Hello all,

I was on a short overseas business trip and while parked in the airport garage, either there was some runoff from the ceiling which dripped down on my car, or some nice person decided to spray some crap on my car to show how much he/she appreciated it.

I tried a quick wash and it didn't come off. There was some on the windshield and I was able to scrape it off with good force with a plastic credit card, but I'm not going to do that to my paint surface.

Question for you Denver folks... can you recommend a good shop to fix this? I've got my insurance claim in, but I just need to choose my shop, or I can go with their recommended shops (Abra or Service King) and get a warranty for as long as I own the car. Any opinions? Thanks!

The obligatory photos...

 

Sorry for your troubles


I always just end up eating the cost of the cab far both ways as I cant stomach the thought of my car in airport parking.

 

Not sure if that is from a spray can. My wife parks her black A4 in a parking structure. One time it rained and a water runoff from the parking decks above landed on her car........looked like lime residue from concrete. It cleaned up good with a good detail. Good luck!

 

I thought about that as well. That could be it too, I suppose. It just looked up close like someone sprayed it. The person in charge of those claims at the airport is on vacation on until the 20th, so I'll see if I can get in the parking lot and inspect the spot I was in.

 

Definitely looks like something dripped down on it. Did it go through the clear coat? If not then it may buff out. Good luck...

 

You guys may be right about the drip. I really thought that initially, but when I looked at it up close, it looked like a close up spray. But it makes sense to go back to the drip theory. I'm not sure about the clear coat yet. I'm not a professional. The surface is rough if I rub my fingers across it. Could be sitting on the top of the clear coat, or could have penetrated it. I'll have to get an expert to look at it, because I don't want to make it worse than it already is. As I said already, a normal car wash didn't work.

 

I live in NYC and park my cars in a basement garage with a lot of exposed pipes. That looks to me like one of the pipes overhead dripped on your car leaving a mineral residue. Go buy some CLR (they used to advertise it on tv..stands for Calcium, Lime and Rust). Dilute it with water by about 75% and wipe on the car. It will remove all that residue instantly.

Then give he car a good wash and wax and you will be good as new!

 

Thanks for the info. I remember CLR. Used to use it to clean our swimming pool tiles as a kid. Never thought about putting it on a car.

 

This. happened to a pcar parked next to me in my parking garage. It's just calcium/mineral from water dripping through the cement cracks in the ceiling above. We went so far as to crudely map our parking level for drips so as not to park underneath them.

CLR will make short work of removing 90% of it but you'll still need to polish it a bit.

Share your results here for posterity if you don't mind.
Cheers.

 

This looks a lot like this:

 

Vinegar or CLR is usually safe. I get this on some Carbon Fiber pieces on my motorcycle when I dont dry it properly after cleaning. Fairly hard water here.

 

Would try a dual action orbital polisher and compound polish. I bet it'll come right off

 

That happened to me in my underground parking garage. CLR bottle recommends not putting it on paint so I skipped that option. Boiled white vinegar and put it in a coffee cup and slowly poured it over the stain while using a damp cloth to gently scrub off. Worked well and followed up with some polish. Good as new!

 

CLR is fine for this type of job but don't use it in concentrate 10:1 water:CLR.
Spray it on or use a microfiber towel to blot it on. Just keep blotting and gently wiping and flipping the towel. The harder you wipe the more work polishing/sealing you'll need to do. It will probably take an hour or so to fix this DIY. NBD. All will be well in the kingdom.

 

A good detailer should be able to take care of that.