car polishing

[tyler 0]

its been a while since i felt the need to polish a car but since owning the corrado i have cleaned it 3 times in 10 days (golf was cleaned once a month with wash and wax) but now dont want polish to get i had to t-cut when i got as it was lovely shades off pink and that bought it up ok the turtle wax colour magic and zymol wax but it didnt give the desired affect so now wondering if i should claybar it then use diamondbrite has anyone else used it? and does it help protect it? :shock:

 

 

also the car was left for around 2 years without being driven and the engine bay was mess so been cleaning it up and whats the best to protect this area?

 

sorry for the questions but havent cared about any off my cars until now :D

[VR6 0]

Claybar would certainly be no bad thing. Not had any experience with the Diamondbrite stuff though but if you have a look here:

 

http://www.the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewforum.php?f=31

 

There will be loads of threads about individual products that you can choose from.

[vwdeviant 0]

Tyler, assuming you don't have access to/ experience of a machine polisher... And I'm guessing it's Tornado/Flash red?

 

I'd recommend getting some of the Megs 3-step products from Halfords. Specifically the Stage-1 Paint Cleanser and Stage-2 Polish. As well as some foam Applicator pads.

 

They also do a Megs Clay kit, which is quite pricy at £25 but this helps remove all bonded contaminents (tree sap/brake dust/ etc) from the paint. You can tell if you need to do this by running your fingers over the car... if the paint surface feels "Gritty" then you'll need to clay it. Places such as Elite Car care also do clay bar kits, but the Megs one is quite "gentle" so there's very little chance of marring your paint.

 

Once you have clayed the car, go with the Stage-1 do this a couple times, this will clean up the paint, plus it has oils which help "feed" the paint and level the colour off between panels. No hard and fast rule about how much to do this, you'll know when the colour looks even.

 

Then move onto Stage-2 (or you can use Autoglymm Super resin polish - more later) again a couple goes at this will help bring up a shine to the paint and also help hide the "Cobwebbing" you can probably see (result of using car-washes/jetwashers).

 

From there it's a case of protecting the finish. The reason paint fades, like skin burns, is UV. So you need to protect the paint with a sealer/wax

 

So follow up with some Autoglym Extra Gloss Protection (gold label) this is basically a sealer and will add another layer of protection to the paint. Again a couple layers will help.

 

Then it's onto Wax, there's a huge choice out there, but I'm guessing that you will want a long-lasting easy to look after wax?

 

My personal favorite is Colinite 915 (Available from Elite), this is a "hard wax" (in a tub, liqid waxes come in bottles) and not only gives a deep wet-look shine but lasts for months.

 

Again whatever you chose a couple layers will help protect the paint and add some longevity. With Colinite, try to leave 12+hr between coats to allow the preceeding coat to "go off" (harden).

 

Hope this helps and isn't too confusing. But if you have any questions please go ahead and ask!

[tyler 0]

cheers ill try that routine :)

[vwdeviant 0]

No Probs... detailing's a bit of a minefield.. what works for some doesn't for others.. but what I've outlined is a realtivly cheap and easy to use intro.

 

Oh and Halfords have a 3-4-2 offer on all their Polishing stuff!

 

One thing I will say is avoid the Zymol Cleaner wax (blue stuff, smells of Banana/cocnut). A real Marmite product, I didn't get on with it (and Jim's had similar with his Red IIRC), all the coloured waxes, T-cut ( :gag: ) etc...

 

The art of a good final finish is the prep work so the more time you spend on early stages the better the final finish. I warn you that you maybe on this for a few hours/days... my first pass at my Pearl-grey paint took me 8hrs just to do Stage1/2/wax! :nuts:

 

However once you have a finish you are happy with it's only a matter of topping up the wax every couple weeks/once a month (depending on wax) and fully doing the car 1-2 times a year. I tend to do mine early in the year (March/April if weathers good) and then again Oct time to prep for Winter.

[herisites 0]

All good advice from John as usual. if it was me though I would ditch the step 2 and 3 of the megs 3 step and replace with Autoglym SRP followed with EGP and then wax. Reason being is the megs step 2 isn't really a polish, more of a glaze so would be better applying AFTER it's been polished with the likes of SRP as it will add a nice depth of shine and also help fill some swirls a bit ready to be waxed. However if you apply the megs stage 2 "polish" after SRP then I would just go straight to some good wax and leave EGP as you won't get much of the EGP on the paint as it's designed to bond to the SRP. So for me it's either:

 

Megs Stage 1 > SRP > EGP > Wax

 

OR

 

Megs Stage 1 > SRP > Megs Stage 2 "Polish" (as a glaze) > Wax

 

This is just my opinion though really.

 

Rob.