerns about what might be happening to my paint. Due to the drought here in California, the water restrictions say that we can't wash cars at home anymore, which is no fun. So I started going to a Coin Operated car wash close to home. I know this isn't the best place to go, but all that I use there is the pressure washer and then I my own products like UWWA or the Quik Detailer (red bottle) while the car is wet to pickup the loosened dirt. I haven't noticed any new scratches, so everything seems fine there, but unfortunately today when I got home from washing my car, I noticed all of these blue streaks/smears all over my paint and exterior glass in the sunlight at certain angles, but luckily I used glass cleaner and it came off. The QD spray didn't get the stuff off the paint though. Anyway to remove these streaks? A friend suggested that I wax the car ASAP to remove this. Will the Deep Crystal Cleaner Wax help or should I try the Polishing Compound? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[The Guz]

Re: Blue streaks left on paint!

What did you use after washing the car?

Welcome to MOL.

[HCAD]

Re: Blue streaks left on paint!

I've seen automatic car washes leave a streaked effect on many cars. Often it is the "quick wax" option where an excessive amount of the product is sprayed onto the car. Hard to say if it's a problem with the machinery at the car wash, or maybe a bad batch of the wax product that leaves sludge. My guess is, this same problem could occur even with the soaping option. If an overly concentrated batch of soap lands on your car it could leave streaks.

In most cases I've been able to remove the offending streak (multiple colors) with a cleaner wax. Works well on the glass too.

[spencers94]

Re: Blue streaks left on paint!

Thanks for the replies. All I used was the rinse option and then I went outside and used the quik detailer spray to remove the dust that was brought up by the water because the car wasn't very dirty, just dusty, but a week's worth of dust. All I ever had left on the car were some water trails that were easily removed after I drove home and did another QD wipedown. The car looked great every time, spotless, no streaks or anything. I also used either the UQW or the GC Carnauba Spray Wax over the QD after, with great results. I've been using this method for months without any issues but now it suddenly happened. It's like blue smudges all over the place. I will give the Cleaner Wax a go and I'm praying that this will remove it. The car looked awesome before and now it looks terrible at certain angles.

[spencers94]

Re: Blue streaks left on paint!

And also, the streaks appeared before the spray wax was applied, so that couldn't be the problem and they also appeared on the glass but without having sprayed any of my products on there beforehand. So I believe it's dirty water or something coming out of that sprayer. My friend also suggested this and that it may be an inferior water recycle system in which has resulted in stains left on my paint.

[spencers94]

Re: Blue streaks left on paint!

Ok, the issue has been resolved. I just used the Deep Crystal Cleaner Wax and there aren't anymore of those streaks. I'm so relieved now, i thought my paint was pretty much done for. Thanks guys!

[HCAD]

Re: Blue streaks left on paint!

Glad to hear!