ilogikal1

Meh, everywhere delivers these days, just never leave the house again. Job jobbed...

All girls are female, not all females are girls.

Either that or she owns the best girl... Congrats on winning though Maybe it's just me, but does it not bug anyone else that the certificate states "best girl owner" and the trophy "best female owner"? Oh, and what Ekona said too.

Just out of interest, have you been using it over something else or on bare paint?

Good point... now if only there were a way I could make money out of this... As I said; 10 different people, 10 different recommendations... I'm sure the other 6 will be along shortly. I just like spending your money for you really though...

Yes, Strong is the better cleaner of the two - Carnauba is a very good cleaner (I'd personally rate it over LPL for cleaning) but Strong is simply exceptional even compared to Carnauba. They can both be used by DA.

You do realise you're not getting paid for all these referrals, right? To the OP, the first thing you need to know is detailing is very subjective. If you ask 10 different people for recommendations, chances are you'll get 10 different answers. So in the spirit of that I'm going to disagree with everything GM said. Alright, not quite, but I will offer some different products though. Wash Mitt - I actually prefer this to the mitt, but they do a mitt too. Both excellent and mine has already outlasted my last lambswool mitt and is still going strong. Shampoo and conditioner - AF Lather is very good, and currently on offer from Amazon. Clay and quick detailer - The Megs kit you mentioned is foolproof and a decent starter kit. A paint cleaner won't remove swirls. Some of them contain fillers which will mask them but they'll come back sooner or later, to remove the swirls you'll need to polish. This can be done either by hand or by machine. You'll get far greater results by machine and may even be able to tackle the deeper scratches. It is possible to get good results by hand but you simply won't get the level of correction you can by hand. Polish - If you're working by hand, I'd recommend G Techniq P1 with one of these pads (with polishing, always start with the least abrasive and work your way up until you're getting the level of correction you require) followed by a filler glaze to hide what you can't correct (Poorboys Black Hole for a black car would be my choice). If you're confident enough to machine polish, I'd recommend a DA rather than a rotary both for a newbie and for the soft Nissan paint - the Kestrel DAS-6 is a great starter machine and all you'll ever need for the Z. That and the AF kit will see you right. Purely down to personal preference. Liquid waxes tend to be more difficult to get a thin layer with because it's just so easy to slap them on. Personally, I prefer hard waxes for this reason alone. As a starter wax, look no further than Poorboys Natty's Paste wax - there's three colours, Blue gives a nice deep, wet look, Red gives a slightly wetter look and White is a little more crisp and not quite as wet. Alternatively, there's a growing number of manufacturers now who offer sample sizes - Dodo Juice as you mentioned do these (called panel pots but they'll do several full cars easily), they're usually a decent buy if you want to try a few different waxes from time to time. Foam or microfibre applicators for the paint cleaner depending on what you prefer. I tend to use the foam applicators. Polish is applied via the applicators linked above or by the DA pad if machine polishing. I tend to only use microfibre cloths to buff, quick detailer and interior cleaning. A lot of it will come down to technique as much as the products, get yourself a cup of coffee and a packet of biscuits and give this lot a read. There's some great adivce in there on both technique and on what you're looking for each product to actually do for you. There's no such thing as a stupid question, so feel free to ask on here and I'm sure someone will be able to help you out, or at least point you in the right direction.

1st class arrived on Friday, 2nd class should be arriving either today or Monday I believe.

For outright cleaner, Werkstat Prime (Acrylic for sealants or Carnauba for waxes) is hard to beat. Except for Prime Strong, which is better. None have any filling/correcting abilities though, whereas LPL contains fillers, but if you've got PB WD you can use that to fill or just straight to wax over any of them - it'll bond best to either Carnauba or a quick IPA wipedown before will give you a bare base again. Polymer sealants will go straight over either Acrylic or Strong.

Will you be topping it with a wax or a sealant? And are you after cleaning ability or a glaze, primarily?

I was so very tempted to try this when I popped in for paint earlier, but alas it was not to be... they didn't have any (carb cleaner that is, they had plenty of fresh faced sales hindrances).

I got two atomizer heads again this month, but then I only needed two this month (I think... I'm too lazy to check) - the Mad Cow sample came with a mini trigger spray head in the Elite box. The 50Cal box needed one more though and that was the same box/size samples for everyone, including the Elite boxes unlike the others.

A little disappointed that there are three "waxes" (to varying degrees). The individual products all look great though, it just may take me a while to get round to trying all the waxes.

It depends which type you've got. Give me £45 and I'll tell you if you've got the right one. I don't actually know. Sorry.

Another vote for Atkin, Chris will see you right.

And now it is! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Auto-Finesse-DES200-Desire-Car/dp/B007FR4PQQ/ Must... Resist...

You keep your Chubby well away from me, young man.

Hate filling the fuel tank. Love emptying the fuel tank.

Because no such app exists. "Gas Cubby" on the other hand...

"You think that's good - you should see the other eleventy billion threads about MPG related 'achievements'..." I'm sure at least half of WhackyWill's post count is that picture.

Thank you. The most irritating thing is when you discover that one product for any given job... and then sure enough ten minutes later something else shows up on the market and claims to be better.

GM, I hate you recently, all these posts making me want to spend my money with these simple but very effective mods. Looks great, mate.

Why thank you very much, I'm glad others are enjoying it too. And to think I rubbish at science in school. It really is very difficult to argue with the two FK waxes (not least of all because they're inanimate objects ), both 1000P and 2685 really do perform exceptionally well. The only downside to FK products is their numbering system. I'm sure there's a rationality to it, but I'll be stuffed if I can work it out.

Wheels then. The following was done with some prep (fallout removed, cleaned using Blackfire Tyre & Wheel Cleaner and Wheel Woolies, then shampoo washed for good measure, but not de-tarred nor clayed because I couldn't be a*sed frankly) and then just one coat of each. The contestants are; SmartWax RimWax Poorboys Wheel Sealant Finish Kare 1000P and HubiKote HubiRims (referred to in some pictures as the blind test product - that's because it was a blind test. Obviously. From one of the Waxyboxes. Hence this particular test). SmartWax claims RimWax; Cleans, Shines and Protects in one step Reduces brake dust by upto 75% UV protection reduces wear and fading Prevents water spots Accelerates water runoff Removes minor swirls Long lasting Adds gloss and depth Repels damaging brake dust and road contaminates Easy to use - one step formula Extreme Shine + Protection for Chrome and Alloy Wheels... RIMWAX™ - Premium wax and polish delivers a brilliant shine and protective shield. Formulated with non-stick technology and anti-static guard RIMWAX is engineed dark purple to deflect brake dust, dirt and abrasives. Poorboys says of their Wheel Sealant; Long lasting protection for wheels with brake dust problems and also provides an excellent barrier against weather on wheels of any type, including coated, chrome, painted, polished aluminium, and even plastic hubcaps. Repels brake dust and grime, making wheels easy to clean and maintain. HubiKote states of HubiRims; A soft wheel wax that creates a polymer based barrier to enhance gloss and protect from brake dust. The wax bonds into a flexible microcoating which gives your wheels the smoothest / deepest gloss. The bonded wax is impenetrable to the elements gives top quality beading that revives with each wash and improves cleaning times. Safe on matte finish wheels, and other finishes including polished, stainless, chrome and powder coated. And Finish Kare says of 1000P; ... is made from a blend of synthetic waxes to obtain a high degree of consistent quality. The most important attributes of this wax blend are hi melting points and greater hardness than natural waxes. Thus, the resulting film provides not only the high gloss but resistance to wear from heat, water & other natural causes. California VOC compliant. It is great for all painted, chrome and fiberglass surfaces found on Marine, Aircraft & Automotive finishes. It is easy to use and easy to wipe off. As both HubiRims & FK1000P are both polymer based sealants and RimWax and Poorboys aren't, the idea was to put Poorboys & RimWax head-to-head on the rear wheels and HubiRims and FK head-to-head on the front wheels. So, some pictures then. I can't remember how many miles were covered between each set of pictures but suffice it to say the car was used. First up is one week after application and on a dirty car; Poorboys and RimWax already appeared to be struggling, but FK and HubiRims didn't even blink at this point. However Pooboys still sheeted just well as when it was fresh and the beading was then revived somewhat when washed whereas RimWax sheeting had slowed and the beading didn't come back at all. After two weeks, it looked like this; By this point RimWax had failed completely. Poorboys was struggling on. FK & HubiRims noticed no change at all. Again, the sheeting on Poorboys was still present but it was beginning to be shown up by FK & HubiRims which were sheeting noticably quicker. By the end of week three nothing had changed at all to the above. Four weeks on and we get this; RimWax was nothing but a distant memory. Poorboys had given up at some point during the week, no beading real, sheeting poor at best. FK & HubiKote still soldiered on witout missing a beat. Week 5 was more of the above. After 6 weeks I was left with just the two and this; The beading had started to drop off a bit on both FK and HubiRims but noth were still sheeting perfectly well - this was after a wash with nothing more than shampoo and a Wheel Woolie, by the way. There was no sign of any brake dust/dirt after the light clean but I decided to call the test to a close on Instagram as it was designed to provide feedback for HubiRims, as such the pictures dry up (pardon the pun) here. However for my own purposes I did keep note of both for another 3 weeks after this (bringing it to 9 weeks since application) and both saw a slight decline in beading but no change in beading. In week 10 I had a brain fart and a new fallout remover to play with, so my first thought was to test it on the front wheels... which pretty much immediately killed of both FK and HubiRims. The good news is that there wasn't much fallout on the wheels and it was no real difference between the two. As I said somewhere nearer the beginning, this test was done with only one coat of each. I know from previous experience that it's quite possible to seel 6 weeks out of Poorboys with 3 or 4 coats. RimWax sees no advantage to being layered, probably due to it's "cleaning" abilities rather than it's lack of abilities, but I've never seem more than 2 weeks out of it whether I put on one coat or 6. No, really, I tried 6 coats once. It took nearly as long to apply the f**king stuff as it did for it to fall off. FK1000P can also be layered and 2 or 3 coats is will see a good few months protection even through winter. I'm currently still testing multiple coats of HubiRims on another car, that was applied 10 weeks ago and it's still going strong at this point. RimWax retails at £15.95 for... an amount. That isn't specified on their own website. According to the first other source I checked, that's for "256gm tin". Poorboys retails at £14 for 227grams. HubiRims retails at £15 for 30grams. No, that is not a typo. FK1000P retails at £18 for for a f**k off big tin the size of a plate... sorry, that's 412grams in weight terms. So my conclusion (complete with SuperStu sponsored "ilogikal1 OCD rating") then; RimWax is sh*t - 0 out of 5. Or a billion. It doesn't score on any scale. At all. It only scores as high as 0 because if I did negative points I'd just be getting silly at this point. Poorboys is okay - 2 out of 5. It loses points for it's poor durability compared to others and the requirement for multiple coats to make it worth taking the wheels off, but it does work. HubiRims impressed me to keep up with the mighty FK1000P - 4 out of 5. It works very well, doesn't need to be layered to get good durability, but it's limited to just the wheels and is horrendously expensive compared to the alternative. Which brings us too; FK1000P - 5 out of 5. Easy to use, has multiple uses (can be used on the bodywork and even the kitchen hob too ), huge durability, incredibly economical (that f**k off big tin will last you forever. Probably.) and, as has previously been discussed on here somewhere, it has a picture of a shark on the tin. A shark! Having said all that, I have some G Techniq C5 to go on my wheels once they've been refurbed....

Not a bad idea that, I may shamelessly pilfer that for my test thread. Of the AF stuff I've tried; Avalanche is a 4.5 - works exceptionally well but it's not cheap. Citrus Power is a 5 at that price - works exceptionally and is a good price. Iron Out is a 4.5 - a decent alternative to Iron X, but more costly. Tripple is a 5 - great filling/glazing abilities (needs to be topped with a wax though, it's not very durable on it's own). Lather is a 5 at the 5litre price - the only downside to it usually is the cost. Crystal is a 3 - it's perfectly capable but I prefer others. Revive is a 3.5 - it's good and does what you want it too but doesn't have the durability of coatings (obviously) and it's not on offer here either. To be honest, the only gripe I have with any of the AF range that I've tried is the cost. Desire is the only wax of theirs that I've tried and it's very good but not discounted. I've not tried any of it but the Revitalise kit gets good reviews as a rule and is obscenely cheap it's almost rude not to if you're after a complete polishing kit. And I've got Rejuvenate to play with when I get round to my summer detail but these offers may not be around by then.