Wash or wash and polish

[rich1068]

14 hours ago, ALAW said:

autoglym extra gloss protection

Forgot about this and yes indeed, it is extremely good. Possibly the easiest sealant product to apply and buff up.

[PCM]

18 hours ago, rich1068 said:

Forgot about this and yes indeed, it is extremely good. Possibly the easiest sealant product to apply and buff up.

And Fusso.

Easy to use and amazing finish.

https://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/fusso-coat-f7-liquid-sealant-light 

[rich1068]

Noted.

[Malc]

On 10/19/2020 at 8:17 PM, Barry14UK said:

Interested to know your cleaning regime and what you use. 

rarely take her to the hand carwash, locally about £7 nowadays ..................  never the auto one's for sure as afraid those brushes might rip off wipers, mirrors etc at some stage 

I'm afraid it does rain a lot here, and she glistens when so so wet ....................... she rarely gets a treat of a proper wash .............  I must have saved hundreds of man hours by not washing her .............  when and if it stops raining again I will probably take her to a hand car wash outlet locally .................. they will do a good job on her

Malc

[Linas.P]

On 10/19/2020 at 8:17 PM, Barry14UK said:

It has  been contended that modern paintwork only requires to be washed down rather than being followed by waxing, although some members go even further and 'clay bar' and use various polishes some using expensive  carnauba products.

Interested to know your cleaning regime and what you use.                                                   

It really depends on your expectations, how much you value clean car and the level of OCD you have for dirty paint. I personally am a little bit sick - suspecting OCD at very least, maybe some paranoia as well 😁 (obviously exaggerating) and without a doubt I have very high expectations of how car should be washed, what products have to be used and how it should look after that.

That said I understand spending too much time cleaning their car is not for everyone. Point is - you need to decide how clean you want it and depend on that how you going to clean it.

You already noted that your car is kept outside, near seaside and birds are likely to trash even the cleanest car. Based on that I would say perhaps there isn't much point in trying to keep the car in pristine condition all the time.

Saying that modern cars only need washing down and that is it - that is coming from people who simply have low standards on how the car should look like (it is personal preference). Yes modern cars have clear coat, so if not protected sun not going to bleach the paint as quickly as single stage paints of old days. But scratches and dirty clear coat does not look any better, so to large extent nothing has changed - if you want your car to look good then you have to spend time and money getting it clean.

When it comes to end result, it is always important how the paint (or rather clear coat) looks to begin with - if its scratched already, then no matter what you apply it will look crap. So you need to address that to the level of your liking first (means polishing).

For minimum maintenance I would go for full multi stage polish + ceramic coating. This would give protection and some "self-cleaning" characteristics, it does not mean car will clean itself, just that dirt will be easier to remove when washing and things like bird droppings won't etch pain as much. Then I would only do maintenance clean once in couple of months and another detail after 2 years.

Alternatives are carnauba based waxes (which lasts 1-3 months) and cheaper silicon based waxes (1-4weeks). I think natural carnauba still gives best shine, whereas only advantage of silicon is cheap price, ceramic coatings have best durability, but they are expensive and tricky to apply.

Note - claying car is just intermediate step which must be followed by polishing. Many people don't understand it, but claying scratches the car, so if you not planning to polish the car - don't clay it.

[J Henderson]

2 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Note - claying car is just intermediate step which must be followed by polishing. Many people don't understand it, but claying scratches the car, so if you not planning to polish the car - don't clay it.

Agreed. I don't notice it so much on my own car (silver), but I remember being shocked at the state of my sister's black BMW after I went over it with one of the clay mitts being mentioned in this topic. It was literally forced to polish the whole car afterwards.

[Linas.P]

29 minutes ago, J Henderson said:

Agreed. I don't notice it so much on my own car (silver), but I remember being shocked at the state of my sister's black BMW after I went over it with one of the clay mitts being mentioned in this topic. It was literally forced to polish the whole car afterwards.

Not to mention BMWs already have one of harder paints and clay mitts are already softer than clay bars. You can get clay bars as coarse, medium and fine (clay mitts coming just little finer than finest bars). Obviously, coarse clay bar is best to use on lower parts of the car where you get most brake dust and other contamination stuck in paint, but even when folding often the results may be similar to wet-sanding.

It is real cringe to watch when some car channels does detailing adverts and before applying some cheap silicone wax they go through the steps they don't understand and get's car "clayed" before applying wax. As if that is a step for each wash. 

Indeed clay is very important, yet specific step when detailing the car. Getting the paint clean will influence how well the polish works on the car and how much trash you get into polishing pads. If I know that car was not detailed for long time, I would rather trash £10 clay bar, than 3 x £12 polishing pads and ton of paste. However, clay is not something to be used when just washing the car.

[ciao_chao]

Thank you all for this thread. Loads of good contributions here which really opened my eye to how far car cleaning has come along in the past few years.

[Caldean]

 

Picked up my RX450H a couple of months ago and have been meaning to get round to giving it the full treatment. The intention will be ( I've got all the stuff, just not got round to doing it)

1. Spray Auto Finesse citrus cleaner all over, including the windows, to help dissolve traffic film, then wash off with pressure washer ( Kranzle) after a few minutes.

2. Spray wheels and bodywork with Bily Hamber Korrosol to remove iron particles such as brake dust - again pressure wash off after a few minutes whenit turns purple

3. Snow Foam with Bilt Hamber Autofoam, then pressure wash off

4. Wash with 2 bucket method and grit guards with PH neutral shampoo Gyeon Bathe

5 Claybar with Bilt Hamber Claybar, which can be used with just water, though I'll probably finish off my Dodo Juice Born Slippy lube.

6.  Machine polish with Gyeon Prep, followed by Gyeon Can Coat ( Ceramic lite protectant), cure  and then apply with Gyeon Cure

7. Clean tyres with Bilt Hamber Autotire (I think) and then apply a tyre sealant - not decided on which one yet.

Meantime, I've been simply washing under the first 4 steps and then applying Gyeon Wet Coat, which is a spray on wash off ceramic coating detailer- has kept the car clean for the last month, despite the weather we've had.

I'll be going full tilt on a detail for my wife's car first to test it all out. If I screw up, it'll be a learning curve but no great disaster :-)

[rich1068]

There were a couple of young lads on our road the other weekend offering to wash and wax cars for a bit of pocket money. I had the Honda at home and the paintwork is not the best anyway so I said for them to do mine when they had finished a neighbour's. Then I spotted the Autoglym SRP and said they could leave out the "wax"  And then I asked what shampoo they were using. "Just Fairy." Actually, no thanks 

Fair play to them though.

[rayaans]

1 hour ago, rich1068 said:

There were a couple of young lads on our road the other weekend offering to wash and wax cars for a bit of pocket money. I had the Honda at home and the paintwork is not the best anyway so I said for them to do mine when they had finished a neighbour's. Then I spotted the Autoglym SRP and said they could leave out the "wax"  And then I asked what shampoo they were using. "Just Fairy." Actually, no thanks 

Fair play to them though.

There's nothing actually wrong with SRP. It'd probably add some bling to the paint of the Honda if it's not in good shape. Much better product than 80% of the AIOs out there anyway

Likewise despite everyone saying fairy liquid shouldn't be used on cars it's not going to do much damage using it as a one off. Itll remove all the crud and wax leaving a clean slate for SRP anyway! 

[Spacewagon52]

1 hour ago, rayaans said:

 

Likewise despite everyone saying fairy liquid shouldn't be used on cars it's not going to do much damage using it as a one off. 

Fairy liquid contains salt!

[rayaans]

2 hours ago, Spacewagon52 said:

Fairy liquid contains salt!

Common kitchen salt. Wont do much if anything compared to grit which stays on vehicles for a much longer period of time anyway

[rich1068]

8 hours ago, rayaans said:

There's nothing actually wrong with SRP. It'd probably add some bling to the paint of the Honda if it's not in good shape. Much better product than 80% of the AIOs out there anyway

Likewise despite everyone saying fairy liquid shouldn't be used on cars it's not going to do much damage using it as a one off. Itll remove all the crud and wax leaving a clean slate for SRP anyway! 

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Fairy certainly has it's place if you're wanting to remove whatever protection you already have eg starting again. And re: the SRP. I use it fairly frequently but there is a knack. I just didn't imagine two 11 year olds would have that knack!