Newbie needs product recommendations, please!

M

MERLIN2oo2

New member
Greets, all!

I put a posty in the Welcome forum, but I'll briefly introduce myself here. I just got my first "baby" about a month ago, it's a 2004 Volkswagen New Beetle, limited edition Satellite Blue. I love it!!! But I don't know hardly a thing about cars or how to best care for my new baby Bug. I keep getting different recommendations from the local auto parts stores on what products would be best, so I'm a bit confused. I ran my car through an automatic car wash once, but want to learn to wash it myself. I also don't know when the car was last waxed and I want to do something to protect it for the upcoming winter. I purchased a car cover for it, since I don't have covered parking available right now, but I know I need to wax it or something. These are the products I have now:



RainX Wash & Wax

RainX Ultra Wax

Microfiber sponge

PVA sponge

Black Magic Pro-Dry Absorbing Cloth

Eagle One All Wheel & Tire Cleaner

Eagle One 20/20 Perfect Vision Aerosol Auto Glass Cleaner

Eagle One Wax-As-U-Dry





I have been browsing the forums here a bit, and have seen that there are a lot more products available than what I originally thought. I don't know how to choose the best products for my needs, though. And I'm not sure if I need to wash, polish, wax or wash and wax, or use wax cleaner or what. I don't want to accidentely damage anything. So, any basic guidelines for a complete newbie would be appreciated! Preferably products that I can get OTC, since I have a limited amount of time before winter sets in and I only have every other weekend to work on my car, if that. Many thanks in advance!!!



P.S. Links to websites with good and simple how-to info would also be helpful.



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Peace,

Carrie
 
I would try some Megs stuff. Megs NXT followed by a coat of Megs #26 will give it a great look and some endurance too.
 
is your car new or used



feel your paint with a plastic sandwich bag over your hand - does it catch - you probably need to clay your car before you polish/wax



does your car have swirils in it when parked in the sun - a mild or medium polishing might be on order



to accomplish somewhat fast and effective results, a dual action polisher will produce very good results for polishing, but doing it by hand, though possible, is very tedious and quite a time consuming process . . .



feed us some more info . . . .



i would ditch the rain x products and the wax as you dry . . .
 
It's used and yes, it does catch when I run my hand over it, bag or no bag. I don't really see any swirls, but I'm not quite sure what you mean by swirls, either. I'm willing to put some effort into it, but I'm also completely new to this so I'm looking for something that a beginner can handle until I get a better feel for things. Let me know what other information would be helpful and I'll get it posted ASAP. Thanks again!



Peace,

Carrie
 
Carrie,



Your car undoubtedly needs to be clayed. You can buy clay kits OTC - Meguiars sells a kit for <$20. Wash your car (properly - that's another whole subject), clay it (it won't take a day!!! - it's fairly easy and goes quickly - just use enough lubricant), rewash, and then treat the paint.



That'd be enough to at least get you prepped a bit for winter. In the spring, you may want to have the car polished with a PC to remove any swirl marks. In order to check for swirls, park the car in full sun, and then inspect the paint while looking at the reflection of the sun... move your head around a bit, looking at the edges of the sun reflection: you're looking for fine swirls or spiderweb-type marks. Your car likely has them!



As for what to use on the paint, there are many, many options. I personally prefer using polymer sealants from Zaino. But I'll leave it to others to make some recommendations.
 
Welcome to Autopia! Like the others I'd suggest you consider using clay on your car. That, and a lot of other topics are covered in the Autopia "Detailing How-To" section.



If you spend some time reading the "How-To" guide, and download the free Autopia Guide to Detailing ebook, then you'll have a much better idea of how to care for your car.
 
Thanks for the feedback! And especially thanks for the link to the How-To articles. Although I notice that most of the articles recommend products that aren't available at my local auto parts or discount stores(I'm sure they're much better quality, too), can anyone give me a rough shopping list of products I can buy locally to get the job done? I'm not looking for show-quality shine just yet, but I want to get the basics done right, at least as much as I can. And of course, all the products on the shelves say that they're the best or that they do everything, so I thought I'd just ask the experts directly. Huge, huge thanks!!!



Peace,

Carrie
 
Carrie,



Here's a quick recommendation, using OTC products:



-Wash the car using a decent auto wash product - Meguiar's GC or Eagle One

-If you are game to clay the car, get the Meguiar's kit and follow the directions

-Wash it again

-Meguiar's has a 3 step system - Paint Cleaner, Polish, and Wax. They are actually numbered 1-2-3, in that order. You could skip the cleaner and just use the other 2 if you clay. If you choose not to clay the car, you could do all 3

-That's basically it

-In the spring, you could look into having someone clean up the paint (remove swirls and other minor defects) with a Porter Cable - or do it yourself

-And by then you may have gotten a sense of what products you really would like to try



Good luck!
 
Most of the products you have aren't really bad, however when those run out you may want to get something better. Like others have mentioned, claying is a good idea before putting down a layer of wax. Also a good paint cleaner/light polish would be good before waxing. One thing that has not been mentioned is the quality of towels, sponges and applicators. Very few detailing liquids will make your paint look worse, but your choice of towels and wash methods sure will. For washing on the cheap, nothing beats the Eurow Sheepskin sponges at Wal-Mart. $5 and probably the best thing for washing it its price range. For towels, you will get tons of answers but a good bet for a beginner are some Costco microfibers, $10 for a pack of 24. Use lots of towel, the more the merrier.
 
You could check on some local detail shops, stop by and get some prices and have them point out issues with your paint. If you can see a before and after on someone's car and feel like they did a great job - then I say let a pro get the paint corrected for you. There's plenty of info on this site and others about car care- "google" car detailers or products! I suggest you get some Vroom MF towels from Target and some DuraGloss, products from CarQwest or NAPA. I just did a DuraGloss detail on my Toyota and I'm very pleased, and I've tried several of the "boutique" brands before.
 
Carrie, you needn't go broke. Just pick and choose from the recommendations above and do what sounds best to you and what you want to spend. Good luck! kc
 
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