ilogikal1

Try a courser clay bar - you may have to go aggressive if the sap has been baked on and you might still need to give it multiple hits too. You could try either hot water or a hair drier to heat the sap up first, which should loosen it somewhat, just be careful not to burn the paint if you're using heat though. Don't use the clay on the hot panel though, you'll just make more of a mess. The interior marks, if a diluted APC (all purpose cleaner) doesn't shift them, give them a wipe with a "magic sponge" (but only on the plastics, not on any leather or soft touch stuff).

You'll need a cutting compound to remove the swirls, or something with fillers in to hide them. If you're machine polishing you should be able to remove all of the swirls (depending on the depth of both swirls and paint, of course) so you should be okay with just the compound. If you're working by hand you might struggle to get 100% perfect, so I'd recommend using a compound to remove what you can and fillers to mask the remainders. If you're polishing there's no real need to re-wash, certainly after claying, but there's no harm in it if you want to be thorough - you can go straight onto the next stage though. Incidentally, polish first, then paint cleaner though.

Sorry, but that's just utter rubbish.

"But it passed an MOT a mere 364 days ago, so that proves it's perfectly safe". Said far too many people I know! Usually followed by the words "and it only had a billionty advisories"... As Ekona said;

Right then, 10 days, 450miles and wash number 3 under the belt sees some small developments on the wax front. I'll start by saying that after the wash I've decided that Desirable (double checked to make sure I got that right ), #17 waxes and EcoToush Quick Wax were deader than Monty's (well Mr Praline's) parrot. Hardshell was just about clinging on for dear life last week. Well it's not any more; the sheeting had disappeared and the water was just left sat on the paint. So with the arrival of July's Waxybox bringing me some more goodies, I took the opportunity to try some new LSP's. It's probably worth mentioning at this point that I did no prep work whatsoever, it was just a wash and then a single coat of each LSP so I'm not expecting that absolute best durability from this lot. So, the new LSP list is as such; The wing mirrors, previously wearing AIOMax & Tripple, now wear Nanowax (largely because I wanted a reference point for how much the sheeting has changed on the doors) The spoiler (previously Hardshell) & the upper, middle section of the bonnet (previously Desirable) now wear Waxaddict/Waxybox #18 development wax. The rest of the boot hatch (previously Hardshell) is wearing Gyeon Cure. The roof is wearing Dr Beasley's PlasmaCoat. The front bumper (previously EcoTouch) is now adorned with Valet Pro Citrus Bling (mixed 1:1 as a quick wax). Now it just wouldn't be an update from me if I didn't forget photos of something, this time it was the turn of Citrus Bling. However I do have pictures, so I'll just leave them here. So, starting with Nanolex Nanowax; The sheeting appeared to be quite slow after the snow foam, but seemed slightly quicker after the wash. Compared to the wax combinations on the surrounding panels, this was bar far the slowest sheeter on the sides of the car, but then it also left the panel by far the driest too. The beading, however, is still quite spectacular for a 7 week old wax (let alone for the AIO that it technically is!). Onto the bonnet. Poorboys Natty's Blue; Showing its age here, the sheeting is still pretty good, although nowhere near as good as it was when applied, and the beading's flat and not as tight as it once was but it's holding on. Dodo Juice Blue Velvet: Similar story here, both the sheeting and beading have dropped off a bit but it's still going. Dodo Juice Purple Haze; And again, a noticeable decline in both sheeting and beading but clearly still doing it's job. FK2685; Both the beading and the sheeting is roughly the same as last time, the beading's dropped off a bit since application but the sheeting is still very strong here. The one being difficult this time out is Auto Finesse Desire; Similar story on the beading front, in as much as it's declined since it was applied although to my eye it's to a much lesser extent than the others. Which is good. The sheeting, however, was very inconsistent across this wax. For the most part, it was pretty much as expected per the previous reports (i.e. not the quickest, but still good), however the left and top sides was much, much worse than the rest of the Desire area. There's no difference in beading in these areas though so I'll keep an eye on that. And the new wax on the scene... by which I mean bonnet, Waxaddict Development Wax #18; Which currently looks a bit different to the others. Apparently the formula for this has already been tweaked based on feedback, so this is eesentially already out of date information, but nonetheless; application was a piece of cake, a firm (but not too firm) consistency to the wax similar to Poorboys meant it was easy to load the applicator, it spread very easily to get a thin layer and after ~5minutes it passed the swipe test and I began to buff it off (it suggested leaving 5-10 minutes to cure, I was working on the basis that previously the longer you leave the Waxybox development waxes, the more difficult they are to remove. Other feedback suggests that was not the case with this one, but I didn't know that at the time). So buffing off was quite easy, although I found it left quite an oily finish at first. I then gave it a secondary buff and all was good. It seems the longer you leave this one, the less there is a need for a second buff. However, as said the formula has now been tweaked to remove the grabbiness (when it's left on for longer) and the initial oily finish. I've previously said that #17 was a step in the right direct for the development of their wax, well this is leaps and bounds ahead in terms of application pre-tweaks. Even if it's only as durable as #17, it's still a big improvement in my opinion. This is it on the spoiler too. Gyeon Cure; This is an odd product to fit into a typical pigeon hole, it's probably best likened to Sonax BSD in that it's sort of a QD but really a sealant with other uses. It's sold by Gyeon as a top up/maintenance product for their coatings, marketed as product to cure (hence the name) the water-spotting issues that are typical of fresh coatings but that can also act as a standalone sealant. So I'm using it very much as the latter. Application is about as easy a spray sealants can be; spray, wipe, buff. It spread easily and almost buffed itself off whilst spreading, the actual buffing was equally as easy to get a streak-free finish and I used very little product. The surface felt ridiculously slick afterwards too. The beading's pretty good as well. Dr Beasley's PlasmaCoat; I've wanted to try this pretty much since they released it, but I never got round to it. Waxybox kindly corrected that for me as an added bonus for being an Elite member, which was nice. Anyway, this is a bit different to my usual LSP in that it's a hand cream type consistency which is neither like a paste wax nor a liquid wax. Luckily I only had a tiny pot (I'd guess it's about 5ml-ish) so I couldn't really overload the applicator too much. Application was very easy, it spread very well and it's easy enough to get a thin layer provided you keep spreading. The instructions are a bit sparse with this, but from what I have managed to glean from various sources is that it's WOWO (wipe on wipe off) with no curing needed, although other sources suggest leaving it a couple of minutes to bond before wiping off. I tried both and to be honest it made no difference either way in terms of ease of removal. Buffing was, for the most part, very easy however as I moved around the car I noticed certain swipes from the applicator were being stubborn and I ended up using a QD remove it entirely to avoid marring the paint. I didn't instantly fall in love with this as I had hoped I would, but I would like to have another bash at this. Luckily I have just about enough in the tiny little sample pot left to do just that, so the jury's still out at the moment. The finish is great, even with it not being fully removed the panel felt really slick, the gloss is good (although I'm not sure if that's the PlasmaCoat or the QD) and it's a similar thing with the beading at this point, the next wash should give a better indication of what's just the PlasmaCoat and what's the QD. Valet Pro Citrus Bling; As stated, no pictures of this yet, so just a quick review. Citrus Bling is a concentrate that can be diluted as per needs (from memory it's 1:1 for a quick wax, 3:1 for a drying aid, 8:1 for a QD and 16:1 as clay lube). I diluted mine 1:1, simple spray, wipe, buff again like Cure. When neat it's quite a think liquid (not quite mayonnaise consistency, but not watery either) and even mixed 1:1 it's a bit thicker than your usual quick wax but no more difficult to use. It spreads easily and buffs off to give an effortless streak-free finish, it can be used over plastic too. Because I don't have pictures of that though, have some more of Gyeon Cure, more beading; A slight focus adjust shows the gloss is pretty good too. And I'll just leave you with this comparison between Cure and the Waxaddict wax;

It's Japanese for 'self destruct'.

For the wash stage - DI filter if waterspots are a problem. Only wash in small sections and rinse regularly to avoid shampoo drying on the panels, try to keep the car as wet as possible whilst you're working. Try to do it as early or as late in the day as you can to avoid the hottest part of the day if at all possible. For everything else there's Poorboys, again just work in smaller areas than usual and you'll be fine. Failing that, there's always the gazebo option.

How well do you trust his work? It's simply a case of reapplying the sticky tape and sticking it back on the car, correct spacing is obtained with nothing more than a bit of masking tape over the length of the badge before removal. Any decent body shop wouldn't think twice about doing this - most of the professional detailers I know regularly remove badging just to clean behind them! I'm afraid I'd be questioning this guy's ability to do the job to a decent standard, frankly.

In addition to the above, if you're driving through it's worth noting that anything alerting you to the presence of speed cameras is now illegal so things like satnav with that capability must have that option switched off to be legal.

E) Apply the brakes and pull up 5" shy of the pedestrian.

All waxes are different, some need buffing after 30 seconds others you can leave for days before buffing (although I'm not sure why you would, but the possibility is there). The instructions will often give a fair indication of curing time but I'm not aware of any that advise an hour before buffing (often it's advised to leave between 1-24 hours between layers though), but as a general rule the "swipe test" will indicate when a wax is ready to be buffed - the swipe test is simply run your finger over a small section of the cured wax, if it comes away cleanly then it's ready to buff off but if just smears or spreads more then it needs longer. If you're sticking with Poorboys Natty's waxes and working in the shade, you can apply to the whole car then go back to the start and buff. If you're working in the sun though I'd say only do one or two panels at a time - you want to avoid the wax baking on because then it's gong to be a nightmare to remove. Natty's waxes are actually very forgiving though, it suggests leaving it 5-10 minutes before buffing but it can be left much longer in the shade. EX-P is slightly different in that it needs to be left for 15-30 minutes buffing, but again in the shade it can be left for much longer. There's no real benefit to leaving it any longer though (other than potentially being more convenient I suppose). As for polishes, if you're working by hand you'll only get limited results, however by Black Hole you'll be filling a lot of the swirls anyway. I'd recommend Menz 203S &/or 85RE (either by hand or machine) with a suitable pad (either tangerine or crimson depending on how much correction is needed). GTechniq P1 is also good by hand. This is a good read if you have the time.

Be honest, that's just because you both turned your TC off and your Zeds immediately exploded, right?

After the glaze, I'd go for EX-P. You don't need to use a wax at all after that but if you do chose to use both sealant and wax then the sealant should go down first. Why? In this case, EX-P will bond better to Black Hole than it will to the wax, so the protection will last longer. Just to confuse matters, you could go straight to a wax over the glaze and not use EX-P at all (but there's no real benefit to that in this case) or you could use both EX-P and then top-up the protection with a wax as well - I'm currently running a long term test of LSP's on my car which includes a panel of EX-P with Natty's wax on top to compare the durability to just the wax on it's own (although I haven't done EX-P on it's own). As to which Natty's wax to go for, Red gives a nice deep wetlook finish, White is a slightly more glassy finish and Blue sits between the two. To be honest, there's not a huge amount between them but I have some places add a premium to the price of Red. I would recommend Blue... for absolutely no real reason at all actually All three are just as easy to use as the others so you can't really go wrong with any of them. I will note both Blue and Red smell lovely, White's a bit 'meh' on smell though. As noted above, colour charged waxes are very much a gimmick, unless you're adding multiple layers (4+ I think it was) to a white car, you'll never notice any difference.

Yeah, alright, I c*cked that bit up, sorry. It's AW Desirable that's out. AF Desire is still putting up a fight!

So the actual update then. Again the car was washed with Glacierwax Pure shampoo after a BH Auto Foam pre-wash. Can you see where the tape line is? For a change of pace, the pictures are going to focus on the sheeting this time, largely because there's been a lot of beading pictures so far. #17's This was after a couple of minutes. It's not looking good, the sheeting was slow and the panel didn't actually clear fully at the back - if you recall, it's claimed the wax has variable durability depending on buffing time. Well, if you buff it at 1 minute then you get durability of under five weeks. Although delaying buffing seems to gain you days rather than weeks or months. It's a bit of a meh product for me - I was hoping for better durability given the difficulties with buffing off but given it's a development for Waxybox waxes (which are now being branded as WaxAddict rather than Waxybox) it's a step forward on previous versions. The beading's pretty damning though; AF Tripple & Britemax AIOMax have also given up entirely, but a month from an AIO is pretty good going so I'm not disappointed by either here. AF Revive has died off a little bit. It stills looks good, but the beading isn't as strong, I wouldn't feel it necessary to re-dress these areas yet but I would be looking to add some protection instead. Nanolex Trim Rejuvinator has shown precisely no change. At all. No pictures of these four though (my photography skills failed me. Again.). EcoTouch Quick Wax, which was going strong barely 2 weeks ago has completely failed now. There appears to be no drop off period, it's just gone. All or nothing with this, it seems. The sheeting, even on vertical sections, is slow to the point of virtual non-existence, the beading is terrible too. This was taken after however long it took me to get the camera and take photos of the bonnet first. Given the ease of application, a quick spray and wipe down once a month(ish) isn't exactly the end of the world. It's impressed me but it's not really a wonder product for me. Car Chem Hard Shell Now this one's not quite as straight forward. The sheeting is very slow - this was taken after several minutes and as you can see the water hasn't exactly got far - but given enough time the panel was virtually bone dry. It did struggle just below the rear window where the angle of the bodywork doesn't allow the water to run off as easily, but this was previously being drawn off by the water sheeting off the section below - the douzen or so large blobs of water you can see above remained where they are there until the sun reappeared in the morning. The beading is mediocre, it's not great but it's not terrible either. It's just about hanging on but I'm not convinced it'll last much longer. Nanolex Nanowax is still going strong with little to no change. The sheeting (which I lack photos of) is still a little slower than some of the waxes on the bonnet as it was when fresh but still much faster than any of the failing/failed products above. The good thing about Nanowax is that it leaves the panel bone dry when water is sheeted off. The beading isn't quite as tight as it was when fresh, but it's still bloody good. I seem to be short-changing Nanowax on the photo front so I'll make sure I get some good pics next time. FK2685, Poorboys Blue, DJ Blue Velvet, DJ Purple Haze, AW Desirable & AF Desire; FK2685 is still going strong. Beading has deteriorated slightly since application but it's still good and the sheeting is still strong. Poorboys Blue still going strong in both beading and sheeting. Still the fastest sheeter although the sheeting is leaving the panel much wetter now compared to when it was first applied, it's more on par with the others on the bonnet in that respect now. Dodo Juice Blue Velvet slower sheeting than both the Poorboys and FK, but still strong and relatively quick itself. The beading is slightly compromised but not by a huge amount. Dodo Juice Purple Haze virtually identical to Blue Velvet except the sheeting, whilst every bit as quick as BV, leaves the panel slightly wetter. Auto Finesse Desire still sheets at the same rate (between FK & the Dodo Juices) but now seems to leave the panel somewhat dryer. The beading appears to be slightly more compromised than some others and is by no means as tight as it used to be but is still good. Which leave us with... Angelwax Desireable. As you may have worked out from the above, the news of this one is not good. Sheeting is.... non-existant. Beading is equally unimpressive. This is a wax that has claimed durability of upto 6 months yet I've seen less than 6 weeks from it. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. The only thing this has got going for it at the moment is that it has a large following who swear by the stuff, including a number of people's whose opinions on these things I hold in high regard so I would be willing to try this again, perhaps fiddling with the application, so in the mean time I'll just say that I haven't got on with this wax (yet). The beading, or what passes for beading; This was after a little over a minute. It wasn't much improved 5 minutes after that either. And to put it in context with the rest of the bonnet; So, #17's, EcoTouch and a shock exit from Desirable are all gone. Hard Shell is on the ropes. Everything else is going strong. That's your lot.

Just in case you weren't aware, using a tar remover will also strip your wax/sealant, so whenever you de-tar you need to reapply your wax/sealant on those areas afterwards. You can but it's not essential providing you give the car a thorough rinse after either. Either would work, arguably equally as well depending on who you ask, but I'd opt for Black Hole myself. Wax on top isn't essential, no, but you can with EX-P. EX-P will provide good protection by itself, but by adding a wax on top you can alter the final look and obviously it's another layer of added protection. If it cleans well enough, it's fine. Depending on what it is, it'll offer the benefit of topping up the protection of the sealant/wax during maintenance washes. The downside is that the cheaper, less engineered 'wash & wax' products tend to leave a streaky finish if you're not careful with them. In the context of your 6 steps above, both the tar remover and clay will remove the "wax" left by the shampoo anyway so it won't affect 5 or 6. The 16oz (500ml) bottle of EX-P should do a Z about 20 times as a (really) rough guestimate.

Pick a number, any number, keep on telling people that's what it's "worth" until someone believes you and pays that amount for it*. *This may not be entirely true.

You have to question the mentality of anyone (male or female) who think "oh look, a complete stranger... I'll get in his car on my own". I mean, he didn't even offer them any sweets or anything.

#17 isn't far behind though.

Back to the wax test. Another wash today as I wont have time at the weekend and there's been some 'developments' - I'll leave you to guess (presuming anyone actually cares too ) what's done what for now whilst I download some po... er, I mean, do the write up. I'll leave you one clue though, one of them was a massive surprise (to me at least). Actual update will follow at some point. Probably.

I don't usually like to let other people know about that...

Yeah, well, I once saw a guy that looked like a guy who met a guy that knew someone whose name was similar to someone who saw a film once. True story. No one famous (or sensible) lives in (or has been to) Hull.

...then remember not to ask Grundy.

How odd that she didn't mention that at all in an interview she did three weeks ago. An interview, incidentally, that mentions she hasn't lived in "this house" since 2007...

Good point, they do. I didn't even see that picture first time.