What's going on here?? Smearing

[magicman22]

I have a black car that I originally washed with the Mr. Clean Autodry system. I used their soap. I rinsed well and also rinsed well with the filtered water to get the spot free dry. When it dried it looked good but in the sunlight you could see smear marks back and forth from my wash mitt.

This happened twice so I called Meguiar's help line and they suggested using their cleaner wax which did remove the smear marks.

So on my next car wash using Meguiar's Gold Class soap it did the same thing. I went over it again with the cleaner wax and it made it look much better.

I went a step further and bought a NEW microfiber wash mitt (thinking the other one was maybe contaminated???) and washed the next time with the new mitt and Meguiar's GC soap. Still getting smears.

What do I need to do to stop getting smear marks after washing???

I've owned the car for about 2 months and have only used the Mr. Clean soap and then switched to the Gold Class soap, Gold Class wax, and meguiar's cleaner wax.

The paint is very smooth (no contaminants) and in pretty good condition.

Could there be some chemical film stuck on the paint surface?? I am lost for ideas. It has been a little cooler temps here...could this be a problem??

Thanks

[gbackus]

How are you measuring your soap and water when you mix it up?

Are you washing the in the shade?

Is the paint surface, cool, warm, or hot, when you wash it?

[magicman22]

I have been following the instructions on the back of the GC soap bottle...i think it is 1 ounce soap and i gallon of water. The car surface has always been cool. Most of my car washes have been done on days where it was overcast and no bright sun out.

[Tim Lingor]

Hey,

Are you still rinsing with the Mr. Clean rinse?

I would suggest using two buckets, one for soap and the other for rinse water. Make sure to dry the paint with a Meguiar's MF Water Magnet.

When you wash and dry your MF towels, do not add a dryer sheet to the dryer. Dryer sheets will place a film on the towel which will leave streaks on the paint.

Also be sure to wash and dry the paint in the shade on a cool surface. The same goes for waxing. Finally, be sure to perform the swipe test before wiping off the wax. Here is a link that explains how:

How to tell when a Meguiar's wax is ready to remove - The Swipe Test

Give the above a try and report back!

Tim

[gbackus]

Originally posted by magicman22
I have been following the instructions on the back of the GC soap bottle...i think it is 1 ounce soap and i gallon of water. The car surface has always been cool. Most of my car washes have been done on days where it was overcast and no bright sun out.

But how exactly have you been mixing it? Do you actually measure out each gallon and each ounce, or do you eye ball it? How hard is your water?

[magicman22]

Well to tell you the truth I have done it both ways. I have used the Meguiar's soap in the Mr. Clean unit and it mixes the soap and water for me. I have also used the bucket method but eyeballed the soap/water ratio. I don't think that I am getting too much soap though. I always use the hose to give it a good clean rinse with either method.

Our water is not too hard here.

If I had waxed a week or two previous and took the wax off before it was completely dry would that be causing me problems now??

Thanks for the help!!!

[gbackus]

If you have soft water, you may need to use less soap. You may also want to actually measure your soap and water at least once. A lot of people are surprised how little an ounce actually is, and many people use too little water, and too much soap.

That's about the only thing I can think of.

[Tim Lingor]

Originally posted by magicman22
Well to tell you the truth I have done it both ways. I have used the Meguiar's soap in the Mr. Clean unit and it mixes the soap and water for me. I have also used the bucket method but eyeballed the soap/water ratio. I don't think that I am getting too much soap though. I always use the hose to give it a good clean rinse with either method.

Our water is not too hard here.

If I had waxed a week or two previous and took the wax off before it was completely dry would that be causing me problems now??

Thanks for the help!!!

I explained that in my post above...you need to use the Swipe Test in order to know when to remove a wax. And yes, removing it too soon can cause streaks.

Tim

[magicman22]

Thanks for the replys. I think it is supposed to rain tomorrow so after that I may give it a run again and see how it turns out.

I didn't know if maybe there was possibly something on the paint that the soap couldn't tackle.

Also, the black paint makes it stand out worse than if it was on a different color

[magicman22]

Could not having high enough water pressure in the rinse stage be part of the problem??

Thanks