to layer or not

E

edl

New member
on the one hand there are people like Zaino and ammo who take a layered approach...more layers the better

on the other hand, Scott on Dallas Paint Correction seems to advocate purple power every wash and then do a quick seal - he says that contaminants can bond on top of wax and other coatings - he is pretty emphatic that ph neutral soaps that don`t take off wax/sealants won`t take off all the dirt - in one video he pretty much says purple power and spray a maguiars quick seal every time

I guess my question is this: if you use a layered approach like zaino...how do you get it truly clean each wash...if you just use a ph neutral soap, aren`t you leaving on some contaminants that you then put more layers of product over?
 
Don’t make it so complicated, wash your car on a regular basis and you don’t have a problem. If you don’t coat, wash with a prep that is designed to remove protection about every six months, light polish and re do the protection. Why would you use something as aggressive as purple power which can damage other surfaces?
 
Contaminants bond to the top layer, some penetrate further in. In my experience, the vast majority of claimed pH neutral soaps don`t clean traffic film very well, there are exceptions like Griots Surface Wash and Auto Fanatic Snow Storm. pH merely gives us an idea of the cleaning power of the soap, but there are more important factors that come into play, like surfactants used, dwell time, etc. With your Zanio approach, yes you could theoretically be layering over contaminants. When using non-ph neutral soaps, one really needs to find the right soap. There is no way that I would use Purple Power on my car, every single wash. I would certainly use Meguiar`s Gold Class, Gyeon Bathe, and Meguiars Hyperwash. The thing with Scott`s way and the layering Zanio way w/ ph neutral soaps, is that they are at two opposite ends of the spectrum, I don`t think Scott is seeing the long term effects using harsher soaps to clean cars, like clear coat degradation on wheels or in cracks and crevices on darker colored cars, especially cars that are more than twelve years old that are daily driven, and the Zanio guys, I would argue as to how clear their paint looks? You really need to find what works for you. Some guys with make every fourth wash a non-ph neutral wash, some guys every third, some guys every second. I fall under the mindset of whatever gets the car clean, I adjust accordingly based on the level of dirt and type of dirt. But I lean towards the more aggressive approach using a quality cleaner like Extra Tough and ONR, and then topping up protection whenever I see the slightest decrease of performance. It doesn`t matter how long the LSP lasts because I am always topping it up, however, if I wasn`t topping up protection, I don`t get the average durability claims because I my main goal is not to protect the LSP, it`s to protect the surface underneath which means doing what it takes to go after contaminants which entails topping up the LSP.
 
This reminds me of the time that Fermani (where is he anyhow, miss that guy..) challenged me that my seemingly fine vehicles would look noticeably better if I gave them some kind of prep, even a light polishing. He was wrong; when I tried it there was no appreciable diff at all so I quickly decided there was no point in ever doing anything like that unless I had a good, objective, empirically verifiable reason for it.

So I just reLSP for ages on end, often for *YEARS*. No whole-vehicle claying or other decontamination, no harsh cleaners, just shampoo mix. And I don`t even wash frequently (sometimes not for months). I do try to reLSP before the beading changes, but that doesn`t always happen with the OCW`ed A8.

When I finally decided that I oughta at least Clay the Tahoe after many years (year-round Dog-hauler that gets used *HARD* and gets really filthy), it ended up being a waste of time/effort/clay...hardly anything came off. Doing it on the OCW`ed A8 was probably a good idea as I did get a *BIT* of contamination off it, but had I not done it nobody would`ve ever noticed.

I haven`t done any prep at all on any of the other cars for years and they`ll as close to perfect as I can get anything.

Zero issues, complete satisfaction (and I`m awfully particular by any standard, even any Autopian one ;) )

But as I seem to be posting frequently today, it`s all subjective/situational. What`ll work for one person/situation won`t work (as well) for a different one. That "YMMV!" thing again...
 
I only clay if I am going to polish. If I’m not going to do that, I just wash and protect. Most of the time I just wash and spray.
 
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