Before the water would freeze before I got a chance to dry it. Now in the summer, I would wash the car, quickly break out the blade and dry the car. But water spots have already formed all over the car. I used to just go over the car with a detail spray every other week. Now it seems I have to every time I wash it. Is this part of the daily grime, or does someone have any secrets?

 

I use a silicon water blade. If it is really sunny out, you obviously should try to find a shady spot but if that isn't possible, you need to keep spraying the car with water until you are ready to dry it. In other words, don't let it dry on you...then hit it with the water blade. It gets the water off really fast and leaves no spots.

Get one here!

 

When warm outside try to only wash the car in the morning or in the late afternoon when the sun is not directly over head, if the water is drying on the surface the paint is just too hot to be washed on.

 

GULP! I guess this means waking up early Sunday morning. That leaf blower is gonna really drive my neighbors crazy now!

 

What I normally do is to wash the car off, soap it, hose it down again, and the pull around into the shade to dry it off etc.

Works like a charm, leaves almost no waterspots!

 

What I do is a little excessive, but it works great for me due to fact that I have harsh hard-water at my house.

After a i'm done washing, I pull to the shade and I empty a gallon of distilled water on the car. This seems to wash off most of the hard water at the spots where water likes to hang out the most (hood, roof, hatch)

It dilutes it to a point where it greatly minimizes waterspotting.

After this, I water blade it off and spot dry by laying down or dabbing w/ cotton towels.

 

You need shade. I have a tarp that I hook to the top of my garage, and I pull this out to give me a temporary "carport." Waiting until just before sunset works (yeah, I know that the sun isn't bright at sunrise, but that's just too early for me). Also, when you rinse, don't use a nozzle on your hose. All that spraying leaves droplets of water everywhere. If you let the water stream onto the car without a nozzle, it tends to sheet off, leaving less drops. If you can enlist a helper, one person can hit it with the hose, while the other person stands by with a blade/absorber/leaf blower.

I've tried the two-person method in the middle of the day without the tarp, and I still got water spots. In hot/dry conditions with hard water, spots form in about 1 minute.