Team-BHP - A superb Car cleaning, polishing & detailing guide

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajayclicks (Post 3964288)

The instructions on my bottle mention using 5ml of liquid with 500ml of water, which is what I have been doing. Have not noticed any whitish layer, perhaps as my car is silver colour. Perhaps I will dilute my proklear solution even further, from now on. Any special tricks to wipe the whitish layer? Or will be taken care of automatically next time I clean the car?

If you don't see any whitish layer, then there is no need to buff :).

Yes, I dilute it much more than what is mentioned in the bottle. It makes Proklear even more VFM!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by redcruiser (Post 3965641)

How is your experience with the above items that you received from ultimate detailerz.?

Pretty good. The Sonus AIO is a very good cleaner - it has cleaned up some hard stains on the beige upholstery, restored the door pad cushions after they had become dirty, left-over adhesive glue on the bumpers and windshields etc. Haven't used the PERL much though - only 2-3 occasions and depending on the dilution, it leaves a glossy or a matte finish on the plastic parts such as the dashboard, door card trims etc.

After spending money at 3M paint sealant, i expected some longevity in the application. The sealant lost its sheen and shine pretty fast. Gave up on 3M and tried lot of other products. Tried Collinite. Application was easy and gave decent life (say a couple of months). Mind you that i don't wash the car daily. Hence protection gettting washed off is not really the case here. Purchased finish kare online and tried that. Application was super easy. But life again was not good. Then tried finish kare high temp paste wax. The product being paste wax, should have given good protection. But i was disappointed.
Collinite was the best of the lot lasting for a couple of months.
Meanwhile i purchased a soft99 tire wax while i was window shopping some years ago. The shop is now closed. And on youtube i hit up on soft99 channel and started seeing the videos. Their product seemed to be durable. I tried the product after a very long time in storage. I tried on plastic and rubber parts on my bike. I am happy with the hard layer on the plastic than on the rubber parts. I was hunting for soft99 12 month wax after seeing this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxSSlxDTBWM

Since it's not available in India, waited for someone who could buy it from abroad. Recently a guy put his soft99 wax on the team bhp classifieds. Called him and took a metro to his place. He was very quick to reach the place. Paid 1850 for the tub. He is having quite a lot of detailing products and he had bought this for his use and decided to move to coatings. I brought it back home and immediately tried on my bike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilYNkXbv28g
It started raining and decided to leave the bike in the rain for testing purposes. Will post some photos and videos as time goes along.

Till now it has hold up well. I have already washed with multi purpose cleaner ( stronger than regular shampoo) and holds up. The main advantage is so little of the product is needed for application. Probably this wax will be enough for many many years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kkkkkaran (Post 3958393)

Use the leftover waterless wash, it does generally come off. Otherwise you can try a quick detailer liquid.

A superb Car cleaning, polishing & detailing guide-1.jpg

Example of the stains from residual sprays of Proklear CX . Satish from Proklear also suggested what you suggested above. Recent stains come off after some vigorous rubbing with MF and the waterless wash. But there are some older stains on the fenders on both side which have faded a little bit , but have not been removed completely. I am going back to Proklear RAW because these stains dont look good and I am not thorough enough to check and remove these spray marks after a car cleaning session. I will miss the shine and smoothness of CX though.

I have been using waxes since 2001. However I do not experiment with brands too much happy to play with the more reputed brands.

I latched on to this thread a few years back and I have been amazed by the level of information that I have learnt from this. clap: Here are my two cents...

Products
I started out with Formula 1 Carnuba wax and stuck with it till the market started getting flooded with duplicates.

For mild scatches I started using Scratch-Out with pretty decent results. Then got a bottle of Turtle car polish which is stil around after 4 years or so. However given that I have not started using machines, polishing is pretty hectic so I generally did it one in 6 months or so. I follow it up with a wax polish too. However polishing really gives you great results.

I used MotoMax a product from Pidilite. However the shine lasts hardly a week.

Looking around for something that is easy to work with, I used ArmorAll polish and wax. It's liquid and waxing the whole car takes not more than 30 minutes.

I currently use Sonax Car Shampoo and Sonax Easy Shine. I find the products a bit expensive but combo really works for a quick detailing session.

My Experience
- Wax immediately after washing your car. If you don't have the time to wash the car properly, don't wax. Just wash the car.
- Never wait till the last wax coat wears off completely. Apply the next one while there is still a bit of shine left. This reduces the work a lot.
- Come monsoons, I apply wax for two - three weekends consecutively. In my experience the shine lasts a lot more. Moonsoon expecially with the slush and muddy water from the road wears out the shine much faster than in the dry season.
- I started using a pressure washer which fastened up the washing process but killed the shine much faster. I stopped using it and reverted back to washing by hand.
- I generally use the regular/stamdard washing tips.

Wet the car first
Wash off the dust with running water and bare hands - top down
Apply shampoo with a cloth, top down
Wash off the shampoo. These days I do not use my hands to wipe off the shampoo letting the water get the shampoo off.
Dry off the car with a separate dry cloth.
Ensure that the water is grime free.
Tires and rims have separate brushes and cloths that are never used on the body. Silk/Chiffon cloth (saree bits etc) realy make cleaning alloy wheels a breeze. They slip into the grooves of the rims much more easily than cotton cloth

- I have owned only light colored cars with white being the color over the last 8 years. It's relatively easier to maintain and detailing is an easier exercise. With darker colors I think the detailing approach should be much more careful.

Drive on,
Shibu

A quick question to all the detailing gurus here. Is is necessary to wash the car just before waxing. I was planning to wax my car before the rains. I had given it to the service center for a minor repair job, and they have returned the car today evening (the service center is ˜8kms from my house), post washing. I have basement parking, and will not be using the car tomorrow.

Is it ok for me to skip the washing part. Say, dust the car using the Jopasu brush, and then get on with the waxing part tomorrow? The car in question is an XUV500, and I would be happy to save some energy on the washing part, and invest it in the waxing part :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackwasp (Post 3976113)

I have just recently fired my car cleaning guy after promising dad that I would clean the car myself. Been cleaning my Vespa since a year and I feel confident of doing car cleaning on my own.
Have ordered a jopasu duster and a bottle of waterless wash. I already have wax paste and Microfobre cloths. Hope to do a satisfactory job and save water in the process as well.

Ive retained the cleaning guy only for cleaning the interiors and the foot mats everyday.
He is not allowed to even touch the exterior with his rag. Cleaning the car with Jopasu and waterless wash really makes a huge difference in the condition of the paint. I dont think I can ever let anybody else clean my car ever again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajayclicks (Post 3976256)

I don't think it takes a guru to answer that question: I think even I can.

You car must be clean before you wax. Two reasons:

--- If there is dust there, you will be grinding into the paintwork, and,

--- it will affect the end result of your waxing.

The gurus would never wax without washing (and drying, of course). The lazy guys, like me, might, especially of the car has been parked indoors and appears clean to touch and feel, might be ok with washing one day and waxing the next.

But... if you need to use that duster, really, you ought to wash before waxing. Part of my laziness says, why waste that effort on waxing without proper preparation!

Getting a quick and easy result: give a quick wash with a no-rinse (eg ONR) shampoo, and then add a little extra shine with an all-over quick detailer. I guess that's why they call it quick detailer!

Save the wax for when you have full time and energy to put into it!