Strange damge to duco

I have the same thing with my 3yr old white Falcon. I decided to give it its first polish a few weeks ago, ended up having to give it a mild cut. Never heard of the acid wash. I like driving them, not looking after them.

Reckon you may have to get a mild cut.

Go to the Meguiar's website and answer their questionaire. It will give you a "prescription" on what to do. Click here.

Make sure you indicate chemical fallout, stains and oxidation on the questionaire. It's all multiple choice anyway.

Do you park it near any machining workshops,,, such as motor reconditioners, anywhere with lathes consistantly working, industrial areas?...

lots of buildings have cooling towers. These are used for the airconditioning systems are they are chemically dosed for a variety of reasons (corrosion prevention and legionella to name a few) and together with the disolved salts this fallout makes it to the ground...and your car

ditto above re acid rain etc and workshop fallout....

My experince is that it shows up more on white duco but it does happen to all

further experience... is wash car less often .....this way you dont notice it as much!

I think Voxon is on the right track , were you anywere near a building site were a grinder was used . It happened to my caddy a couple of years ago , boy was Ibleep

d- jACK,

Sounds like industrial fallout to me. You don't have to be near an industrial factory to get it. living on a busy road or under a flight path can also do it and yes much more noticeable on white.
A mild wash with oxyllic acid is what we used to use and then followed with a good polish such as maguires. If you just polish it it will come back as you need the acid to neutralise the fallout. Ask at a good detailer, they should be able to help.

D-Jack,

The acid wash referred to is an old trick used by the detailing trade. The "acid" is, believe it or not, distilled white Vinegar. You need to rub the vinegar in and then dry it off. Work on a small area at a time i.e.: a guard or half the bonnet. Once completed thoroughly rinse the car with fresh water. This process also removes any wax so you will need to polish and seal the paint again.
The best process for this is to give the paint work a good going over with a quality polish, then seal this with a high quality acrylic sealer such as Solvex. If you want to go the extra mile then go over this again with Carnauba Wax

Sweet , have to grab some vinegar and give it a go, my 98 white jack has the same on the roof , and i have been meaning to do something about it for a while , now i know what to do - thanks guys.

Thanks for all your responses. I went to an auto detailer and pretty well discovered what some of you have mentioned.

The damage is from industrial fallout. There is now way to get rid of it except with this 'acid' as has been mentioned. As for just being vinegar, the guy wouldn't say. I tried vinegar but it didn't do a thing.

The detailer advises
1) acid wash, which will penetrate, loosen and neutralize the spots (which are oxidisation - important to neutralize as they will grow and eventually penetrate the paint and start rust)
2)cut back, as much as necessary to remove all the spots and stains (my Jack is 2-pack, so fairly heavy cutting may be required) This process works much better after the acid wash has been applied, otherwise you endanger your paintwork having to cut back too heavily.
3) From there should have spot free duco - just a matter of restoring it back to former glory, with milder cutting agents, sealer, polish, wax or whatevery you want to use.

Interesting to note, that even if you think you have removed all of the spots by simply polishing or light-cutting, without the acid wash the oxidisation is not neutralised and therefore will 're-grow' under the coat of polish. Which is what had happened to me.

Doing a bit of reading, your car should be washed 10 daily for optimum protection, and make sure there is constantly sufficfient coating of polish/wax to stop the fallout reaching the actual paintwork. That way when you wash and polish or even mildly cut back you are rubbing the fallout off the polish rather than trying to get it off the actual paint.

After more research, just re-iterating some of the things that have already been said - you will get more industrial fallout if you live near the city, with heavy traffic usage (like me, park in the city almost every day), or live near a tram or train line or in the direction the wind may blow from a tram/train line ( may be up to a couple of kilometres away), or near an industrial sight. Things you can do to protect the car (apart from paintwork maintenance as mentioned) is to cover you car with a car cover, park under cover, or ride you bike into work if thats where you are getting the crap on the paint from! I'll just continue what I am doing but up the washing/polishing a bit and should be fine.

Thanks again for all your help, hope this helps someone.

D-Jack