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Washing and waxing

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Hello, I waitng for my 2013 Boss to come in and I'm a fanatic on cars when it comes to having a perfect shine to them and I basically follow this logic: wash, clay, polish, wax. Since this is my first car with stripes, my concern is with how to maintain them properly while still getting s polish and wax done on the whole car. Any tips and suggestions are welcome. Thanks, Will
 

Justin

Save the dawn for your dishes!!!
as for the stripes you can still wax them just tape the edges as you will get build up on the lip. if you go to adams polishes they have a video for just about how to do everything detailing wise. on there forum you can search vinyl stripes they have videos of how to car for them. I would post a link but there forum page seems to be down at the moment.

for the grille and all the plastic on the outside I use a combo of there in and out spray and super vrt. great stuff puts back to black to shame. for the wheel wells I use there under carriage spray. great stuff. I have everything that adams sells. I also use Zaino products as well it is great stuff as well. sure its pricey but you get what you pay for.
 
I am sure there a lot of guys more anal than me but I only use the Micro fibre cloths and towels for drying. I live in Cal. so I don't get a lot of hard weather but I am religous on dusting it off each night with the California duster and then using the cover. I definitely do not scrub on the decals to get dirt off. There is a thread of a girl that had some very good advice on how to maintain them but can't remember the title. Either way common sense goes a long way. I figure they are decals and will eventually get faded and scratched. I would like to know how the guys that track them alot say they are holding up against the debris hits.
 

Justin

Save the dawn for your dishes!!!
I am super anal lol car duster will never touch my car as all you are doing is rubbing dirt around on your car....use it on a black car a few times you will see what I am talking about. better off getting some detail spray and a quality micro fiber towel. the ones from the parts store are made of nylon and will scratch your paint as well. I use griots garage towels and adams double and single soft towels. for drying I use there great white drying towels. to get all the water out of areas I use a leaf blower and or compressed air. makes drying wheels a breeze. one of these weekends when its not raining I will take pics and a step by step of one of my details. takes me two days to do a car from the ground up.
 

Justin

Save the dawn for your dishes!!!
CaliMR said:
CA duster is sticky, it picks the stuff up well enough.
yeah I know it picks it up but does nothing to pull it away from the area that touches your paint. so what happens is it gets full then just drags that dirt around on your paint. its like sanding your paint with a very fine sand paper over time this will cause swirls. same thing happens if you use a crappy wash mit and no grit guard in your bucket.
 
I do those things too. That's why I like white cars. A bit of wax keeps it from damaging the underlying paint (my last car had the industry's thinnest paint and it was still perfect when I sold it) and the white hides the swirls in the wax layer. The black roof I hit with the detailer sometimes but I am not too anal about it as I bought the car to drive and the black is dirty again by the time I back out of the driveway anyways.
 

Justin

Save the dawn for your dishes!!!
CaliMR said:
I do those things too. That's why I like white cars. A bit of wax keeps it from damaging the underlying paint (my last car had the industry's thinnest paint and it was still perfect when I sold it) and the white hides the swirls in the wax layer. The black roof I hit with the detailer sometimes but I am not too anal about it as I bought the car to drive and the black is dirty again by the time I back out of the driveway anyways.
lol like I said I am anal. I drive my car to a ship yard and park in a stone parking lot. soon as I get home its straight to washing the car or wiping it down with detail spray. to include the wheel wells and all. I like my boss to look like its show car ready just about every time I drive it. yeah I am sure my neighbors think I am crazy but hey I figure cleaning my car obsessively isnt hurting anyone.
 
It is hurting everyone, by hurting the environment through use and manufacture of the excessive amount of chemicals that you are... lol I can't even type it with a straight face. I was not saying you are doing it wrong, I just take a more casual approach to it. If I had the patience for it, I would probably do the same thing. But I don't.
 
I would have to ask you guys does my car look clean as its going by at a hundred ;D The first thing I did to my car after getting it was clay bar then 5 star shine followed by a good waxing a few days later then just to the car was every week. That protects it pretty good.
 
I like a clean car and use detailer spray between waxing. The one thing I do pay attention too when applying and taking wax off is follow the edges of the decals and not cross over them. A good microfiber towel will get the wax residue out from the edges with out much effort. I'm not to comfortable with using polish or a claybar on the decals though, it's softer then the clearcoat and I'm not willing to take the long term risk. I'm sure some think it's fine and it may be, but I don't think it's a necessary step. Anyone wet sand the orange peel off their car yet, lol. I don't have the gahona's to do that either. Looks nice if it's done right but I won't.
 
I had black imperfections all over one fender in the clear coat and between several waxes and the clay bar got 90%+ of them out after a lot of elbow grease. Ford actually offered to repaint the fender but I wanted to save it if I could so it isn't a respray. I would like to clay the rest of the car just for consistency but the weather has been bad and I really hate doing stuff like that. I may pay someone to do it at some point, because not only do I not like doing it but I know I will miss spots like I do waxing. I always try to wax twice just in case for that reason.
 
I'd bet Meguiar's mirror glaze 105 for the most cut then 205 for the least amount would safely remove the spots. Depending on how big the spots are, you could probebly try the 205 1st. I used that stuff to take bird bomb etchings off my bimmer and it work great. Rub it in and off checking frequently. Something to try, you can get it on line, I don't think you can buy it in stores, at least I could never find it. Something to try.
 
Anyone use one of the 5 micron (or less) filters that attaches to a hose? Do they really make it necessary to dry the car? And if so, is there any you would suggest?
 
I used Mr. Clean auto dry, beads up and rolls off when you use their system but not so much with just the filter nozzle. It does what they claim, it's just bulky.
 

Justin

Save the dawn for your dishes!!!
for the decals on mine I clayed them then used adams fine machine polish on a yellow hand pad. then adams glaze then topped off with there buttery wax. I am looking into having the hood decal painted on as the decal is a pain and it looks crappy next to polished paint.

cali yeah if you were in the area you could bring it over to me and I would shine it up for a nominal fee lol
 

drano38

Wayne
1,130
318
I'm also in for inputs on whether a filter helps when washing cars. Do we typically have enough junk in our water to need a filter?

I built a new garage last winter, and have a new water softener and 19 gallon water heater ready to hook up.
If a "whole house" type large cartridge helps, I'll plumb one in.
My house has hot/cold soft water plumbed outside to the driveway. I'm sold on washing a car with warm and soft water.
Need to consider adding a filter to get more junk out of the water.
 

Justin

Save the dawn for your dishes!!!
drano38 said:
I'm also in for inputs on whether a filter helps when washing cars. Do we typically have enough junk in our water to need a filter?

I built a new garage last winter, and have a new water softener and 19 gallon water heater ready to hook up.
If a "whole house" type large cartridge helps, I'll plumb one in.
My house has hot/cold soft water plumbed outside to the driveway. I'm sold on washing a car with warm and soft water.
Need to consider adding a filter to get more junk out of the water.
griots garage sells filters that you can hook right at the hose spout. I dont use one as my water is pretty good at my house.
http://www.griotsgarage.com/product/in-line+water+softener+%26+deionizer+with+fittings.do?sortby=ourPicks
 

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