ilogikal1

Nice pics. I particularly like this one;

I "cleaned" the rear passenger quarter. By which I mean the Z was parked a bit too close to the other car I was detailing when I snow foamed.

Give it another week at that rate and you'll have covered more miles than me this year.

Looks good Chris nice to see it's finally been near a road too.

I'm usually too busy spending GM's money on detailing products to welcome newbies. Although did take time out of my busy day to call Grundy a liar on that thread for suggesting we're usually all normal around here. Does that count?

It depends entirely on the product and the paint. But generally; Polish - depends on what correction I'm trying achieve with it, but then I rarely polish by hand these days anyway. Trim restorers - either a foam pad or a cotton make-up pads. Wax - either nothing or with a foam applicator (either a finger foam jobbie or a Megs type/circular foam jobbie).

I can't recall ever having a chubby between the seats. Maybe on one of the seats, but never between them...

The two mentioned above are both good choices - Chemical Guys Speed Wipe & Valet Pro Citrus Bling - Megs Last Touch & Finish Kare 425 are the other twon which spring to mind. I'm sure there's plenty more, but they're the ones I've tried and found to work well as both drying aids and QD's. If you're just looking for an outright drying aid though - Dodo Juice Time to Dry or even Demon Shine Spray on Shine works well and is relatively cheap.

I don't know why I lie - it's running until 1st May; http://car-chem.com/store/group-buys.

I don't know what you're getting at.

That usually results in a retort of "I'll get my price list". Which is often met with a puzzled look of utter confusion.

Welcome to the fold. Good luck with the weather, I haven't discovered any useful tips for changing that yet

That times a billionty.

Excellent, that save me some thinking then. PM me your address and I'll send you a Waxybox style 100ml sample of the Car Chem foam to try out.

This might seem like a bit of a random question given the conversation, but bear with me briefly; how much (in ml) foam do you usually use in the bottle, roughly? I'm just trying to think something through here, which probably won't end well.

LIES!!!

Sadly you've missed the Car chem group buy on the foam now. They are now running one on Revolt - their fallout remover - but I doubt that's any good for foaming... although...

Thanks bud. So many good snow foam brands I want to try now. I can now confirm that the Car Chem foam meets my very demanding standards. It cleans just as well as both Avalanche and Auto Foam. It also foams more than Avalanche, if that's important to you, but nowhere near as much as Magifoam - but I'm a firm believer in the theory that a foam needs to be liquid enough to slowly run off the panel in order to pull the dirt off, and that shaving foam-like consistency that just clings to the panel is inefficient... as demonstrated nicely by Magifoam which looks all pretty and stuff but is flippin' useless in cleaning terms. Just my opinion, of course. Doesn't smell as nice as Auto Foam though... what? That's important too!

The Neverwet stuff has been about for a while, but it dries quite white so it's no good for cars... unless they're white cars. Durability-wise it's quite brittle once fully cured so tends to flake off easily if there's any movement. Nissan use "Ultra Ever Dry"... which is very much the same as Neverwet - which probably explains why they masked off anything that isn't white on the Micra. As WhackyWill would say;

This ^ I normally spend 8+ hours washing/detailing my car. Yesterday I had ran out of my usual products so just gave it a quick wash and dry with some cheap turtlewax shapmoo + wax in one. It took 15 minutes and looked 95% as good as what it does when I spend the whole day on it. Dont get me wrong i love spending a day detailing the car but it get get me thinking.... 8hrs! Flirk me. Indeed. Slacker!

As will any straight cut gear.

Only the ones with the optional S-Tune badge.

Don't know what the car is, but he's got a crap camera.

There's an argument (largely from the leather experts on DW) that adding a conditioner to coated leather actually traps dirt on the surface so it's not recommended to use conditioners on modern leather as there's no benefit (other than the SMD basement flashbacks... if that's your thing ).

Modern leather has a clear protective coat on top, so the colour of the leather won't make any difference. Gliptone as mentioned above, RaceGlaze leather cleaner or Auto Finesse Hide with a suitable brush and microfibre cloth to wipe away should be enough to do the job.