Cleaning the car

[mjb]

Damn you Welly! I decided to try to make my car look good

Got a delivery from that car cleaning place yesterday...

Snow foam
Snow foam lance
Autoclay
Dodo Juice - "Born Slippy" Clay Lubricant
Autoglym Glass polish
Autoglym Super Resin Polish
Autoglym Extra Gloss Protection
Collinite Super Double Coat Auto Wax No. 476

Cleaning cars like this ain't cheap is it?

So today I backed the coupe out of the garage
Hit it with the snow foam (500ml per wash???)
Rinsed
Soaked the wheels in Autoglym Clean Wheels
Blasted the wheels
Washed with Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner (vastly prefer the Turtle Wax stuff I had before!!!)
Rinsed
Dried with a microfibre towel
Shoved it back in the garage
Clayed approximately half of it.

4 and a half bloody hours WTF?

Got to admit the claying seemed pointless while I was doing it (except for the many tar spots, which it dragged off very competently), but afterwards the difference is amazing to feel It's horrible horrible stuff to use though, sticking to fingers and crumbling to bits, and an £11 bar of the stuff along with half a £7 bottle of clay lube just to clean one car seems bloody expensive,

Not paid too much attention to my car's bodywork in the past, but I've decided I definitely need a new bonnet or at least a respray. It's more chip than paint also the drivers door (which I'm convinced is a replacement) is far too rusty and bubbling

So yeah, I've got the following to do now:

Finish claying
Polish the glass (inside too on the doors)
Polish the car (the polish has a filler, so maybe a few times?)
Put the Extra Gloss Protection on (maybe a couple of coats?)
Figure out how to put the wax on?

Heh can you tell I ain't got a clue? At least I plugged my reverse gear switch back in

[omega]

hi where did you get the snow lance from?
only clayed a car once but found it quite easy but the clay i used you only used water to lube it and as long as you used plenty it was okay.
im no expert like you mine gets washed and a quick polish when i have the time[which isnt often] i have this thery that once it has a layer of dirt on it the other dirt just lands on the dirt so protects the paint!!!
cleaning a car is a pain,i mean you can only clean the car when its a nice day and who wants to be cleaning when you can be dong something more fun and once its clean even if you dont use it gets dirty.and im sure once its clean it 1 collects dirt quicker 2 rains and 3 becomes a target for birds.

[mjb]

hi where did you get the snow lance from?

elitecarcare.co.uk

im no expert like you

If you'd have read the above you'd realise that I have no idea at all what I'm doing

[Bailes1992]

Most clay is actually fine with water!

[Welly]

Yay - I've converted mjb

The clay should be a breeze you have to 'knead' the bar into a flat squishy thing and use plent of lube, then every so often pull and stretch the bar to a clean bit and flatten out into a small shape.

My clay bar is about 70mm x 30mm x 15mm thick and I cut it in half and squish it out to about 5mm thick and kinda palm-sized and this does the whole car (with regular 'turning' of the clay).

Honestly m I did my Volvo in 30 minutes.

[mjb]

Yay - I've converted mjb

No. No you haven't - I'm just trying it out... Once...

Bet I looked the part though, dropping the names of all that stuff, er, "product" in my post

The clay should be a breeze you have to 'need' the bar into a flat squishy thing and use plent of lube, then every so often pull and stretch the bar to a clean bit and flatten out into a small shape.

Maybe it's just the brand of clay then, but kneading this stuff is bloody hard work especially as it keeps tearing... Pulling and stretching the lump needs to be done (or attempted) after every few square inches too, probably because the car's 11 years old and never had anything like this done to it before...

Honestly m I did my Volvo in 30 minutes.

Took me longer than that just to get the tar off the drivers door Only stuff that'll get rid of it though, and I've tried pretty much every bug&tar remover in Halfords

[eoin27]

I like where your coming from with the expense on cleaning the car just right but I wouldnt bother with mine unless I got a full respray. It'd be a bit of a waste as the bodywork is tatty in some areas

[Welly]

The clay is an essential 'first step' in polishing and waxing your paintwork as, once clayed, the other processes of polishing and waxing a really really easy. In fact I think I might do mine at the weekend - last time I clayed, paint-cleaned, polished and finally waxed in 2.5 hrs when I finally threw the MF towel on the bonnet at the end it slid off

[Doggy]

Yay - I've converted mjb

I'm still an advocate of the muddy puddles process, previously recommended by the honourable member for Stoke

[TooT]

Mjb, did your clay bar look like this


Thats just after doing the small boot lid on the Meg.

[Blue406]

To finish off, once all the cleaning and polishing is down, apply a coat of Collinite 476s
That stuff lasts for months, yes months. Even in out climate!
It gives your paintwork a fantastic deep gloss shine and water simply sheets right off of it.