Spot Claying?

[B737Capt]

On the roof of my car there are some hard spots on it. They look like little orange bumps or specs of something, paint maybe, not really sure what it is. Thought that clay would probably remove it. The Car was just waxed last week and I was wondering if I could just spot clay these things off? Or would it require me to polish wand wax the whole car again?

[imported_liam]

orange spots on a black car? well its hopefully nothing too serious.



clay will remove wax.. but you wouldn`t have to do the whole thing again. - just the spots.



i myself would do the whole panel just to make sure everything looked right :D

[Accumulator]

I spot clay every vehicle with every wash, have for many years. I hardly *ever* have to rewax after claying, but it all depends on how aggressively you have to clay to remove the contamination.



If you`re lucky you can clay it off so gently that you pull the contamination out of your LSP. Very gentle, almost no pressure, take your time and use lots of lube. No need to rewax then. This is my usual experience.



More likely you will have to clay "hard" enough that you should at least refresh the LSP on that panel. You won`t remove it all down to bare paint, but you`ll remove some of the LSP. Sal Zaino has, I hear, said that "normal" claying will remove about half a layer of Zaino.



In the worst case, you`ll have to clay very aggressively and will thus cut through the LSP. In this case you`re almost misusing the clay, the claying is supposed to be a very gentle process (*pulling* contamination *out*, not *rubbing* it *off*). But if the contamination has "burned" deep into the LSP, let alone gone through the LSP to the paint, then your LSP is compromised anyhow.

[Glossequation]

Originally posted by B737Capt

On the roof of my car there are some hard spots on it. They look like little orange bumps or specs of something, paint maybe, not really sure what it is. Thought that clay would probably remove it. The Car was just waxed last week and I was wondering if I could just spot clay these things off? Or would it require me to polish wand wax the whole car again?



Evaluate your car`s paint. For example, on my Denali, even though the dealership mauled the finish with a rotary, they did take out any above surface imperfections, leaving the finish swirled, but smooth. After 6 mos of driving (my first SUV), I noticed the rear hatch glass and the tailgate get the most abuse, as they were considerably gritty when I felt them recently. The rest of the truck was in very good shape. So I ended up claying just the rear glass and tailgate, now it matches the rest of the truck. Re-polished (to take out minor marring from the clay) and waxed and its good as new.