ilogikal1

It's tomorrow; Or are you being a tease again?

He sleeps at work, obviously. Because that's his name, and don't let anyone (except ionabee ) convince you otherwise.

That's your excuse right there. There's even less English spoken over this way than there is in Wales. (said the southerner living in Hull) I'm looking forward to these photos, we do like a picture or two here. There's a "sloppy seconds" joke in there somewhere though, I'm sure of it.

So you don't fancy a 25 mile bus ride every time you want to go for a drive then, no? Option A, failing that the cheapest/easiest between C or D gets my vote.

I'll let you off, Graham. It's not like you speak English in your neck of the woods after all. Anyway, more importantly than my hypocritical nit-picking, have you fitted any more P clips to anything recently?

Apologies if I've missed something obvious, but where is it currently parked and why can't it stay there when fixed?

Not on this side of the pond, no. Yeah, I'm being that guy tonight. Sorry.

I can't help but feel that this is a moot question on this forum where the one opinion often proffered is that the Z "doesn't have the power it should have done from the factory"...

Mrs GM; "What the **** are you doing, Graham?!?" GM; "It's 'research' dear... no, honestly!"

What it needs is for everything that has already been thrown at it to be fit properly first. And then painted properly! That orange peel.

Apparently it's now been found on a driveway in Surrey by a delivery driver, intact just on different plates. Currently in the possession of the police.

Good luck receiving that order before Easter...

Polished Bliss' lucky dip give away mentioned above has now ended. Being the thoroughly nice people that they are, they've replaced it with a variety of offers until 7th January or until they sell out; http://www.polishedb...ial-offers.html (also ended).

Soooo many people have quickly regretted asking me that exact question.

Great finish on the repair, Stu. Glad to see you sorted your headlights too (yeah, I'm a little behind on that one ).

http://www.polishedb...g-kit-cat1.html - This kit has almost everything you'll need to correct the paint and offers a choice of machines. The DAS-6 is more than adequate (and what I typically use, "coincidentally" ( ) it's pretty foolproof too), the Power Plus is the same machine with a more powerful motor and very similar to the G220. All you'll need on top of that is a few good microfibre cloths and some wax to finish off, although there are various other optional extras (such as IPA [isopropyl alcohol], glazes, paint cleansers, etc. for after polishing). If you're polishing, either by machine or by hand, I'd recommend following a full decontamination process first - this is your usual wash routine, tar remover, fallout remover and clay (or a clay bar) - all of which, will set you back the best part of £200 (with the DAS-6 polisher) at least, with wax/sealant (known as a Last Stage Product - LSP) on top of that. Polishing by hand, you'll be best off (IMHO) with a decent polish or two (depending on the level of correction needed) and a decent polishing pad with some cut - I'd recommend the crimson for mild defects or the tangerine for heavier defects on the Z's paint - followed by wax/sealant. That'll set you back £65-80 (+LSP) but won't achieve as good a finish as a machine polish. Decontamination followed by a glaze will set you beck about £60 (+LSP). Alternatively you can combine the hand polish with the glaze option - to correct as much as you can whilst still masking whatever you can't. That'll set you back about £80 (+LSP) LSP is a whole new topic ranging from a £10 pot of wax to £2000+ pot(s) of wax. The finish will ultimately only be a good as your prep work in the above steps, so choose the LSP on budget as much as anything - if you're using PB Black Hole glaze though, I'd suggest Natty's Blue for wax (which will need to be reapplied every 6 weeks or so), or EX-P for sealant (which should give you a couple of months protection per application) as both will sit over Black Hole nicely - you could even layer one over the other for added protection. If you're machine polishing, I'd recommend doing a diluted IPA/panel wipe type product wipe-down afterwards and applying CanCoat for 6 months protection between applications - CanCoat is easy to apply but it needs completely bare paint to bond to though so it's no use over a glaze and as such you'll want perfectly corrected paint before applying this really. Alternatively, hand over a fistful of cash to someone who knows what they're doing and let them do all that for you. I've no idea of any detailers in East Anglia myself, but this might help - it's a map of Detailing World supporters, it's by no means a definitive list or any indication of quality but it's somewhere to start. Finally, once the paint has been corrected, research the 2 bucket method and pre-washing to reduce the swirls in future. Also, re-mortgage your house, sell the wife, kids, everything you own and/or your kidneys because detailing is an expensive game to get into!

There's about a billionty options. Luckily there's also about a billionty threads on this, but Ekona's pretty much covered it. Depending on how much time and money you want to spend, your options are (from highest to lowest cost); Pay a professional detailer to fix it for you. Buy a machine polisher, learn how to use it then correct the paint yourself. Buy a filler heavy glaze (almost all of which are better when applied by machine but can be applied by hand) and hide the damage or polish by hand (you won't get full correction, but a fair level is achievable... it's hard work by hand even on the buttery soft Nissan paint though!). Live with it. Which products you buy (if any) will largely be determined by your budget, so if you give us an idea of that we can make some more tailored suggestions. That said, Black Hole is a cheap but very effective filler glaze.

Mainz Car Care are having (? Offering?) an "extravaganza" until 14th December; http://www.mainzcarc.../mainz-car-care (now ended).

In my opinion, you'd be hard pressed to find something that's NOT better than AutoGlym, unless you shop exclusively at Halfords that is. Car Chem 1900:1 (or Tailor Made, same thing but you get to customise it a bit). Gyeon Bathe+ as mentioned, or simply Bathe which is exactly the same as Bathe+ but without leaving any magic behind. CleanMax as previously mentioned. HubiKote HubiWash. Auto Finesse Lather. Poorboys Super Slick & Suds. FinishKare Super Concentrate (#118). Any of the Dodo Juice options. GTechniq GWash. Chemical Guys Mr Pink. Any of the Juicy Details offerings. Literally any of those would be an improvement over AG so take your pick. Personally I use/buy all of the first 5 on a regular basis.

Shop 'n' Shine have a sale on some decent products too - http://www.shopnshine.co.uk/sale

The '50's Rays are 8J front & 8.5J rear, so the 245/45 from the rear Rays will simply swap to the front Rotas. That's it. That's the sum of my knowledge. I'm sure someone more helpful will be along shortly.

As it's not Christmas any more, the Christmas bargains have subsided somewhat. However being the thoroughly nice chap that I am, I'll continue to add any decent bargains as/when I discover them. We now appear to be entering the "12 days of Christmas" period which brings with it some detailing based bargains so I thought I'd chuck a thread up for everyone to abuse such bargains. I'll add them as I find them, but feel free to add any that you know of yourselves. I'll start with Car Chem - different products on offer each day (seems to be updated at 10am each day) until 12th December, details can be found here; http://car-chem.com/...tmas-gift-guide (now ended). Polished Bliss are offering a free gift with every order over £50 until Thursday (4th December) - see here; http://www.polishedb...ial-offers.html (now ended, updated offer below). As are Auto Finesse until 21st December - http://www.autofinesse.co.uk/offers/ (now ended) Clean Your Car are doing a prize draw - spend £30+ between now & 24th December to be entered - http://www.cleanyour...per-prize-draw/ (now ended). i4Detailing are offering 15% discount using the code "SANTA" on orders over £50 until 31st December (excludes other special offer deals) (now ended).

I did little more than lounge around in the sun drinking beer. The rental car was filthy by the time we returned it but at no point did I have any desire to amend that. The only unusual water behaviour was that it didn't fall from the sky quite so often and it looks like this; Rather than this (picture shamelessly stolen from the BBC);

I don't know, JJ Abrams is involved...

Right then, having survived the wildlife and natives of the other side of the world I've settled back into life in this ridiculously cold and miserable country. So to cheer myself up I gave the Z a wash today (simple things and all that). The car was rather filthy as it had it had been treated to a jaunt down to London, left parked up outside in the elements for two weeks and then a return jaunt up the motorway in torrential rain (yep, the day I flew back from sunny Australia via equally sunny Dubai, it was pissing it down in the UK. Sigh.) and has seen several wet/dry cycles, so the dirt was fairly thoroughly attached to the car by this point. Things to report; BSD is a bit mixed this time - Prior to cleaning, the lack of dirt repellency was duplicated again. After cleaning, bizarrely both the rear wheels were showing little (still some, but noticeably weakened) protection whereas the both fronts were showing much stronger (but obviously not fresh) protection still. I would have expected it to be there way around but what is life without it's little mysteries? I used Koch Chemie (I've never heard of them before either) Reactive Wheel Cleaner from Waxybox. It is a "Reactive, acid-free rim cleaner with performance indicator (red indicator) and gloss additives", according to their website, along with "With gloss and lotus effect". Firstly the "red indicator" is in fact purple. Think fallout removers, it's the same bleeding purple reaction. Now Koch Chemie don't state that this is a fallout remover itself, but I thought I'd test it against the two I had to had to hand anyway (Gyeon Iron and Auto Finnesse Iron Out) because... well, that's just the sort of thing I do. I can confirm that it is not a (good) fallout remover - both Iron & Iron Out reacted after using RWC. Which to me makes the "indicator" a complete gimmick. More so than in fallout removers . Which is also a bit of a gimmick itself really. Anyway, it did a fair job of cleaning the face of the wheels in a touchless manner but the wheels weren't left clean enough for my liking so I got the AF Imperial and Wheel Woolies out. It's also quite expensive (£19.96 for 750ml compared to £12.95 for 1 litre of AF Imperial concentrate from the same source) considering it's a ready-to-use dilution in the bottle. For reference, it's priced closer to fallout removers (£19.95 for 1 litre of AF Iron Out from that same source), which I mention only because I'm not convinced it's not supposed to be a fallout remover... albeit a pretty bad one. Furthermore, the "lotus effect" unless that's a reference to Colin Chapman's "add lightness" (by removing the heavy dirt) then that's pretty poor too. Not sure about the gloss that's apparently "with" this product but there was no real evidence of this gloss on the wheels to be honest. So, would I buy Koch Chemie Reactive Wheel Cleaner? No, not at all. There is an upside to that wheel cleaner though, it has demonstrated to me that BSD has stood up to 700+ miles of use, 2 wheel cleaners, (at least) 2 fallout removers, 2 snow foams, Citrus Power and whatever else I've thrown at it previously too. The two fallout removers were only tested on one wheel (50:50 rather than overlapping layers though) but it was a front wheel which showed better protection, even after, than the rears and there appears to be very little difference on one side to the other after. So BSD is pretty chemical resistant. That said, I still reapplied it anyway. Hubikote HubiTrim is going strong. Still no hazing on the headlights, but then still no sun (whilst I've been here anyway, there could have been 2 weeks of unseasonal sunshine whilst I was away for all I know!). The water behaviour was obviously compromised before the wash but returned after.Mirror trims haven't faded at all and whilst the beading isn't all that impressive the sheeting still is. Nanolex PSS is still disappointing me to be honest. If anything the improvements it was displaying last time have disappeared this. There's been no evidence of self-cleaning. When dirty the beading was poor on the higher, cleaner panels (I've seen worse, but it's not good) and terrible on the lower panels (as I'd expect), when clean it poor all round. Sheeting is painfully slow but thorough - the panel will eventually sheet itself virtually dry but it'll take between 5-10 minutes to start to do so. The improved sheeting on the lower panels last time was not evident this time. So disappointed am I by this LSP that I have resorted to topping it up with HydrO2 from the glass down - I have resisted applying it to the roof so that I can keep an eye on how PSS goes as I'm still hoping it's going to improve at some point - which has completely transformed the water behaviour to what I would have hoped for from PSS in the first place. I probably should point out that I did try BH Surfex HD & AS G101 on small areas of the rear bumper whilst doing the exhaust as the first advice to those "my coating's broken" questions is to try an APC wash to revive it, both were applied before the pre-wash and whilst they both did a great job of cleaning neither affected the water behaviour of PSS. So Nanolex Premium Spray Sealant then, would I buy it? No, absolutely not. I place PSS squarely in the "it's not for me" category; I'll accept that it might work for some people but it's not worked for me for some reason. AW H2Go is still going. It's strong on the side & rear glass, it's still good on the windscreen - that return leg in the torrential rain that I mentioned; I barely used the wipers on the motorway at all (generally only when overtaking lorries) but I had to use them getting to the motorway. Going back to the wheels briefly, I've reapplied BSD to two wheels (front passenger & rear driver's side for those keeping track... namely me when I've forgotten this next time I wash the car) and applied HydrO2 to the other two for comparison. And finally, there's no pictures here yet because it's not rained here today and it's dark here now, so I might have to resort to staged beading tomorrow.