BULLITT

I'll be there but meeting up with my old Impreza mates (I was in the 350Z parked with the three blue Imprezas last time) but I'll come over and say Hi this time

Got mine this morning, fitted it this evening lol, not had a chance to test drive but runs ok. Only issue is a very slight increase in panel gab on the n/s of the bonnet, will try and remedy it another night when I'm not on call lol

And the fact that 100% carnauba wax is infact so hard and brittle that it's completely useless as a wax, it needs the softening and bonding agents to make it work as a car wax. If you use Dodo Juice Supernatural then you'll know as Dodo Juice explain all this on their website...

Why is carnauba so good as a car wax?

Carnauba wax is the hardest wax in the world, harder than concrete in its pure form. It is secreted by the rainforest palms to protect their leaves when exposed to aggressive levels of sun and rain - so your car is in good hands. Carnauba wax is also highly glossy, giving your car a stunning 'wet look' shine. In fact, carnauba is so shiny and so harmless that it is used by the food industry as a coating - if you've eaten a polished apple you've probably feasted on some carnauba wax already.

 

Why is carnauba wax mixed with other ingredients?

Carnauba wax is as hard as concrete in its pure form, and could never be applied without having been softened or dissolved (to form a paste or solution) first. That's why all those '100% Carnauba' claims have to be taken with a pinch of dodo poo. It's also important to realise that carnauba is just one part of a good car wax. The quantity and quality of other ingredients, like beeswax, lubricating oils and drying oils, are also critical.

 

OK, so how much carnauba is actually in Dodo Juice?

It depends on the individual wax, but Dodo Juice waxes generally have between 25%-35% carnauba content when measured without any jiggery-pokery. In our experience, the highest concentration of carnauba in a car wax that can be applied straight from a tin at room temperature is around 40%. If a manufacturer is claiming a lot more, then it is likely they are simply *calculating* a lot more. You can get Carol Vorderman to take the true percentage, divide by the number of days in the year and then multiply by the square root of your hamster's age to come up with a pleasing figure. Or you can measure carnauba by dry volume (instead of the more usual wet volume), by solids content, by overall wax content or by residual content. Basically any way you want. But it doesn't necessarily mean the wax is better. There's only one way of finding that out, and that's by slapping it on some paintwork. Needless to say, we don't state carnauba percentages on our products because they are too confusing and generally mislead the public. We'll take our chances without relying on any dubious marketing techniques. You can see an experiment we did with carnauba measurement here.

Paul Dalton has been about for a while, the other guy has just followed suit. As already said, if you can convince one millionaire to part with that sort of money to detail his £1m car and you do a good enough job, obviously he will recommend you to his peers etc.

Using products like Zymol waxes helps convince people to pay up too considering a tub of Zymol Royale Wax is now £8400!

Cheers mate.

 

More so on my Lancer I seem to get really tiny hairline scratches that are white but you don't seem to be able to feel them with a fingernail.......suppose it could just have really thin paint - seems to stone chip like a biatch too.

Japanese cars, particularly Honda, Mitsubishi and Subaru have stupidly thin paint that damages very easily.

Bullitt - something I've been meaning to ask Tim at Envy for a while but you may be able to answer.......

 

When you have a scratch (even a really light one) it always seems to be white underneath which I've always assumed meant it was down to the undercoat.........so how does machine polishing get rid of it?

 

I'm only using a DA so its never going to do the proper corrections but I've never understood how it works?

 

Or am I looking at something thats not undercoat?

Some cars, depending on the colour, use white primer, often bright coloured cars such as reds, blues or yellows so it could be that that you're seeing...

General rule of thumb is if you can catch your finger nail in the scratch then its too deep to machine polish out.

A machine polish/rotary/orbital etc is usually a variable speed machine that can use a different variety of size and type of heads. You use a cutting agents with these heads to remove the marks - cutting agents vary in the depth of "cut" they give to the paint, some will cut deeper than others and some are used for final stage polishing. Cutting means the amount of paint the machine and agent will remove, don't worry, it's microscopic layers. Paint thickness is measured in Microns, a decent cut will remove a few layers but not all unless you're being a complete idiot with it.

Best thing for swirls and scratches is a proper machine polish.

All of these products merely fill in or hide the marks, they don't get rid of them. The marked layer of paint has to be removed with a fine cutting agent and a rotary.

It costs a lot but then again, its a time consuming job, I did a car and it took 18hrs to get it sorted, some cars can take as long as 50hrs! But the results are very worth it if you like to keep your car looking it's best

Great vid, now I've seen the benfit of the wheel brush! A tip in return put some hot water in the snowfoam hopper, I normally fill it 3/4 full, gives more foam so that you get a real good covering.

The SF Lance I have has a mixer valve on the top (you see me turning it in the vid) so you don't need to add water to the bottle but I will give it a go and see how it turns out next time even with that little bit I put into the bottle, there was still most of it left! It really is concentrated stuff!

Thanks guys for the feedback, I'm glad you guys are impressed.

Don't forget to buy the proper lance too

Thank you

Yeah the snow foam is a great part, you can't really see it in my vid as the car was already clean, I'd only done it the week before lol

Polished Bliss' video of snow foam shows the dirt being lifted and pulled out from the gaps etc it works really well.

If you are interested just add your name to the list:

1. Blacky (if you get 10+)

2. BULLITT (if you get 5+)

3.

4.

Damn, missed this. Go to Squires quite a lot with the old impreza club, always a good night.

Since this has been my first weekend off in months with decent weather I decided to get up early and give the car a damn good clean. I bought a new pressure washer a few weeks back so was a opportunity to break it in too though I'll be doing it again as I've just ordered an Autobrite Snow Foam Lance and Snow foam so just waiting for it to come.

The paint on the car was odd as it felt rough but when using a Claybar it appeared to pull very little off but obviously worked as it was left glass smooth, only down side was having to stop after claying because the rain started, though it didn't last for long and I could finish off the car soon after.

Stuff I used today:

Nilfisk Alto C120 Pressure Washer

Zymol Auto Shampoo

Dodo juice "Born Slippy" Clay Lube

Meguiars regular soft white clay

Meguiars Plast-X

Meguiars Glass Cleaner

Meguiars Metal Polish

Dodo Juice Light Fantastic Soft Wax

AutoSmart SmartWax

Meguiars Hot Shine Tyre Dressing

And the finishing touch - The Dodo juice 'Clingy' Stickers

Rear Window

Front Window

I know the pics are a little dull, just as I finished the dark clouds came rolling over, in typical British weather fashion it started raining again just after I finished the pics :svk:

Anyways, thanks for looking

Ok well I have the Bose 6 disc HU in my 2004 Zed and it's skipping discs, done a bit of digging on here and found this is a common fault, obviously no warranty to claim on so I'm after a replacement.

I don't want anything like a DVD player or TV unit but I do want one that comes with a proper iPod connection (not an AV input), single din or double is fine and obviously has to be compatible with the Bose System, I have a budget of about £400.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks in advance

Apparently not a troll or a wind up, the guy genuinely did it. Everything from page 3 onwards is basically people ripping into him about it and people from all corners of the Internet signing up to give him grief lol

Keep reading, putting two bottles in would've been a fail at best, this guy Epically failed

If you use the NOS one make sure it's the right one

http://www.gixxer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226570

Not owned 10 cars yet but what I have had;

MG Metro Turbo

Austin Mini Mayfair (1275cc conversion)

Fiat Cinqucento Sporting

MG ZR 105 - the only car I bought brand new

Subaru Impreza WRX STI

Nissan 350Z

Thanks for the welcome guys, I can't wait for the weather to improve so I can properly get stuck into the detailing, the wheels need a smart repair as i think the previous owners used them to gauge how close they were to the curb I'll get them done and hopefully I'll get some more pics up of it when it's been detailed properly.

Leeds 14 here!

 

+1 just bought my zed too so would be good to meet some more local owners

 

think i may av seen ya around? im up on the hathaways!

 

I'll b up for a meet but after i get my z back from body shop!

I've only had it a week but you might have seen me out in it. I live on the Monkswoods, not far from you at all

Leeds 14 here!

+1 just bought my zed too so would be good to meet some more local owners

welcome to the forum buddy

 

have you noticed that your passenger side floor mat is in backwards??

 

you will love the Zed

That's a pic from the sale ad, it's in properly now just not had the time or weather to get my camera out and get some pics

Thanks guys, I used to do detailing as a side thing to my job so I collected a large stash of cleaning stuff but over the last 12months I'd let it dwindle down as I got too busy with work and letting people borrow my stuff meant I ended up with about half of what I normally have. No I have a car with bodywork worth looking after I decided to stock up again.

Evening everyone, names Rich from Leeds, I sold my Impreza STI and picked my 2004 zed GT a week ago and loving it! Different animal to the Impreza but sacrificing nothing much more 'grown up' but with performance to rival my old car. I've always liked 350s and the opportunity came along to get this one so I took it.

As the car didn't come with sat nav I bought myself a new one and since it isn't going to be used anywhere but in the car I customised it

New welcome screen

New car image

And restocked my detailing stuff ready to use when it gets a bit warmer lol

Anyways, that's me and the car, I hope to see some of you around at some point, thanks for looking