Tips for new car care, polish and was

R

redtl

New member
I have a new 08 Red TL and need some tips. Paint needs claying badly as I park near a concrete plant-ugh.



So, I have the clay, know how to use it, but I need to know the best OTC polish and wax I can purchase to properly take care of the car's paint.



I will be polishing by hand and want to begin this weekend, hence the need for OTC.



Please provide advice. I've looked into Meguiar's Mirror Glaze products and am wondering if those would be recomended with NXT wax.



Thanks in advance!
 
May I suggest a procedure something along these lines.



Products needed:



Microfiber towels (more the merrier)

Waffle-weave microfiber drying towel

Tire/wheel brush

4 foam or microfiber applicators

Meguiar's Clay Bar kit

ColorX

NXT Generation Tech Wax or HiTech Yellow Wax (M26)



Process:



1) Wash your car using the two bucket method:



How to Wash Your Car Show Car Style



Dry with your waffle-weave towel.



2) Inspect paint surface. Gently run your hand over the surface. Is it smooth as glass? Do you feel bumps and rough spots? If you do, you need to clay your car:



How to Claybar Your Car



3) Apply a coat of Meguiar's ColorX. Massage it into the paint. You are working it into the paint in order to clean the paint and remove oxidization and previous layers of wax. Allow to haze and wipe off.



Wait 15-30 minutes.



4) Apply a thin coat of NXT or M26. Allow to haze and wipe off. If you wish (this is purely optional), you may apply a second coat of your LSP (last step product), optimally waiting 12 hours between coats.



The products I have listed above are readily available from local auto stores. Substitute your preferred products for the ones I have cited.



Cheers,

Al
 
Hey, I'll throw this in...concrete dust is the worst. If you have that on your paint, I would seriously consider pressure washing first to blast it off the surface, because any rubbing of that into the paint will cause marring. Of course, you can also damage things with the pressure washer.
 
lets have some of the pros go over the proper pressure and direction by hand when polishing. it will help alot of us newbs. thanks.
 
shine- Thanks for posting Dave KG's article, I hadn't viewed it for a while and had forgotten that he gave props to the seldom-mentioned SRP (which I really, really like).



Elk42- As you probably got from that article, the direction isn't really all that important (Dave KG starts with circles then switches to straight lines). Consider that many of the popular polishing machines move in "random orbital" patterns (i.e., every which way), and nobody ever says that those oughta only move in some particular direction.



As long as the product is worked long enough to break down, and there's no contamination or other reason for (new) marring to happen, I recommend that you just use whatever motions are most comfortable, do what seems right to you. That way you're most likely to do a thorough job. When you're concentrating your efforts on a deep flaw, or working an odd contour/area, or trying to do a very gentle final buff, I think you'll find that a particular motion simply seems right (again, consider how Dave KG does one thing, then the other; it's not like the polish behaves differently, rather *he's* behaving differently, doing what's intuitively right for him).



Dave KG- If you see this post, please comment on the above; I'm *assuming* I know what you're doing but I'd welcome a comment from the horse's mouth ;)
 
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