My experience trying to clean the grime off the glass with an Orbital Polisher

[GroovaEV]

This is a pretty useless post, but just thought I'd post that if you plan on cleaning your glass with a Orbital Polisher, might want to do that first before detailing the rest of the car.
Granted, I had no experience with a orbital polisher and probably used way too much G4 cleaner....
I spent 1 1/2 days thoroughly detailing and had just finished putting a ceramic coat on and then a coat of butter wax on top. (A bit overboard, I know, and this was on top of my PPF )
I proceeded to use the orbital on my windshield, focusing on ensuring I don't get near the paint or lose grip of the orbital, not noticing my car and myself was being splattered with cleaner.
Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day removing the massive splatters of glass polisher off the body of the car.

A couple lessons learned, use the glass polisher sparingly and probably best to do the glass first. At least in my case.

At least I was able to finally remove the grime that was on my windshield since it came from Tesla. No amount of alcohol, panel wipe, magic eraser(melamine) or elbow grease was able to get it prior.
Now my wife's Model Y's windshield is taunting me.... It still has that mystery Tesla grime on it but my arms need a rest!

/rant

 

[mswlogo]

This is a pretty useless post, but just thought I'd post that if you plan on cleaning your glass with a Orbital Polisher, might want to do that first before detailing the rest of the car.
Granted, I had no experience with a orbital polisher and probably used way too much G4 cleaner....
I spent 1 1/2 days thoroughly detailing and had just finished putting a ceramic coat on and then a coat of butter wax on top. (A bit overboard, I know, and this was on top of my PPF )
I proceeded to use the orbital on my windshield, focusing on ensuring I don't get near the paint or lose grip of the orbital, not noticing my car and myself was being splattered with cleaner.
Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day removing the massive splatters of glass polisher off the body of the car.

A couple lessons learned, use the glass polisher sparingly and probably best to do the glass first. At least in my case.

At least I was able to finally remove the grime that was on my windshield since it came from Tesla. No amount of alcohol, panel wipe, magic eraser(melamine) or elbow grease was able to get it prior.
Now my wife's Model Y's windshield is taunting me.... It still has that mystery Tesla grime on it but my arms need a rest!

/rant

What I do is once I put a blob on the pad I smear it out with orbiter off. Then turn it on. Also don’t run it on high I don’t make that much mess doing it. But I’ve done it half a dozen times. Definitely worth doing. All Tesla’s I’ve seen come with factory grime that isn’t easy to remove any other way. For free !!

 

[jacie6056]

This is a pretty useless post, but just thought I'd post that if you plan on cleaning your glass with a Orbital Polisher, might want to do that first before detailing the rest of the car.
Granted, I had no experience with a orbital polisher and probably used way too much G4 cleaner....
I spent 1 1/2 days thoroughly detailing and had just finished putting a ceramic coat on and then a coat of butter wax on top. (A bit overboard, I know, and this was on top of my PPF )
I proceeded to use the orbital on my windshield, focusing on ensuring I don't get near the paint or lose grip of the orbital, not noticing my car and myself was being splattered with cleaner.
Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day removing the massive splatters of glass polisher off the body of the car.

A couple lessons learned, use the glass polisher sparingly and probably best to do the glass first. At least in my case.

At least I was able to finally remove the grime that was on my windshield since it came from Tesla. No amount of alcohol, panel wipe, magic eraser(melamine) or elbow grease was able to get it prior.
Now my wife's Model Y's windshield is taunting me.... It still has that mystery Tesla grime on it but my arms need a rest!

/rant

awesome job! Any recommend compound that you used?

 

[GroovaEV]

What I do is once I put a blob on the pad I smear it out with orbiter off. Then turn it on. Also don’t run it on high I don’t make that much mess doing it. But I’ve done it half a dozen times. Definitely worth doing. All Tesla’s I’ve seen come with factory grime that isn’t easy to remove any other way. For free !!

Yes, good tip. I eventually learned that and ended up doing a portion of the Y's windshield before I got burned out from detailing.

 

[GroovaEV]

awesome job! Any recommend compound that you used?

I was trying panel wipe, but it didn't seem to do anything at all. I then tried G4 Nanotech Glass polish and that's what worked. It's expensive and there may be better/cheaper option out there but it's what I had and it worked. I did use panel wipe after the G4 though. I then put on G1 (if I recall correctly)
But I'm not entirely sold on it being better than rain-x.
We get a "couple days" without rain here in Washington so I go through the Rain-x fairly quicky.

 

[Stirthepot]

you don't want to put butter wax on top of ceramic typically. unless its a wax specifically designed to work with ceramic coatings. if you use traditional products over a coating it will actually defeat the hydrophobic properties of the coating.

it won't harm the coating, so you didn't hurt anything, but look for ceramic related toppers in the future.

 

[tzone20]

That nano deposited layer of scum apparently is also on authentic Tesla replacement windshields and roof glass from Saint Gobain-Sekurit. I have both, and the same experience with no cleaning treatment making a difference to that micro thin layer of scum!

Solution for me: Bon Ami, a small amount of water, an orbital polisher and several passes and now it's clean.

Here's how I check to see if the scum is still there: Give the (cool) glass a quick wipe with the slightest moisture in a rag and watch the moisture pattern as it evaporates, it will look spotty if there's scum and you can also feel it by dry wiping with a micro fiber cloth.

The attached image is of a brand new replacement factory Tesla windshield and roof glass before polishing. This windshield looked totally spotted only because it had condensation on the outside of the windshield HOWEVER it looked perfectly CLEAN when dry. The only time the scum was an issue was at night when the wipers are running with oncoming traffic.

After polishing the glass, water does NOT bead up and run off, it sheets, however it's still easier to see at night after cleaning off the scum.

Next is a ceramic sealer coat to get the hydrophobic water beads that self shed at speed. I just ordered some GYEON Quartz Q² View after watching a good video which evaluated 28 different glass coatings:

 

[maximizese]

I haven't used an orbital polisher in about 20 years. I got lazy and never detail the cars...barely wash them beyond running a hose on them before driving off, but the grime on the windshield is bothering me enough to bust out the polisher.