ilogikal1

Mine was absolutely useless too until I got Atkin to adjust it when they did a service. It's been fine for the year since then.

I usually would do on a flat panel - I did when I had several waxes on the roof for example - but Nissan kindly divided the bonnet up for me by design. It was very easy to control the spread of these three products so I didn't bother with tape this time.

As you may know, I like to "test" detailing products (read that as I have a lot of products and far too much free time). Well I'm going to stick them all in the one thread rather than starting a new one each time. I'm starting with pitting Sonax Xtreme BrilliantShine Detailer, CarPro Reload and G|Techniq C2v3 against each other. Prep. consisted of snow foaming with BH Auto Foam, a 2 bucket wash using Luxury Wax "High Foaming" Shampoo from the last Retro Waxybox (which, incidentally, is very much NOT high foaming in any way, shape or form) and then dried. As the car was wearing a coat of FK2685 (otherwise known as Pink Wax) which was barely 2 weeks old, I had to strip this off the chosen test panel. So the bonnet was attacked with HubiRestore on a black Hex Logic pad followed by a CarPro Eraser wipe down which... barely touched the wax, to my surprise. So out came the Tesco APC (at 1:1) which left me with nothing on the panel as was evident by the lack of beading or sheeting when rinsing. It was then dried again and each product was applied to the bare paint. Immediately after application looked like this; I've got a full size bottle of BSD which I've used before but the spray head on that is just woeful, so I opted for the Waxybox sample to see if that made any difference. It does. It's a LOT easier to use with the atomiser type spray head than it was with the standard spray head. Reload, as it arrived (from 'The Cube' in case you're interested) and used neat; C2v3 also applied neat; There's very little to separate them on looks. I struggled to get a streak-free finish from BSD in the normal bottle, but with the better spray head it was considerably easier to get a good finish. Both Reload and C2v3 were even easier still as BSD is a slightly thicker liquid to the other two, I'd say Reload just edged it but there's very little between the two. So onto the water behaviour then. BSD Reload C2 And here is a fresh coat of FK2685 on the left and BSD on the right Reload on the left, C2 on the right BSD on the left, Reload on the right Beading wise, BSD provided many more, much smaller beads whilst Reload and C2 were much more similar to each other providing fewer, taller beads. Sadly the battery in my camera decided to call it a day before I could get any of the sheeting, but (at least in my opinion) Reload sheeted the quickest, followed by BSD and the C2. So that just leaves durability. The intention is to avoid using anything that will top up the protection until each fails to get a fair idea of what durability I can expect to achieve from each product. I'll update this thread from time to time if anyone's interested. In the mean time, purely because I enjoy a good beading picture;

Yeah you can... Anyway, back on topic (briefly), I used to use the Z daily... right up until I started working from home. It's just not worth getting in the car for that commute any more. I will still drive the Z any time I can I can think of an excuse to though.

Thanks to CS for my discs and belts which arrived very promptly, and for taking time out from battling stuck bolts to answer my questions.

Fair enough. They tend to be used on hard paint as a rule as they can offer fairly quick correction, but I wouldn't use them on soft paint at all myself.

I'd say microfibre pads would be too aggressive myself, but if your technique is good this can be compensated for. Is there any reason why you'd want to go for microfibre over foam pads? You'd be better off with something like AF Tripple, followed by a decent wax to seal, for the short term if you're doing it by hand. With filling chips, you won't get a good result at all without polishing afterwards, although something like Chipex does reduce the need to wet sand.

I'll have you know there's only 12 different products on it (today)! And I'm in no way planning my next multi-product test(s) for the weekend. Nope, not me.

If I do that you'll see the swirl marks, stone chips and scratches! All cars usually look better from a distance don't worry. Speak for yourself.

FK1000P, either of the Colli's, Black Fire as mentioned, Britemax Metal Twins as mentioned (#2 seals as well), G|Techniq C1/4/5, AF Mercury, Gyeon Rim - all will be considerably better than baby oil. Take your pick.

I'm bored today so I'm pic whoring a bit

Britemax Metal Twins - on a cloth generally but you might need fine wire wool for any really stubborn marks (0000 grade generally suffices).

and/or One or both should have the right stuff for you.

How did you get 605 out of a tank..That's 3 tanks for me...!! He uses the other 5 gears.

You want to get that rust treated sharpish, it's even spread to the door handles! Good work, though. (Psst, did you get that bit of residue under the spoiler after taking the pictures? )

It's definitely a DA, it just uses slightly different terminology to say that though; OP, I'd recommend this; http://www.polishedbliss.co.uk/acatalog/pb-soft-paint-polishing-kit-cat1.html If you wanted to you could add in a finishing pad, but that would be all you'd need to keep you going for a while.

Interesting to see a pro use a sponge. He seems pretty ambivalent about using either a sponge or a mitt. I was surprised too mate and that's the clip I saw. He's one of the best too The car isn't exactly dirty when he starts though, is it?! Closed cell sponges are the issue because they trap any dirt between the surface of the sponge and the surface of the paint causing it to drag along the paint. An open cell sponges reduce this unless you're applying a lot of pressure (in the same way as a lambswool or microfibre mitt). I didn't notice him mention this but there are various brand which offer open cell sponges for washing cars (none of them being 3M though, which is probably why he didn't mention that ). There's also no mention of whether he planned to carry out any correction work after the wash, for all we know he just caused himself another hours worth of polishing on that one single panel he used the sponge on... There's nothing wrong with using the correct type of sponge if your technique is good but for the most part you're much more likely to inflict fresh marring with a sponge than you are with a long pile mitt.

That can happen when you take it to an "indi" too... Sounds like the "stealer" is better than some by not even attempting to fob you off and just agreeing to fix their mistake.

My sympathies, Squee, but as the others have said I'm that you weren't hurt.

So long as you don't get an Astra VXR. Your Z would feel so slow when you get it back...

I'm lazier than GM, so this is the best I could find for the dimensions of the larger bin where the Bose sub is, but it might help (hopefully); http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/73377-anyone-tried-putting-a-normal-sub-box-in-bose-location/#entry1094324

I seem to recall the monthly cost will equate to the same over all cost as buying 6 months at a time, which I seem to think is being dropped from 10% to 5% over paying annually. There is, of course, a fair chance that this complete b*ll*cks that my brain has just made up to make me look stupid for sh*ts and giggles. It does that from time to time. ETA: Yay, my brain doesn't hate me today ; http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/tiin/vehicle-excise-dd.pdf

Camskill and Demon Tweeks both sell them as well, FWIW.