Should I bother with a paint cleaner?

I

imported_RedlineIRL

New member
I've been wondering this for a while, but is it pointless to use a paint cleaner if one intends to polish afterwards? Wouldn't the polish itself remove any kind of contaminants or impurities? What do you all think on this?
 
If you polish use a paint cleaner after the polish, I prefer this over an alcohol wipedown.



VW deep cleanse is wonderful.
 
There just isn't that many paint cleansers out there that are just cleansers. They seem to claim that they leave something behind to fill and such. Many of the paint cleansers kind of cross the line into the glaze category. I have also been think about getting a dedicated true non-abrasive solvent type paint cleanser, but haven't found many to choose from except for the ones from the mega $ wax companies.
 
What are u trying to accomplish with the cleaner wax? If it is filling, then get CG glaze, and for minor correction, try Propolish or Menz 106 with orange pad.
 
On very neglected paint using a paint cleanser before polishing would probably keep your pads from getting trashed too quickly. Using it after polishing does seems like a waste if yoiu're doing a IPA wipedown. People claim that is makes a difference when using the VW, Swisswax, or Zymol HD cleaner fluids so maybe we are missing out on something.
 
ron231 said:
If you polish use a paint cleaner after the polish, I prefer this over an alcohol wipedown.



VW deep cleanse is wonderful.
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In your opinion, would an AIO provide the same benefit after polishing?
 
RedlineIRL said:
Just to remove any contaminants from the paint instead of going with a claybar.
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I think skipping using a claybar isn't a good idea. I've never known a paint cleaner to be a replacement for clay, especially when there's high speed polishing being done. I alway do a heavy clay barring prior to buffing, and that seems the key for me in addition to alcohol wipedowns. This way, I'm always buffing a 100% totally "clean" surface. By doing this, I've also never noticed my pads getting worn out prematurly and/or dirty.
 
Yeah, clay and paint cleaners (especially chemical paint cleaners) work differently and can have different results. Both work differently from abrasive polishing too. All can have their place.



I really don't use paint cleaners all that often, although there are a few (e.g., Pinnacle PCL) that I do really like.



Paint cleaners are especially good when you have weird staining and/or oxidation or when you want to strip off an existing LSP (in a controlled manner, as opposed to doing a decon. type wash) in order to try something else.



A good, cheap, near-functionally-nonabrasive paint cleaner that's OTC is Meguiar's Deep Crystal step #1.



Some cleaner waxes (e.g., * IIRC* Meguair's Color-X) have pretty good chemical cleaners in them.
 
Its been my experience that paint cleaners are very useful and versatile. However, if you don't want to use it with your polish regimen, then you would at least want to use a finishing type of polish as the last polishing step, and then perhaps a spritz clean or a alchie-water wipedown.



I love using paint cleaners, however; Especially paint cleaners that have a bit of bite to it (subtle abrasive action).
 
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