Clean & Shiny!

[Tyre Tread]

Gave my car its first proper wash, clay Mitt and wax since I bought it on March and also touched in the stone chips.

The light wasn't great when I finished but I took a couple of pics anyway:

Not bad for 10 years old.

[Texas]

Good looking result you got there!
Really need to do my IS that I bought in Aug this year ( haven't cleaned it yet!!) don't look down on me cause I've only done about 350 miles in it!!
Can you please let on what products you used as I haven't actually bought any yet and would rather go on recommendations than ad hype.
FYI my paint 'feels' really rough and 'sandy' to the touch so I think I need to get some 'fallout remover' at least along with some clay bar perhaps. Also my alloys need to be refurbished as they are flaking very badly on the inside face and this I think will lead to slow punctures if not addressed.

Cheers Paul m.

[iwonder]

Looks great, what clay mitt do you use and does it marr the paint?

[Tyre Tread]

Thanks for the positive comments.

As its a 10 year old car I used bog standard car shampoo from Costco followed by a Farecla G3 clay Mitt with G3 Bodyshop detailer as the lubricant and finished off with a tub of wax I had on the shelf I bought about 10 years ago.

Mostly a large tub of elbow grease but actually it wasn't too hard at all.

It is really satisfying to go from sandpaper pint to glossy smooth paint.

clay bars an Mitts really are amazing and I was very sceptical of them but they do work as long as you use them correctly.

Oh and use microfibre towels to dry off the car and microfibre cloths (cheap from Costco) to polish. Make sure you remove the labels though as they will scratch the paint quite badly if you don't.

 

[rich1068]

I can remember going to a VAG show years ago ('03/'04?) and first seeing clay bars being demonstrated. Amazing what they do for neglected paintwork. At the time the trick was to feel the paintwork with your fingers inside the cellophane wrapper from a packet of fags then clay the panel and then feel it again through the cellophane. Any plastic wrapper will do but you really feel all the imperfections before and the smooth paintwork after.