[dearchichi]

Hi Anish.

I hope to get your view or the below sequence of wash steps for the exterior (the paint is uncoated, unprotected and lacks PPF). You may not agree with the efficacy of this sequence, but I'd like to know if what I'm doing might hurt the vehicle (paint etc.) in anyway.

I've received the following: Koch Chemie GFX, CarPro Reset, CarPro PERL (unused below).

1. Foam up the vehicle using Reset and let it dwell for 2 minutes
- there would be no pre-rinse step, unless the panels are muddy since the product wouldn't be able to penetrate enough around those patches
- Reset is essentially being used as a pre-wash product that's usually applied on cold, dry surfaces

2. Rinse the foam off with a pressure washer
- this is to remove as much grime, road film, oils and other organic elements off the panels (due to the alkaline nature of the Reset) without contact. Most of the dirt might come off too due to the product and the water pressure.

3. Foam up the vehicle again using Reset
- this is to provide lubrication during the contact step
- some of the dirt/organic stripping action of Reset might be useful here too

4. Prepare a diluted solution of Reset in a bucket, and contact wash the panels
- use PCC Chenille Microfiber Wash Mitt, preferably one per panel, using both sides of the mitt
- only light pressure needs to be applied to the panels so as to prevent loosened grit from scratching

5. Rinse the foam off with a pressure washer

6. Dry by dabbing CarPro Boa Microfiber 500gsm over the panels
- try not to drag them back and forth across the non-glass panels
- fold the cloths and use multiple sides that result
- use a leaf blower to dry hard-to-reach areas, wheel arches etc. (but not glass). Avoid usage over paint since they could drive minerals or contaminants deeper inside

7. To clean glasses, headlights/taillights/camera apertures, apply diluted IPA to PCC Edgeless Microfiber Ultra Plush 550gsm and wipe them, allowing them to dry naturally. Do the same on both sides of the glassy surfaces if applicable.
- use 99% IPA solution to prepare a 25:75 IPA:distilled water solution (use distilled water to avoid mineral contamination)

8. Check for mineral deposits on the painted panels and glasses. Remove them by repeated application of undiluted Puris D19 through a PCC Edgeless Microfiber Ultra Plush 550gsm cloth until the deposits are gone. Rinse the applied areas with water.
- wear gloves and masks
- don't atomise using a sprayer since this is strong acid

General instructions:
1. Use gloves throughout to keep chemicals from seeping into the body through the skin
2. Rinse the tyres first since it's the dirtiest part of the car and prevents cross contamination of other panels with dirt if rinsed later on
3. Wash and rinse the panels top to bottom to avoid the bottom to be contaminated with dirt from the top part if done the other way
4. Avoid circular motions during contact washes and drying so scratches caused, if any, would not be seen from all angles
5. Wash away from direct sunlight and when the panels are not warm/hot
6. Replace Reset with GFX for maintenance washes

[JithinR]

Hi All,

Just got my hands on a XUV 3X0 and have a few queries for the detailing gurus here:

1. How do we protect the door sills and the void behind the door handles?

I do see door handle guards like this one on Amazon. Do these actually work and or do we run the risk of damaging the paint?

For the door sills, I have plastic sill guards installed for both front doors but not the rear ones. Not sure why the dealership missed it. I am out of state now but will need to go back and check with them.

However, I have seen videos on YouTube that explain that these sill guards might lead to rusting due to moisture trapped underneath them. Is that right? If so, i have also seen vinyl tapes that can be applied on the door sill. Are they a better option?

Amazon ones have bad reviews. Does anyone know of any good online accessories stores that stock them?

Or should I just get PPF installed in both these places? I am considering getting PPF done on the bonnet and outer ORVMs so might as well do these too.

2. I managed to fit a dual dashcam in the car myself. But for a clean install (avoiding the airbags across the pillars) I had to remove a few interior panels. All the panels did fit back okay. However, Mahindra has used a black gum to attach the rear hatch rubber beading and some of that glue got on my palms and was transferred to the headliner right above the c pillar panel.

Photo of this disaster is attached. Is there a way to remove those black marks? I have tried to get them off using Wavex all purpose APC but even the highest concentration possible doesn't seem to do anything.

Is going to a detailer my only option?

3. What products do folks here use to remove tar stains on the car? My car is white in color and it's a PITA to remove.
I only see Wavex and TurtleWax tar and bug remover on Amazon. Do either of these products actually to decon the paint?

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by JithinR

3. What products do folks here use to remove tar stains on the car? My car is white in color and it's a PITA to remove.

Try using denatured alcohol and isopropyl alcohol as these are degreasing agents. In general, these are my go to chemicals for removing irritating stingy stains from the fabrics or any surface.

Apply it to the stain location using a light, dabbing motion until the area is fully wet. Allow the alcohol a few minutes to break down the oil layer, then rub the area with a simple soap. Try it at one location and see if that helps.

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by JithinR

1. How do we protect the door sills and the void behind the door handles?

I do see door handle guards like this one on Amazon. Do these actually work and or do we run the risk of damaging the paint?

However, I have seen videos on YouTube that explain that these sill guards might lead to rusting due to moisture trapped underneath them. Is that right? If so, i have also seen vinyl tapes that can be applied on the door sill. Are they a better option?

Or should I just get PPF installed in both these places? I am considering getting PPF done on the bonnet and outer ORVMs so might as well do these too.

Photo of this disaster is attached. Is there a way to remove those black marks? I have tried to get them off using Wavex all purpose APC but even the highest concentration possible doesn't seem to do anything.

Is going to a detailer my only option?

3. What products do folks here use to remove tar stains on the car? My car is white in color and it's a PITA to remove.
I only see Wavex and TurtleWax tar and bug remover on Amazon. Do either of these products actually to decon the paint?

For door handles recesses, leave them. Applying any sort of PPF/protector will look ugly as it’ll stick out with the edges collecting dirt over time and it’ll yellow. Just put a good quality ceramic on your paint and glass and as long as you’re not grabbing aggressively at the door handle, scratching will be minimal.

For door sills, you can buy brushed stainless steel ones that simply paste on the paint. Just keep in mind every time we apply a strong adhesive to paint we run a very real risk of clearcoat delaminating when we remove the adhesive many years down the line as the glue tends to fuse with the paint over long periods of time.

You can do vinyl wraps but they offer less protection than a hard door sill as vinyl is soft and won’t stop dents which a sill will. It’s equally painful to remove as a door sill so no winner there. If you’re going to put PPF on the car, don’t do a partial install as you’ll see a very noticeable difference in texture/orange peel between the bonnet and the rest of the car.

Use a better quality APC, Koch Chemie Greenstar, Carpro Multi-X are good ones. If these fail to clean then going to a detailer won’t help much as they too will use an APC on fabric. Try agitating gently with a medium stiffness brush. Do not saturate the headliner with moisture otherwise it will come off.

Also, do not use IPA anywhere near your fabric roof as it’ll break down the adhesive backing and the risk of the fabric delaminating is very high. Once that happens, you can never replicate the factory finish with repairs/replacement.

For tar and ferrous spots use Carpro TRIX to safely break it down and remove. Also don’t shop detailing products on Amazon. Instead use better detailing specific sites like-

Planetcarcare.com, greenzcarcare.com, carcosmic.com, ultimatedetailerz.com

Originally Posted by dearchichi

Hi Anish.

I hope to get your view or the below sequence of wash steps for the exterior (the paint is uncoated, unprotected and lacks PPF). You may not agree with the efficacy of this sequence, but I'd like to know if what I'm doing might hurt the vehicle (paint etc.) in anyway.

Avoid usage over paint since they could drive minerals or contaminants deeper inside

7. To clean glasses, headlights/taillights/camera apertures, apply diluted IPA to PCC Edgeless Microfiber Ultra Plush 550gsm and wipe them, allowing them to dry naturally. Do the same on both sides of the glassy surfaces if applicable.

4. Avoid circular motions during contact washes and drying so scratches caused, if any, would not be seen from all angles.

You’ve got it down nearly perfect. Just to clarify the above-

1) DIY Detail is a good channel but don’t believe everything they say blindly. Using a blower won’t drive minerals deeper into your paint. What will happen is the water will puddle up as there is no beading due to lack of protection on the paint.

If you stay on it too long the water will dry and if you’re using hard water then yes you’ll have minerals left on the surface with some stains. Using soft water (anything under 25 TDS) will not cause any permanent staining.

2) Instead of waiting for it dry by itself, with glass always keep two towels. The first is the wet towel that is used initially to apply the IPA, the second is the dry towel used to buff the glass to perfect clarity.

3) This isn’t true, if it’s scratching in a straight line, it’ll still still show up as circular swirls on the paint as these are actually straight micro scratches when seen under a microscope. The circular appearance is an optical effect that’s all. If your methods are safe, wipe in whatever direction you want, straight, circular, criss cross, etc. doesn’t matter.

Whether we can see swirls or not depends on the amount of light hitting the paint, which is why under the sun you’ll see so many imperfections in your paint. Under enough light, the angle is immaterial.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by AJ56

For door handles recesses, leave them. Applying any sort of PPF/protector will look ugly as it’ll stick out with the edges collecting dirt over time and it’ll yellow.

My car is ten years old and still has some of the PPF applied by its first owner when new, including those handle recesses. Mostly, it looks reasonable. If it is raining, on the hand, it goes grey! This is clear PPF on a black car. On wet days, the old PPF looks horrible.

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

My car is ten years old and still has some of the PPF applied by its first owner when new, including those handle recesses. Mostly, it looks reasonable. If it is raining, on the hand, it goes grey! This is clear PPF on a black car. On wet days, the old PPF looks horrible.

Yes, how anything is perceived is highly subjective. Just like phone screen protectors, what’s unacceptable fit and finish wise to one may be completely ok and invisible to another.

[TPunchKZA]

Need Suggestions regarding, my Car Care.

[TPunchKZA]

Need suggestions on how I can care more for my car!

My car TATA PUNCH KZA edition is now 2+ years old and well, living a rugged life considering the car is more kept than driven and that too kept in a typical Mumbai cramped space and in residence where parking is always on toss...

There are times when my society's parking is full and the car needs to be parked on an open ground near another society. If sometimes luck is in good favor, I might get good parking under tree shade, perhaps the tree shade can sometimes be woes considering the bird droppings and flowerings and various other natural things, so again I need to be super lucky to find a good parking space under a tree which is harmless for vehicle.

Also, the car's not driven daily, say 3-4 times a week which includes only city travel and rarely any time long trips.

I haven't really given the car to a professional detailer/ cleaner since I purchased. The most professional cleaning is done at the service center, but again not that professional work from TASS.


My current scenes.

1. Once a month I give my car a nice spray wash with all foam cleaning, all over at a local shop, which does the work well.

2. Every weekend, I ensure that I do a bucket wash using Wavex Car Shampoo. Also, every 2 odd days I prefer to wash the car with Wavex Waterless Car solution in diluted water as instructed. Interior cleaning is done once every month and always when I come from any long day trips.

3. I make sure to keep the microfibres separate for every wash. Say for a waterless car wash, for bucket wash a different cloth, interior cleaning a different set, and so on.


Hurdles.

1. There is no access to flowing water in the parking area, so I have to do bucket washing every time I wash my car by myself.

2. Can't give my car wash to local guys here because they are really unprofessional and just wash the car for "namesake". They will use all sorts of used clothes for washing cars, and as the water source is a bit far away from the parking, they will use 1 bucket full of water for say 2-4 cars.

Suggestions .....

Any recommendations for specific
1. shampoos
2. Waterless car wash solutions
3. Microfibre clothes
that can be used for bucket washes and waterless washes? I'm looking for something new since my current stock is nearly depleted.


Thanks in Advance...

[sreerknair]

Originally Posted by AJ56

Use Puris D19 (mineral deposit remover) on them and they’ll be gone. If any etching remains, it will need to be polished out.

Hi AJ, have you used Chemical Guys Hard waterspot remover? Compared to that how effective is D19? I have to park my car with the front protruding out of the porch and by the weekend, the car will have severe waterspots on bonnet and windshield if it rains (which is common in kerala). What makes it worse is that the house's roof tile has some water solvable paint that is blackish. So I am in search of a waterspot remover that can work on both painted surfaces and glass. Online search always points to CG Waterspot remover. Hence my query.

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by sreerknair

Hi AJ, have you used Chemical Guys Hard waterspot remover? Compared to that how effective is D19? I have to park my car with the front protruding out of the porch and by the weekend, the car will have severe waterspots on bonnet and windshield if it rains (which is common in kerala). What makes it worse is that the house's roof tile has some water solvable paint that is blackish. So I am in search of a waterspot remover that can work on both painted surfaces and glass. Online search always points to CG Waterspot remover. Hence my query.

Rain generally won’t cause any permanent staining but that roof paint/mineral deposits mixed in with rain definitely can.

Yes I’ve tried CG water spot remover, it works but isn’t as powerful as D19. CG has good foam shampoos, everything else (in my testing at least) is quite mediocre in performance.

Mainly as they don’t actually mfg. any of the products they sell, just like Adams. It’s a white label generic product bearing their marketing.

Originally Posted by TPunchKZA

Need suggestions on how I can care more for my car!


Hurdles.

1. There is no access to flowing water in the parking area, so I have to do bucket washing every time I wash my car by myself.

2. Can't give my car wash to local guys here because they are really unprofessional and just wash the car for "namesake". They will use all sorts of used clothes for washing cars, and as the water source is a bit far away from the parking, they will use 1 bucket full of water for say 2-4 cars.

Suggestions .....

Any recommendations for specific
1. shampoos
2. Waterless car wash solutions
3. Microfibre clothes
that can be used for bucket washes and waterless washes? I'm looking for something new since my current stock is nearly depleted.


Thanks in Advance...

1) Foam shampoos- Adams Megafoam, Koch Chemie GSF, Chemical Guys Honeydew Snow Foam

2) Waterless I won’t recommend, sure shot way to swirl up your paintwork. In case you meant rinseless wash- Optimum No Rinse is the industry standard (also called ONR), you still need a pressure washer for the pre rinse though.

3) TRC (The Rag Company) Eagle Edgeless 500 are the best towels in the business. If you want something cheaper but still safe: https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=...ECAQQDA&adurl=

What you want is a cordless pressure washer and leaf blower, use it for touchless rinsing of your car after you have put a good spray sealant/ceramic coating on it.

Alternatively, you can go to local carwashes as long as you don’t let them touch your paint, they can’t do any damage. Have them do a rinse-foam-rinse-air dry. This will clean upto 90%+ of contamination for daily driving, once every 2 weeks do a full contact wash with mitts.

[sreerknair]

Originally Posted by AJ56

Rain generally won’t cause any permanent staining but that roof paint/mineral deposits mixed in with rain definitely can.

Yes it is that paint that is causing the waterspots. I have ordered D19 and a Collinite 845. Hopefully the wax will help avoid the waterspot formation to some extent.

[Col Mehta]

Bad Experience with Detailing Bull

Want to share a recent (bad) experience with one of the Detailing Bull outlets in Delhi. This one is located inside the Pacific Mall, Shubash Nagar. Our newly purchased Seltos black Xline has many swirl marks and minor scratches that we received from the showroom. So we wanted to do an initial round of detailing to remove the paint imperfections, and have some extra gloss added to the paint work - that's what the detailing package mentions which also consists of a steam wash (oh btw, there is no actual steam wash available with the detailer, just a regular shampoo wash which they conveniently call a steam wash). But instead, the detailing folks have left these stubborn smudges which just won't go. See pictures.





This one shows the full wrath of it:



The smudges are on the glass area as well:



On the door handle:



And some more:



So my son took it back to the detailer who inspected the car and mentioned a good wash and some wax afterwards would take care of it. Now the funny thing is, the smudges don't appear immediately after the detailing. It's only after a few hours (with no washing or any cleaning involved), that these smudges would start showing up. And that's exactly what happened this time too.

This is how the car looked immediately after the wash (no smudges anywhere):



Checked the car in the parking area next day and found the same smudges all over. We are not sure what to do next. Definitely not taking it to the same detailer as he clearly has no idea what's going on. We sent him the pictures again and politely told him that we wont take the car to him anymore and he happily chose to oblige without making any efforts to fix it or gain our confidence. Not that we wanted him to do anything anymore, but very poor service standards.

Experts - any advice on how to address this would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Bad Experience with Detailing Bull

Want to share a recent (bad) experience with one of the Detailing Bull outlets in Delhi.

Checked the car in the parking area next day and found the same smudges all over. We are not sure what to do next. Definitely not taking it to the same detailer as he clearly has no idea what's going on.

Experts - any advice on how to address this would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

It’s very difficult going by pictures alone but it’s possibly dried paint sealant/wax applied in a hurry and not levelled properly. Are you able to wipe away the smudges with a light finger swipe temporarily before they reappear? If yes then it could also be very low quality wax applied in patches to which dust is adhering.

I doubt he’s done any machine polishing as I can see the swirls clearly in the after shots. If it is indeed dried sealant/wax residue, lightly polishing with a fine cut abrasive will strip it completely (Menzerna 3000 for eg.). This can be done by hand but it’ll take a lot of time, much better done with a soft foam pad and a polisher.

[Col Mehta]

Originally Posted by AJ56

It’s very difficult going by pictures alone but it’s possibly dried paint sealant/wax applied in a hurry and not levelled properly.

Thank you for your response. Yes, it does seem like a bad job done without giving it enough time.

Are you able to wipe away the smudges with a light finger swipe temporarily before they reappear? If yes then it could also be very low quality wax applied in patches to which dust is adhering.

You're right - the smudges go away with a light swipe (with fingers and microfiber clothes).

I doubt he’s done any machine polishing as I can see the swirls clearly in the after shots. If it is indeed dried sealant/wax residue, lightly polishing with a fine cut abrasive will strip it completely (Menzerna 3000 for eg.).

The detailer did use a rotary polisher to apply wax/other detailing products. Maybe just a shoddy job he did.

This can be done by hand but it’ll take a lot of time, much better done with a soft foam pad and a polisher.

Just to confirm, is there a different polisher you are referring to or the Menzerna 3000 that you mentioned earlier?

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

You're right - the smudges go away with a light swipe (with fingers and microfiber clothes).

The detailer did use a rotary polisher to apply wax/other detailing products. Maybe just a shoddy job he did.

Just to confirm, is there a different polisher you are referring to or the Menzerna 3000 that you mentioned earlier?

Then it’s the type of wax used and patchy application that’s most likely the cause.

Menzerna 3000 is a fine cut polish (liquid abrasive), used to remove light swirls and defects in the paintwork.

It is applied either by hand or with a foam pad attached to a polisher (rotary or dual action depending on the person).

The good news is it will wear off by itself in a few weeks as the wax breaks down. You can wipe with 30% IPA to help speed up the process. Washing a few times with Carpro Reset (stripping shampoo) will also help in breaking down the wax sooner.