Good Combination for White Paint
- Thread starter purp99gp
- Start date
P
Patrick
Guest
Good ol Armor All car wash
Meg's yellow clay, or Blue clay magic....
Clearkote QD...
A plethora of finishes: Blackfire (my favorite), Platinum (2nd fav), (Moosewax, S100 combo) I guess it depends on the mood im in...ColorX and Platinum UPP next time....
If i feel the need for light swirl removal, I will use Poorboys SSR1...
Meg's yellow foam pads for polishing, then apply my sealant by hand with foam app's, remove with Excels Micro fibers...
Meg's yellow clay, or Blue clay magic....
Clearkote QD...
A plethora of finishes: Blackfire (my favorite), Platinum (2nd fav), (Moosewax, S100 combo) I guess it depends on the mood im in...ColorX and Platinum UPP next time....
If i feel the need for light swirl removal, I will use Poorboys SSR1...
Meg's yellow foam pads for polishing, then apply my sealant by hand with foam app's, remove with Excels Micro fibers...
Ok, I am a newbie here, but I will try to answer as best I can. I also have a white car - Honda Accord. It took me many months of searching posts on Autopia and experimenting to come up with this approach.
Wash: QEW (Protect-All Quick and Easy Wash) - do a search on QEW to find out how to use it. Mosca wrote a really great how-to for this product. You can wash the car anytime, anywhere, even inside the garage. I will never go back to washing a car with a hose.
Clay: Mother's Clay Bar - it's widely available and in one year of reading Autopia I've never seen anybody compain about it. Clay Magic is supposed to be just as good, but I've only used Mother's.
Cleaner: DCS Step 1 (Mequiar's Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner Step 1) - this is not a popular product on Autopia, but I think it is under-rated. It's one of my favorite products. The solvents and mild abrasives in it leave the paint squeeky clean. It's very easy to use and very effective at stripping off road grime, old wax, oxidation, etc. It's also cheap and easy to find at most auto parts stores.
Polish - Klasse AIO (All-In-One) - This is a paint cleaner plus an acrylic sealant. It happens to be a very good paint cleaner, but for me DCS is better, so I use AIO after DCS. AIO makes the surface feel very smooth and glazed-looking, so I am including it under the "polish" step. I apply it gently by hand. I find the AIO goes on and wipes off super-easy if I clean the paint first with DCS, but another option would be to skip the DCS and use AIO twice.
Swirl Removal: you didn't ask about this. I can't really help with this anyway. I'm not a true Autopian yet, and won't be until I have a better understanding of this process and get some successes with swirl removal.
Wax: SG (Klasse Sealant Glaze) - So far, I think no other product makes white paint look better. I've tried Meguiar's cleaner wax, Meguiar's Mirror Glaze #26 wax, and Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax. They all looked good but the SG makes the white paint really look WHITE and reflective and eye-catching, more than the other products I've tried. The other products supposedly perform better on darker colors. Please note that Klasse SG needs around 24 hours to "cure" at which point it will look better than when first applied.
QD: Sonus Acrylic Spritz has the Klasse sealant in it. It helps fortify the protection you get from SG and maintain the shiny appearance, which will fade without this attention. Sonus is expensive, but there is an alternative. For the past 3 months, I have had great success mixing 1 ounce of SG in 15 ounces of distilled (not tap, not filtered) water in a spray bottle and spritzing down the car with this after washes. The mixing of water and SG is not approved by others on this board, but I'm getting such good results that I cannot and will not stop doing it. For QD'ing off fresh tree sap, bugs, bird bombs, etc., I say use the cheapest QD you can find. This is usually Eagle One Wet Wipe and Shine. For QD'ing the dust off the whole car in between car washes, take any QD and add 1 oz of SG to the bottle. Make sure you shake before spraying. This is a cheaper alternative to Sonus.
Wash: QEW (Protect-All Quick and Easy Wash) - do a search on QEW to find out how to use it. Mosca wrote a really great how-to for this product. You can wash the car anytime, anywhere, even inside the garage. I will never go back to washing a car with a hose.
Clay: Mother's Clay Bar - it's widely available and in one year of reading Autopia I've never seen anybody compain about it. Clay Magic is supposed to be just as good, but I've only used Mother's.
Cleaner: DCS Step 1 (Mequiar's Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner Step 1) - this is not a popular product on Autopia, but I think it is under-rated. It's one of my favorite products. The solvents and mild abrasives in it leave the paint squeeky clean. It's very easy to use and very effective at stripping off road grime, old wax, oxidation, etc. It's also cheap and easy to find at most auto parts stores.
Polish - Klasse AIO (All-In-One) - This is a paint cleaner plus an acrylic sealant. It happens to be a very good paint cleaner, but for me DCS is better, so I use AIO after DCS. AIO makes the surface feel very smooth and glazed-looking, so I am including it under the "polish" step. I apply it gently by hand. I find the AIO goes on and wipes off super-easy if I clean the paint first with DCS, but another option would be to skip the DCS and use AIO twice.
Swirl Removal: you didn't ask about this. I can't really help with this anyway. I'm not a true Autopian yet, and won't be until I have a better understanding of this process and get some successes with swirl removal.
Wax: SG (Klasse Sealant Glaze) - So far, I think no other product makes white paint look better. I've tried Meguiar's cleaner wax, Meguiar's Mirror Glaze #26 wax, and Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax. They all looked good but the SG makes the white paint really look WHITE and reflective and eye-catching, more than the other products I've tried. The other products supposedly perform better on darker colors. Please note that Klasse SG needs around 24 hours to "cure" at which point it will look better than when first applied.
QD: Sonus Acrylic Spritz has the Klasse sealant in it. It helps fortify the protection you get from SG and maintain the shiny appearance, which will fade without this attention. Sonus is expensive, but there is an alternative. For the past 3 months, I have had great success mixing 1 ounce of SG in 15 ounces of distilled (not tap, not filtered) water in a spray bottle and spritzing down the car with this after washes. The mixing of water and SG is not approved by others on this board, but I'm getting such good results that I cannot and will not stop doing it. For QD'ing off fresh tree sap, bugs, bird bombs, etc., I say use the cheapest QD you can find. This is usually Eagle One Wet Wipe and Shine. For QD'ing the dust off the whole car in between car washes, take any QD and add 1 oz of SG to the bottle. Make sure you shake before spraying. This is a cheaper alternative to Sonus.
You really shouldn't worry all that much about a colour-specific plan for your car. The only times when colour tends to be an issue is when:
- choosing a 3M swirl remover (if you want to use this product) because it comes in light and dark versions.
- choosing wax/sealant. There have been huge debates and comparisons about what looks better on what, but in the end they are relatively moot, because it's such a subtle difference and effect, that personal tastes are a greater factor.
My personal advice is to simply pick some protection product that sounds appealing to you, for some quality or attribute other than looking good on white, and experiment a bit. If you find that you're happy with the way it looks that way, so much the better.
Also, just to let you know, a "cleaning" stage is really unnecessary unless you need to hit the car with tar remover or something because washing and claying were not enough (actually, removing large tar deposits should come before attempting claying). "Cleaners" are simply polishes by another name. Wash-->clay-->polish (multiple steps if necessary)-->protect.
EDIT: Don't forget to utilize the Search feature in conjunction with the Learn! section and anything else you read. Also, try to decide if you want to go a "traditional" glaze-->wax routine, or use a sealant.
- choosing a 3M swirl remover (if you want to use this product) because it comes in light and dark versions.
- choosing wax/sealant. There have been huge debates and comparisons about what looks better on what, but in the end they are relatively moot, because it's such a subtle difference and effect, that personal tastes are a greater factor.
My personal advice is to simply pick some protection product that sounds appealing to you, for some quality or attribute other than looking good on white, and experiment a bit. If you find that you're happy with the way it looks that way, so much the better.
Also, just to let you know, a "cleaning" stage is really unnecessary unless you need to hit the car with tar remover or something because washing and claying were not enough (actually, removing large tar deposits should come before attempting claying). "Cleaners" are simply polishes by another name. Wash-->clay-->polish (multiple steps if necessary)-->protect.
EDIT: Don't forget to utilize the Search feature in conjunction with the Learn! section and anything else you read. Also, try to decide if you want to go a "traditional" glaze-->wax routine, or use a sealant.
JimS
Adopt a shelter pet!
All my vehicles have been white for the last 30 yrs or so.
I'm no expert and there are so dammed many products out there that it gets real confusing. So...I use all Poorboy products. I use them because they work, it's easier to learn one product line, I can trust the guy who sells it and makes it, I can call him for expert advice, the shipping is cheaper when buying from one source and it's easier to order from one source. Well...I do have to go to the Autopia store to get some stuff...like pc pads etc. So........
I wash with Dawn. Clay with Poorboys clay bar, polish out scratches with SSR 1, 2, or 3. Then I use his regular polish, then seal/protect with EX and I have topped that with his paste wax but I don't think it's necessary. You will definitely want to get some Spray and Wipe!!! It's great stuff for cleaning the truck in between washes, for cleaning the wheels, under the hood, the door jambs, even the windows. www.poorboysworld.com
You'll want to get a PC. Do a search to see why.:wavey
I'm no expert and there are so dammed many products out there that it gets real confusing. So...I use all Poorboy products. I use them because they work, it's easier to learn one product line, I can trust the guy who sells it and makes it, I can call him for expert advice, the shipping is cheaper when buying from one source and it's easier to order from one source. Well...I do have to go to the Autopia store to get some stuff...like pc pads etc. So........
I wash with Dawn. Clay with Poorboys clay bar, polish out scratches with SSR 1, 2, or 3. Then I use his regular polish, then seal/protect with EX and I have topped that with his paste wax but I don't think it's necessary. You will definitely want to get some Spray and Wipe!!! It's great stuff for cleaning the truck in between washes, for cleaning the wheels, under the hood, the door jambs, even the windows. www.poorboysworld.com
You'll want to get a PC. Do a search to see why.:wavey