Polishes/wax

[Touge Kyousou]

Depends on your product/foam but it can get most off, the trade off for contact-less washing. Truck foam wash will get most if not all off for a really dirty car.

[SS8_Gohan]

yeah, but it's then too much of a sacrifice of your LSP

[blah_blah]

My first attempt at detailing. All applied by hand as i dont have a random orbital.

Wash with Meguirs Nxt wash

Clay Bar

2 x layers of Jetseal 109

1 x Layer of Collinite 476 Wax.

Didnt polish as didnt have the time or the equipment.

[Hibino]

Hibino, you're after PWC - Power Wheel Cleaner - fantastic product and i believe based on citrus extracts so at least relatively friendly.

http://www.finalinspection.com.au/store/pr...;products_id=46

Arrived today. Wow this stuff is amazing. Sprayed with hose on stream then sprayed on (I think I use too much... like half the bottle gone on one wheel ) then spray off with hose again. Wheels were clean as (white wheels so easy to see dust). Didn't even need to wipe/brush them.

[XkyleX]

had the meguirs rep give me a trial bottle of tech wax to try... loved the stuff...easy application and easy removal, didnt break a sweat doing it.. and looked great after wards, would definitly use it again

[cefiro]

hey guys I am so lost when it comes to what to use and when with cleaning the car.

Currentley have an Evo VII and had Dr Detail come and take all the crappy swirl marks out of the paint, but the paint is very soft and dont want to work the paint too much with products.

ATM just hosing car with water, and spraying down with duragloss aqua wax and dry.

But in a few months will rewax the car, what wax should I get? Would like to use a carnuba wax, or alot of people talking about techwax?

Do I seal before wax then wax over the top?????? Do I need to let the seal sit ont eh car a while before I wax??

Cheers

[Jonno34]

Revelation in drying everybody, im not too sure what you guys think of this but its basically a soft silicone squeedgee

You can pick a turtlewax one up from SCA for about 20 bucks or so, and its worked great so far for me and really speeds up drying time, i just go over the large areas of the car with this, and then go around it with a waffle weave MF

i am a bit worried about there being leftover dirt and scraping that along my paint though, and if you do try using one do not use it on surfaces that are somewhat drier, just keep it for the really wet surfaces, as it does tend to make some unpleasant squeeking sounds on the dry surfaces and it sounds pretty bad .. not too sure what it does to your paint but so far has not scratched mine or anything

i think it saves a bit of water too since i use it rather than "drying with water" now, although that did work pretty well too

and anyway heres my detail process :

For a quicker detail

1. Depending on the condition of the car ... if its pretty good i just use my old leftover Turtlewax ice wash, if not then i use the Meguiars wash and wax

2. Dry - use the squeedgee, get most water off, quickly go over with Waffle weave MF

3. Meguiars tech wax - love this stuff, used to use TW ice wax, but this gives it a much longer lasting layer of wax

For a full detail:

1. Wash - as above

2. Dry - as above

3. Meguiars quik clay kit clay bar

4. Meguiars deep crystal polish (if it needs it)

5. Meguiars tech wax

Im thinking i need to get some kind of sealant now, i find myself waxing almost every month ...

oh and btw, for wheels, I just blast em with a pressure washer, works good and if i need ill just give it a bit of a brush with soft bristle brushes with a bit of water

and for bad bad build up of break dust, try Autosol, it comes in small little tubes, its brilliant on horrible brake dust build ups, but its quite slow work to use it

[OLDSKOOLLIN]

meguiars

[Phatboy]

Hey has anyone used C.Quartz? It's meant to be one of the better sealants around that hardens and protects your car for up to 12 months.

Pretty pricey at about $70 for 30 ml. Anyone recommend this?

[R31Heaven]

Its getting good reviews on Detailing Forums and a lot of Pro detailers are using it.

[Phatboy]

Awesome. I'm amateur at doing this, but I'll give it a try. I wanted to use it and then put a layer of P21 carnauba wax over it, and just re-wax occasionally.

How often are you meant to clean your car? Do you re-wax every time? If I do it as soon as it gets visibly dirty, it'd be every week. I guess you don't want to clean it too often, as you'd be wasting a lot of wax.

[R31Heaven]

How often are you meant to clean your car?

I wash mine when I think it looks dirty and use a good car wash like Chemical guys Citris wash & Gloss, but any of the Megs washes will do , I just found through testing that the Chem guys stuff had a better lubricity and left a nice shine after the wash, you only need a cap full to wash the car

Do you re-wax every time?

No, I use a quick detailer (Duragloss aquawax 951)after a wash to top it up and depending on what wax I am using re-apply at its specfeid times. I have waxes that last from 2 (DP Max Wax) months to 12 (Colinitte 465) before they need reaplying, I love the look of the Max Wax so I use that as my prefered wax. I also have a Sealant base (Duragloss 105). there are lots of great sealants out there but a pity is they dont come from a local Autoshop.

My advise would be to have a look at http://www.detailparadise.com.au/modules.php?name=Forums this is a Australian Detailing forum and has a large amount of info on it, about lots of differnt products and doesnt push one brand

Edited April 22, 2011 by R31Heaven

[Phatboy]

Thanks for your advice, and fantastic resource!

I just realised there's a hell of a lot to learn about the plethora of expensive quality detailing products around and how to use them. And I thought mechanical mods were a money pit for what you get. How wrong I was.

[SS8_Gohan]

'detail addiction' is another fantastic resource, but we pretty much just use/talk about the Final Inspection range. Definitely people on there using a bunch of other products, but it is predominantly FI products. Damian has developed a product for pretty much every category/segment, and i just find it easier buying all from one place. I still have quite a few products of other companies, that i still use but all seriousness, once the FI product comes out, i rarely if ever switch back. Case in point with the Menzerna polishes. They still make a great polish, but FI's CAP range is definitely better, and you'll find Menzerna to be amongst the top, if not the top rated polish in most circles

like R31 and others, i like to play around with waxes, sealants etc... some a better with certain colours etc, so there is a bit of trial and error involved. And the conditions our cars are kept and experience varies a lot as well. Durability isn't a huge thing for me as the R spends most of it's time in a locked garage. So play around

but i agree, nothing really beats a good base sealant layer, with 3-4 layers of a nice wax ontop

[ARTZ]

so i bought a polisher and had a practice on my work ute on the weekend..It was hard to get a great finish because the paint has so much orange peel, its just a cheap tradies ute after all.. but i think It came up ok considering it has barely ever been washed let alone waxed ..

[NISMO]

looks great! White is not the easiest colour to get looking any kind of good, so thats def a good job.

Which polisher did you go with?

[ARTZ]

took me best part of 4 hours so im glad someone likes it..

its the pack that waxit sells, concours900 with mezerna polishers..

did the gloss 'finsh,final finish and sealant wax then topped it off with REload spray sealant for extra gloss..

see how it goes on my other cars when I get a chance..But its not a bad little machine for the money

[NISSAN GTR]

Revelation in drying everybody, im not too sure what you guys think of this but its basically a soft silicone squeedgee

You can pick a turtlewax one up from SCA for about 20 bucks or so, and its worked great so far for me and really speeds up drying time, i just go over the large areas of the car with this, and then go around it with a waffle weave MF

i am a bit worried about there being leftover dirt and scraping that along my paint though, and if you do try using one do not use it on surfaces that are somewhat drier, just keep it for the really wet surfaces, as it does tend to make some unpleasant squeeking sounds on the dry surfaces and it sounds pretty bad .. not too sure what it does to your paint but so far has not scratched mine or anything

i think it saves a bit of water too since i use it rather than "drying with water" now, although that did work pretty well too

and anyway heres my detail process :

For a quicker detail

1. Depending on the condition of the car ... if its pretty good i just use my old leftover Turtlewax ice wash, if not then i use the Meguiars wash and wax

2. Dry - use the squeedgee, get most water off, quickly go over with Waffle weave MF

3. Meguiars tech wax - love this stuff, used to use TW ice wax, but this gives it a much longer lasting layer of wax

For a full detail:

1. Wash - as above

2. Dry - as above

3. Meguiars quik clay kit clay bar

4. Meguiars deep crystal polish (if it needs it)

5. Meguiars tech wax

Im thinking i need to get some kind of sealant now, i find myself waxing almost every month ...

oh and btw, for wheels, I just blast em with a pressure washer, works good and if i need ill just give it a bit of a brush with soft bristle brushes with a bit of water

and for bad bad build up of break dust, try Autosol, it comes in small little tubes, its brilliant on horrible brake dust build ups, but its quite slow work to use it

Your system is almost perfect , instead of deep crystal polish use show car glaze , i found this product amazing .

[Jonno34]

i do love meguiars stuff, but now that ive found final inspection ... theres just no comparison!

check em out mate, im mad about my detailing and nothing can match FI stuff these days, im just trying to use up all my old meg's goods and replacing em one by one with FI goodies

[SS8_Gohan]

Your system is almost perfect , instead of deep crystal polish use show car glaze , i found this product amazing .

it's not really - unless the list of steps isn't completely exhaustive. There's no wash/cleansing step between the claying and the polishing. A must to get rid of the clay/lube residue and to complete remove the contaminants lifted by the claybar. You also need to wash/cleanse between the polishing and LSP.

and i don't understand why you would replace a polish with a glaze? that doesn't make any sense. A glaze is used as a LSP, wouldn't have any abrasive characteristics (the whole point of the polishing step) and generally filled with a bunch of fillers to 'hide' swirls/scratches. Terrible choice especially after you've spent all that time with preparation and paint correction, the last thing you want to do is use a glaze. Even more-so if you have a metallic paint car, just hide all that lovely flake you spent so much work getting to sparkle.