Help w/ IBA spots from wax

[Tim01]

I have this annoying problem from my IBA's wax or clear-coat sealant
leaving spots on the windows. Sometimes if I get lucky there
are no spots. It's been happening for nearly 1 year now. What's
confounding is that the spots happen only on one side of the car.
Initially it's only on the passenger side, but now I see it on the driver
side instead.

I tried changing from poly-clear sealant to wax, but no help. Making
the injector tip smaller or larger, but no change in results.

Could it be that I've been using cold water? Are there any brand
of wax or sealant that works well w/ cold water?

BTW, I have the Wash World equipment. Thanks for any advices.

 

[DiamondWash]

Have you tested your water for hardness?

 

[Tim01]

I did check and it's fine. I noticed that when I used my SS
bay w/ the wax I do not see the spots.

 

[DavidM]

Are you using a foaming wax or triple foam? Some foaming products do not break down/rinse off very well and then leave spots.

David

 

[Tim01]

I have two wash packages. Both uses the wax/sealant
right before the spot-free rinse. On one package I do
have the triple foam before the wax/sealant, but has
a rinse between the two options. The spots problem occurs
in both wash packages. I have two other lower priced
packages that do not have the wax/sealant and they
do not have this problem. Sadly the more expensive
packages give customers spots.

I went and tried other washes that also has the Wash World
auto. One also has the spots problem, but the other didn't.
I contacted the owner of the one that doesn't have
the spots but he doesn't really know much. I think he just
left his settings on default and his auto is newer than mine.

I start noticing this problem about 2 years after installing
the Wash World. I've asked the distributor and they said
to try a smaller tip, but I did try that.

 

[Waxman]

You have to figure out what changed; was it a switch to cold water?

Some things wear out and cause problems; foot valves, hoses and injectors.

Maybe the chem supplier 're-formulated' your wax. Maybe your spot free rinse is outta wack.

 

[DiamondWash]

What chemical mfg are you useing? and what products?
What speeds do you have setup on your washworld?
Are you useing reclaim?
What color tip do you currently have in the wax/sealant injector?

 

[soapy]

you may be running the wax too strong. You can dilute the wax and put a little less on. I look for it to bead the water up but not show any excessive color. The other thing you can do is increse the spot free rinse passes or the pressure that you apply the spot free rinse water with. Too much wax is being applied to be removed by your SFR.

 

[DavidM]

When the wash is complete can you still see white foam anywhere? If so, that is your problem. Watch the rinse pass after your CCP or triple foam and see if it is rinsing completely.

I have been through this many times in our tunnel and automatics. There are many factors that can affect the rinsing of CCP and triple foams and every one of them can lead to spotting. First the product itself, if it is applied to heavy or thick or is simply a product that does not rinse well it can lead to problems. The other thing to check is rinsing. The speed, pressure and water volume of your rinse passes can affect this.
One uncontrollable factor is the vehicle. Vehicles with roof racks, ventshades, pickup truck beds and other places where foam is difficult to rinse can cause problems when the dryers blow the foam out of the cracks leading to spotting.

I just reread your first post. That fact that it is happening on one side is unusually. To me this would point to a triple foam issue where the applicator on one side is not foaming the same as the other side. I would check that first.

Hope this helps,
David

 

[Tim01]

Soapy:
I have tried diluting the wax/sealant using 1/2 gal plus 2 gals spot free and then used green color tip. I forgot what ratio that is.

I even tried using the tip color that is the second to smallest amount on non-diluted wax/sealant. Still had spots. This doesn't work well since the water doesn't bead up and my dryer barely gets any water off.


Others:
I switched to cold water after the 1st year. The water pressure is adjusted
at 1100 PSI and the manual suggests 1000 to 1175. I see the rinse cycle
does a good job. My spot-free rinse uses a lot more water compared
to other washes.

The triple foam is evenly applied to both sides of the car.
3 months ago I had a problem with the presoak not being even, but that is now fixed.

Currently I'm using the white tip which is three smaller than green. When the wax/sealant cycle completes I do see the wax but it drips off the vehicle.

Now I'm testing w/ the warm water but it takes so long for my reserve tank to be fully warm. I may need to wash 15 times before it changes.

Do you guys know which wax/sealant works best w/ cold water? If my wash is busy I can't guarantee warm water.

 

[Shane]

Just curious what do the spots look like? (Maybe that's a dumb newbie question, sorry). The reason I ask is because I had this same problem two weeks ago. I had "spots" on one side of the car. After much investigation and getting wet watching ever detail of many cars being washed we found out it was PreSoak that was dripping on the car. We have a Mark VII and above the gantry is a flat panel that allows water, chemicals, leaves, junk, beer cans, etc to collect. Last fall we had a presoak line leak and it sprayed the top of the gantry. Over time, water collected up there and created a nasty presoak gummy puddle which was dripping on the left side of the cars. So the presoak would drip on the cars during the wash and get blasted off by the rinse. However when the presoak dripped on the cars as they left, the dryers would blow the presoak down the side of the car and leave a very noticeable mark. We drilled holes in the panel to allow the puddles to drain and we have not had a problem since. We also cleaned all the nasty stuff that is up above the gantry (which now will become a regular area to clean). Maybe you have something dripping on the cars as they leave your machine?

 

[Reds]

If it was a problem with the chemical wouldn't you have it on the entire vehicle? I would look for something funny with the equipment, like what Shane mentioned.

 

[JGinther]

Since you have a Washworld, and the problem is only happening on one side of the car, the RO water has probably not made it through the manifold entirely. This could be fixed with either delay programming, or concentrations. Have you tried grabbing a sample from the spray bar just as it starts spraying RO and checking TDS?

 

[Tim01]

Shane & Reds:
I pinpoint it to the wax cycle b/c my lower priced packages that do not include the wax cycle do not have this problem. The spots have an off-white color and are about .1 to .15", but then there are a lot so it's noticeable. You mainly see it on the front side window, but occassionally it'll occur on the back seat window or rear.

TGinther:
I haven't tried collecting the spot-free once it comes out of the spray yet. That's a good idea. I'll try that tomorrow.

I'm gonna try to use the SS wax and then only go through the spot-free and dryer cycles in the IBA too.

Hopefully I can solve this mystery before I start pulling some hair off. Thanks all for your suggestions.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Many moons ago I had a RP unit for the SFR that the auto and the SS bays shared. My auto (Mark VII) starts the SFR at the back of the car. Once in a great while it would belch out a bunch of soap on the back of the car at the beginning of the SFR cycle. After chasing our tails on this issue for about a year I finally saw it happen when there was only two people at the wash, one in the auto and one in bay 4. When bay 4 was using soap it was backing up through a bad check valve into the manifold on the RP unit. If that same SS customer used SFR it was flushed right back out and no one knew. If he didn't, the next person that used the SFR got it. In some cases it was the auto that got that blast of soap laden SFR water. I would bet that you have a bad check somewhere that is pushing wax back into your SFR sysyem. It gets flushed out after a few seconds on the car, hence only one side getting the junk stuff.

 

[lag]

Many years ago we had the same issue. It would come and go... What I was finally able to figure was that the spots came from the dryers.

I cleaned the dryer impellers ,and the problem went away. Now cleaning the dryers is part of our routine.

May not be your issue ,but thought I would throw it out there.

 

[madscientist]

i was thinking the same thing about stuff dripping from the dryer. maybe the washes without wax don't include the dryer?

 

[Tim01]

That's right. Our lower packages do not have the dryer. I will do some more tests to rule out the dryer, but I remember I did it only once and that time I didn't see the spots. May be that one time I got lucky.

I'll also look at the check valves of the wax cycle. Thanks.

 

[mac]

Tim, there's plenty of good advice here, but I think you identified the cause by stating when the wash works without the wax, you get no spots. Be sure to check the mechanical things that have been mentioned, and then try some different waxes. You can not sling a dead cat without hitting a chemical salesman, and most are willing to put a sample online to try. Cleaning by chemistry can be frustrating because you can't really see the chemistry, as opposed to say pump pressure. Give some other soap guys a call.