Is it getting warmer yet? I want to detail my car! Maybe its the ocd in me but I love detailing cars as a hobby... Here's a pic of some nasty swirls on the original paint just after I got it (port installed option!). 3 coats of zaino didnt do much... Clay bar, 1 coat klasse aio, 1 coat klasse sg later: 2 more coats of klasse sg (cured): all done... glass/interior cleaned and trim dressed with sonus: pic in the shade: The pictures dont it justice... All the swirls were gone and I didnt even have to break out the porter cable. The car was dusty in no time but it was worth it to me!
whoa thats one shiny car! i gotta learn the secrets to detailing. i really wanna clean my car up on the outside, yet sadly i dont know how :-(.
I broke down and went to the 75 cent power washer today. Have you tried QEW? I sometimes use meguires wash mixed with meguires final inspection as a wintertime rinseless wash, but I hear QEW works really well.
Quick-and easy-wash. Its a rinseless wash. You just mix with warm water and hand wash yr car with it and dry it off. Apperently rv owners have been using it for years but it works great for cars in the winter.
I also have a black car, and the previous owner did not take care of it very well. I can't wait until it gets above like 70 degrees. I need to buff and wax, and shampoo my seats and floors. Along with painting my calipers and tinting my windows.
^When I first moved up here I'd bucket wash and detail in whatever random heated power washer place late at night... some of those owners get PISSED when they catch you tho!
^Yeah, I have a place I can wash it and take it down into the basement to clean it up, but I normally only power buff and wax my cars in the spring and fall.
Rexdriver: same here, I'll (clay if needed) polish, seal and wax before and after winter but if I go with carnauba over the sealant in the summer I'll re-apply that about once a month. What products does everyone use? I'm always looking for something new. I recently switched from zaino carnauba to the cheapo zymol... aint too bad for the price but has its downsides...
I absolutely HATE detailing haha however having said that i love the way my looks after it has been done. I am extreamly anal about my car and having to park it outside this last winter in upstate NY has killed me the interior has like an inch of dust and crumbs on it cuz it's just too darn cold to clean it BUT i can't wait for it to warm up so i can clean this sucker up but i think i'm gonna pay someone to do the outside cuz i end up just spending all day working on ti and it looks the same haha
Slavboy you sound like you need a wet-vac! Im so anal I have a carvac that plugs into the lighter, a bottle of rain-x wipes, a couple of microfiber towels, detailing spray, and polishing cloths in the car...
I use Master Formula for my aluminum/chrome rims. When I don't want or need to wax and just have a area that needs a touch up, I LOVE Wizards Mist-N-Shine...its like a waterless wash with a wax in a spray bottle. I need to find more! And since I don't have a high speed buffer anymore, I'm going to have to pay someone to buff and wax my car this year. I'll just get it done when I get my paint chips and fender fixed.
^Haha! Yes... in the trunk... I'll have to try the Wizards, I've heard of it but never seen/used it. I wonder if it will mix well with carnauba tho... I am still talking myself into using langka on the paint chips this year.
i don't mind it, i'm a lot manager so i end up doing a fair bit of detailing, and that means i have my own stall for cleaning my own cars too :lol:
I know the Wizards doesn't work good when the paint is really hot from the sun, but if you can cool it down in the shade or use it when it's not really hot outside...it works wonders. It's also recommended to use with the Wizards Clay Mate.
haha yeah i have the micro fiber towels in the car at all times too but i would really like a wet vac haha.
Yeah, I like the cheapo $13 zymol wax at target. Not the best but its readily available and if you wax a lot of cars and do multiple layers... The thing that I hate about microfiber towels is that most of them have a tag on them and you always see detailer/car wash places not removing them or forgetting to tuck them under. Matter of fact the guy that sold me my car was detailing my car with the tag! I didn't say anything figuring he'd been nice thus far and I'd get the swirls out later anyway...
i wax and vaccume nearly every week. shampooing is useless on my 11 yr old car the dirt is forever in the carpet. i buff with some heavy duty stuff a few times a year.
Sorry for the n00b question, but... I got an orbital buffer for christmas and was wondering how the hell do I use it. Is it for putting on the wax/polish, or for only removing it, or for both? I'm guessing that the general rule of thumb is to apply by hand and remove with the buffer.
^^ i tried one of those electrical buffers. i followed the directions on the box. i applid wax and removed it with teh buffer (using different pads for applying and removin of course) it worke pretty good. put a better shine on the car then i could do by hand, and was way faster. but you stil gotta do the hard tog et spots by hand we should do a carwash / detailing meet lol. get all the subys sparkling.
Yeah, you use it to apply and to remove the wax. Like Dynapar said, make sure you use different clean pads to apply and remove.
Well, just washed, clay barred, polished, and sealed my buddys talon that he's trying to sell. This car's paint looks all sorts of busted. Missing patches of clear coat, huge scratches, ridiculous micromarring/spiderwebs in the (remaining) clearcoat. I could only polish half the car in 3-4 hours but I think it looks a lot better. hood before... hood after. still pretty bad (notice the speckles in the middle) but much better than before... Both rear quarter panels were in the best shape, still pretty bad. before... other side after... ~90% of the micromarring and light scratches are gone. Now it just needs a quality wax
Damn! I need someone to do a job like that on my poor beat '02 WRX. (though I'll just go get the thing covered in mud again anyhow...)
Don't the obital buffers have to be under a certain speed to be safe for cars? I thought I read that somewhere.
^ when you hear somone talk about that, they are talking about REALLY high speed buffers that profesionals use, they spin so fast that they can burn thru the clearcoat and the paint. consumer buffers you buy at target or pep boys dont usually spin fast enough to burn thru.
