which one 1st: claying or cleaner?

[III]

Which one do you do first: clay or use a cleaner of somekind to get rid of scratches? If you clay first, do you wash the vehicle afterwards or do you just go on to the next step?

[Michael H]

Clay first, then use the cleaner. Claying sometimes causes minor scratches, more noticable on dark colours.



After claying I rinse the car with water, dry and apply the cleaner. It still have smudges from the clay but the cleaner removes those with no problems.

[imported_jgv]

When you`re working on an heavily oxidized car, you better us a paint cleaner first, or you`ll need some clay bars cause they`ll get too dirty too soon.



After cleaning and claying, you can better evaluate the surface and decide what to do next, SMR or polish or whatever.

[Michael H]

If the paint is heavily oxidised, a paint cleaner is a waste of effort, you need to use a cutting compound instead. After the compound you can then clay. But the paint has to be in very poor shape for this to occur.

[imported_jgv]

A strong chemical paint cleaner such as Poorboys Pro Polish will remove the loose oxidation well enough that permits you to evaluate the following step.

[luke667]

what about meguiars cleaner wax? is that any good?

[butchdave]

Yes, but if you use the cleaner first, won`t it take the top off any any embedded contaminants and then the clay won`t be able to pull them out?

[Accumulator]

Originally posted by butchdave

Yes, but if you use the cleaner first, won`t it take the top off any any embedded contaminants and then the clay won`t be able to pull them out?

Yeah. You don`t want to "smooth" the contaminants over for exactly that reason. So doing any compounding/cleaning before using the clay can cause trouble. You don`t want to do it unless you HAVE to.



UNLESS you`re dealing with severe oxidation on single stage paint, CLAY FIRST. I do plenty of work on ss paint, and I still hardly EVER use a paint cleaner/compound first. It`s really only necessary when you`re dealing with dry, chalky, "dead" paint. The kind that`s :sosad when it`s b/c. I`ve NEVER done a b/c car where I needed to clean/compound before claying, and I`ve done some really neglected ones.



But I do go through a lot of clay sometimes.



Luke667- If you mean the consumer stuff in the burgundy bottle, it`s fair, not great. If you mean the old #6, it`s better. Mother`s makes a good cleaner wax if you want to try one.