1.5 day detail on my 350z GT in Gunmetal.

[magic84]

what a job!! looks amazing, i wouldnt want to drive it after all that work

[DoogyRev]

As I scrolled down the pic's, I kept seeing dirty bits on each picture and was going to point them out...............

 

........ then I realised I think I need to clean my screen

 

I thought I kept my car clean ...... great job Note to self.. must get more cleaning products and equipment

 

When you coming to do mine?

[rog518]

Great job also spent a long time doing mine at the weekend but its well worth the hassle when you turn heads driving it about!

[witstu]

WOW!!!!!!!

[chrisjones6699]

Nice cleaning job, but are you sure you are not a little mental. Next week it will be super dirty again.

 

Subtle!

 

Terry mate, can i be a pain and ask you to list the cleaning products used and where you got them from? I need to get myself some decent cleaning kit and who better to ask after the effort you put in! Very nice!!

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[tez162003]

Nice cleaning job, but are you sure you are not a little mental. Next week it will be super dirty again.

 

Subtle!

 

Terry mate, can i be a pain and ask you to list the cleaning products used and where you got them from? I need to get myself some decent cleaning kit and who better to ask after the effort you put in! Very nice!!

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

ummm...

 

Basic list for what you would want as a cleaning kit, not just to clean it like this once, but to keep it clean and also not to introduce any further swirls or scratches into your paint work.

 

start with-

 

pre wash:

 

Pressure washer

Snow Lance (i think the best about is Autobrite)

Snow Foam (buy a 5 litre bottle, you'll be suprsied how quick you use it)

Wash Liquid (your choice really, i like Dodo juices Supernatural shampoo or Meguires Hyper Wash)

A degreaser of some sort (i use Meguires Professional Range degreaser)

 

 

Wash:

 

2 Buckets

A lambwool washmitt

Grit guard (if you want to help avoid swirls even more, but not necessary)

 

 

Drying:

 

Microfibre Cloths (lots of them! as you use them for everything on the car)

A quick detailer (to aid drying, your choice. I use Last Touch - brilliant stuff!)

 

Claying:

 

A clay of your choice (i personally like Sonus clay, if new to the stuff get a mild clay)

Clay Lube (I use Last Touch as i have it already for drying stage plus once panel is clayed, i spray it with some more Last Touch and wipe clean with a Microfibre)

 

 

Then theres the machine polish stage.. skip if required, i wont go into detail about this stage

 

 

Paint Prep

 

Paint Cleanser (to prep paint for wax, on my car i used Dodo Juice Lime Prime)

 

Wax

 

Wax of choice for this car was Dodo Juice Supernatural. Im a big fan of hard waxes, i dont see the point in liquid waxes myself, hard waxes physically cure to the paintwork giving not only a deep shine but much longer lasting protection, this means you only need to do a proper wax session every 2 or so months.

 

Supernatural is £65 upwards but is well worth it in my book, (considering you only need it 4 or 5 times a year max and you get 20 ish applications out of the pot) but there are so many waxes out there, just depends on the budget really.

 

Wheels and Tyres:

 

Wheel Cleaner (Bilberry is my favourite)

EZ Brush (scrubs the back of the wheels, by far the bets brush out there)

Few detail brushes (for hard to reach areas and in bolt holes)

Tyre Gel (Meguires High Gloss Tyre Gel is my favourite, again optional depends if you want shiney tyres)

 

Another good buy is a All Purpose Cleaner, Might be worth getting some Meguires All Purpose Cleaner. Come in US Gallon and you dilute it 4:1 so you get 5 US Gallons for £20 Use it for around badges, interior parts (not coloured leather though) and basically anything you can think of. Just look how many times i used it cleaning my car, from door cards to mats.

 

As for where to buy this stuff from, the best web site out there in my opinion to get a good base kit together is

 

http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk

 

Very fast delivery, good prices, only issue i have with them is they run out of stock on a lot of items, but that i think is just becasue of how popular they are.

 

All these items are what i like, everyones different, I use different products on diffferent cars, so above is good good base kit to add to and definatly try different products afterwards to find what you prefer.

 

The best product for cleaning a car in my book is by far the simple Microfibre Cloth! Best place to buy them from is Costco, you can get a bag of 36 for £14. Trust me the fact you use them for every stage of cleaning and on every part of your car you soon get through them, once its too dirty i demote them to wheels and tyres etc and use fresh ones for paintwork, TIP: tear the label off each cloth before use.

 

Hope thats helped you. Any more questions just ask.

[chrisjones6699]

Awesome! Cheers Ter! I'll be making a few purchases I think!

[Paulzx]

An interesting thread this...

 

on the one hand it shows the lengths that some of us will go to, to basically clean a car and keep it in good condition,

on the other hand, these companies producing the detailing goods must love people like us, it really has gone a bit

over the top with all the crap that they recommend you use now.

 

the car in this thread looks great after the work, but so did mine when i picked it up from the forecourt and all they did

was run some polish round it, 15 min job. can you imagine doing the routine on here time and time again?!!

 

as much as we all want our car looking spotless, it seems to me that this type of effort is rather flawed because

unless you keep the car in a garage and hardly ever use it, and never use it in wet weather, you're back to square one

in no time at all - rather dis-heartening. the other option is to pay someone else to do it i suppose, but i certainly couldn't

go through all what the OP has done just to keep it looking tidy...good luck to those who can though!

[tez162003]

i have to say you are way off the mark, everyone has different opinions on this type of cleaning. Some do what i do and some like to just wreck there paint by using a sponge and a bucket. inflicting swirl marks which in turn reduces the paints shine and so on.

 

You think id do this type of clean offen? no chance, id do it once a year if not less. This 'detail' was not just to clean it, it was a paint correction, removing tar, industrial fall out, tree sap, then removing swirls, marring, micro marring, light scratches and reducing any deeper scratches.

 

Im not fussed about a bit of dirt from day to day driving, like you say its never going to stay 100% clean, but because now i have a good layer of quality wax between the fully cleansed paintwork (which is completely smooth)and the atmosphere the dirt cannot stick to the paint and bed in like on most cars. meaning while your there scrubbing your car to remove dirt (causing yet more damage to the paintwork), i can literally rinse the dirt off. Meaning i can avoid rubbing the car much with a washmitt, which means paintwork stays flawless for longer, then all i do is every couple of months, add another layer of wax, and every 6 months re clay and wax. Then yearly i guess id possibly do this level or correction.

 

Problem with running some polish around your car off the forecourt is, the polish wont last long at all, its sat on top of un-prepped paint rough paint with dirt and contaminents stuck into the paintwork.

 

You may not notice the level of work i did on a silver car, but if it was black you'd notice it, plus i could have then shown you what i really did with the aid of 50/50 shots etc such as:

 

 

In short, i did a paint correction, clean and paint work protection.

[Paulzx]

yep i know all the theories behind the various paint care excercises, i waxed my car as soon as i had it, clay bar etc

 

to some degree, paint correction, washing the car with the correct method and all that does reap some rewards

but some of it is a load of old tosh aswell, cars don't get any less dirty simply because someone spent hours on end

detailing it - not in the real world at least.

 

some people will tell you to get out there and wash the car straight after it rains, because you need to protect

your cars paint from acid rain, quite honestly if it made that much difference you may as well wax your car and tuck

it away somewhere and only bring it out on the odd dry and sunny day - which in this country is just the odd day!

 

what i'm trying to say here is that in this country with the weather as it is, to keep the car looking anywhere near

clean and polished you have to be at it every couple of weeks, regardless of waxing and all the other endless tasks

you're supposed to perform, it can become a full time job!

I was very enthusiastic the first time i detailed my car, not far off your own efforts, but now i think it's a thankless (but necessary)

task, and i still think some detailing tasks are rather unnecessary, but that is just my own opinion

[Airro]

wow really nice...i should really start cleaning my car often!

 

might take you up on that offer though

 

 

i think i saw you driving through bletchley this week...or it was just another 53 GM

[tez162003]

afraid it wasnt me

 

you from bletchly then?

[tez162003]

just noticed, your location... Milton Keynes lol

[Shuck]

Hi Tez, really good results there the exhaust especially looks stunning!

 

One question I have. I was correcting the pink paint on my parents batter old corsa (something to prctice on before I move onto the Zed) and the pad had quite a bit of polish built up on it. In this situation is it best to change the pad, or wash it and carry on using it once it had dried a bit? I noticed that the build up was affecting the results I was getting.

[tez162003]

if that happens your using too much polish. see my pic where it shows only about 3 dabs or so, sometimes i use a thin line on the panel (again in the pics.. i think)

 

You should be breaking down all the polish on the pad when generating the heat on the panel, meaning you should have next to no residue left, but even i sometimes use a tad too much

 

If so, grab another pad (why its always good to have 2 of each pad you use) as like you said it will drastically affect your results.

[Shuck]

I think what I was doing was putting too much on (probably dabs twice the size of yours) and then not working it in enough therefore leaving loads of polish on the pad. I was just a bit over cautious (by the sounds of it) of causing damage to the paint, but on reflection its quite hard to do with a random orbit polisher. I'm due to give it another go soon and will be a bit more manly about it

 

Thanks for the tips

[tez162003]

another tip, get a scrap panel and practice, try differnt techniques, also deliberatly burn through the paint to give you an idea of what it takes to do so. Just try alsorts on the scrap panel first. Then you should have a good starting technique to work from.

[andlid]

good thread

[Chris`I]

i have to say you are way off the mark, everyone has different opinions on this type of cleaning. Some do what i do and some like to just wreck there paint by using a sponge and a bucket. inflicting swirl marks which in turn reduces the paints shine and so on.

 

You think id do this type of clean offen? no chance, id do it once a year if not less. This 'detail' was not just to clean it, it was a paint correction, removing tar, industrial fall out, tree sap, then removing swirls, marring, micro marring, light scratches and reducing any deeper scratches.

Fully agree with this. Anyone who has not done a full prep doesnt know what they are missing. For the effort of stripping it back twice a year (wash, clay, polish, wax), you are rewarded with not only a beautiful looking car, but also a much easier to maintain finish. When you have glass like paint, protected with a decent wax like DD SN, and topped up with something like Red Mist regularly (every other wash), it means the crap never sicks to it, so washing it becomes a breeze, much easier than a car that hasnt been prepped. You only need to do a full prep twice a year at most, so its not really any extra effort for a much better looking car

[tez162003]

Glad to see some people agree with me

 

I cleaned mine last weekend, after doing this detail. and as i siad, cleaning it was a doddle. Just rinsed, very lightly washed with a washmitt and the TBM, barely have to touch the paintwork to remove any dirt. Meaning no scrubbing off stubborn tar and dirt and scratching the paintwork to buggery.

 

While i was at it i thought id add a second layer of Supernatural.

 

Job done for the summer, will just clean it now and add a cheaper wax every so offen, Will fully prep the paintwork again most proberly on christmas day. thats 6 months away, but that wouldnt include a full machine polish with correction, maybe go over it with a finishing compound if im that bored.

[Chris`I]

Try Red Mist on it after a wash, it does a wonderful job of providing a great glossy protective layer. Doesnt last as long as supernatural, but so easy to apply after every other wash, keeps everything tip top.

 

You make a good point about the ease of washing too. Not only is it easier on you, but its easier on the car, which means less swirls. If you snow foam it first, it removes even more and loosens up whats left, so even less pressure is needed, keeping the paint even better

[tez162003]

i do indeed use snow foam, brilliant tool for a good clean car, but i can find my Karcher fitting... so until i find that or buy a new one im having to be careful with the washmitts.

 

anyone wanting a clean car, and fun while doing it, get a snowlance, i personally recommend AutoBrite

[andlid]

i do indeed use snow foam, brilliant tool for a good clean car, but i can find my Karcher fitting... so until i find that or buy a new one im having to be careful with the washmitts.

 

anyone wanting a clean car, and fun while doing it, get a snowlance, i personally recommend AutoBrite

which one?

 

http://shop.autobritedirect.co.uk/autob ... -321-p.asp

http://shop.autobritedirect.co.uk/autob ... -313-p.asp

http://shop.autobritedirect.co.uk/autob ... -338-p.asp

http://shop.autobritedirect.co.uk/foam- ... -305-p.asp

[Chris`I]

That last one (heavy duty)

[tez162003]

/\

l

l

 

what he said