[amol4184]

Thanks @comfortablynumb! I went straight in and ordered from coverwell. Was about to pull trigger on XG brand off of Amazon but these look way better.
Also 1 review from tbhp >>>>> 100 Amazon reviews.

[amol4184]

Originally Posted by amol4184

Thanks @comfortablynumb! I went straight in and ordered from coverwell. Was about to pull trigger on XG brand off of Amazon but these look way better.
Also 1 review from tbhp >>>>> 100 Amazon reviews.

An update - the cover came. Excellent quality and quick shipping. I forgot to mention that my car has limb risers. I called the owner but by that time cover was already in transit. He said if it doesn't fit send it back and I'll fix it, absolutely no worries.
Fortunately, the cover fit quite well even with limb risers. It stays a little disturbed at the front top but not an issue with me.

5 * product. Will buy again.

The owner seems like a great guy too. Spoke in crisp English and agreed to make necessary changes without haggling.
We need more people like him in the industry.

[Aravind_M92]

We all love our cars and want the best for them. It sure is an expensive hobby! On an average a well maintained car can last about 10 years unless a major mishap occurs. A lot of do take care of our cars with due diligence and elbow grease. But not everyone on the road reciprocates the same. We do come across bad drivers and accidents where the car gets its own share of trauma. I drive a 2016 City with her share of dings and damages. There are many methods to maintain the car's paint. Most of them are expensive methods and don't seem to give a long shelf life! I'll list as many as to my knowledge.

1. Paint Protection film (PPF)/ Vinyl Wraps
A layer of adhesive plastic film over the car. Claims to protect from flying debris and scratches. Last when enquired about pricing, the estimate given for my car was around 76k for wrapping the entire car from 3M. I opted out for bumper and ORVM alone, which set me back by around 20k. The work done was very professional. But two years down the lane, the PPF edges started to accumulate dust and looked very ugly. And little did I guess, my car was involved in a read end collision from a drunk driver on the highway and had to replace both front and back bumpers! Didn't get them done again.

2. Ceramic Coating
I haven't tried this one yet. Apparently this is now booming in the paint protection scenario. A thin layer or ceramic applied to the paint surface after smoothening it out. Possibly protects from minor dings and scratches. The quote from Ceramic Pro for my car was about 90k. Didn't opt for it.
I do have one question here, ceramic is a brittle substance and metal on which there is paint tend to expand under hot sun. Will it not cause cracking in the thin ceramic layer deeming the useless?

3. Teflon coating
Possibly the cheapest method with the lowest shelf life. Cost quoted was about 7k. Includes cleaning and buffing the car and applying thin Teflon layer to smooth out the paint surface. I do understand since it needs to done at a lower interval, and rubbing results in loss of the clear coat, thus exposing out the car earlier than required

4. DIY
Not precisely the professional way of detailing but a good wash with a neutral soap and waxing the car fortnightly does help keep the the car's shine. I've following this and apart from the physical work the results are quite satisfactory and cost saving

5. Repainting the car with the original colour
Now that my car is nearing the completion of 5th year, I'm contemplating on this. The dealer quoted 96k for repainting and tinkering. While a decent garage quoted about 40k for the same job.

While exploring the options I personally feel that instead of spending so much on detailing the car, wouldn't it be cost effective and efficient to get the car repainted at the 5th year mark? You do get the feel of a new car once repainted and would cost much less too comparatively. I'm posting here with my limited knowledge. Looking out for opinions from members of this forum. Do suggest your insights and experiences!

[KrishnaKoka]

Recent owner of a black vehicle here. Have been scouting the forum for tips and tricks and make a plan for maintenance. Went through the detailed car care discussion..while very informative came out with my head spinning. Relatively the simpler steps on this discussion are more relevant for me.

Here is what I am planning to do:
1. Duster to take care of light dust...don't do this daily..once in 2-3 days to minimize as much possible.
2. Rinseless/ waterless wash once in 1-2 weeks
3. Planning to use sealant after first wash...turtle wax ceramic spray...don't plan to polish...clay..before sealant use. I am afraid I might hurt more than help if I try to polish and clay.
4. Use good wax after every wash in step 2 going forward...


Queries I needed help with:
1. In teambhp I see mostly every one talking about waterless wash...isn't rinseless wash a better more safer method with slightly more water use?

2. PROKLEAR label says rinseless/washless. Has anyone used it as a rinseless wash? What dilution do you use? Same as waterless wash?

3. If intention is to use sealant after wash. Is it better to get proklear raw or proklear raw with carnuba wax? Am I correct in assuming that sealant will bond better without wax already applied. So using proklear without wax may be better. Will use wax going forward after wash any way.

[Singer_Shower]

Since this is the "idiot's thread", I suppose this would be ideal for my newbie question. The owner of the car accessory shop from where I bought the microfiber cloth vouched it can be used to clean dust from the car exterior without using water or any other liquids (waterless). I asked him repeatedly whether not using water will leave scratches, but he said it won't and the cloth is perfectly safe for using that way.

What is your opinion?

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by Singer_Shower

What is your opinion?

Absolute No, use water to rinse off and then wipe. Even a handheld sprayer and wet microfiber are ok, but don't use just microfiber even for simple dust. The moment there is pressure the dust particles act like abrasives and over a period of time will scratch that paint.

[Mr. Nobody]

Originally Posted by Aravind_M92

We all love our cars and want the best for them. It sure is an expensive hobby! On an average a well maintained car can last about 10 years unless a major mishap occurs. A lot of do take care of our cars with due diligence and elbow grease. But not everyone on the road reciprocates the same. We do come across bad drivers and accidents where the car gets its own share of trauma. I drive a 2016 City with her share of dings and damages. There are many methods to maintain the car's paint. Most of them are expensive methods and don't seem to give a long shelf life! I'll list as many as to my knowledge.
....

While exploring the options I personally feel that instead of spending so much on detailing the car, wouldn't it be cost effective and efficient to get the car repainted at the 5th year mark? You do get the feel of a new car once repainted and would cost much less too comparatively. I'm posting here with my limited knowledge. Looking out for opinions from members of this forum. Do suggest your insights and experiences!

Repainting a 5 year old car is pointless unless its been through a warzone. Car paint quality is good enough now that you dont need to do much to make them look shiny even if daily cleaned carelessly by the neighborhood cleaners. You are forgetting that there are easy to use spray on waxes and sealants that outlast most old school waxes while being way easier to apply. Try meguiars ceramix spray wax or turtlwax ceramic spray sealent. A bottle lasts long and is quite cheap.

[rudraksh2005]

Many thanks for this idiots guide- it truly made me realise what an idiot I had been.
I have recently bought a 4 year old pre owned landrover discovery sport directly from JLR around 6 months ago. They delivered the car in great condition. Since then it is being "cleaned" by my car wash guys with wet wiping followed by drying with cloth. The car certainly doesn't look anywhere as nice as before.
I need help in few areas:
I would appreciate any advice on what to instruct the car cleaners to do on a daily basis.Since seeing this thread I have bought microfiber cloths and the jopasu duster for daily use. I presume the Proklear rinseless wash is the other thing I need?
I intend to keep the car for a good number of years and would like to know if any of the previously discussed treatments like film/ceramic/pain protection are worthwhile and what I should go for. Also any suggestions for what I would need to repeat on a regular basis.
Final newbie question- what exactly is detailing? Sorry for my ignorance!
I personally do not have the time to be able to do the daily cleaning and it will have to be left to the cleaners.
The car is a deep blue with a few scratches that I would like to get sorted. I am based in bangalore in electronics city.
many thanks in advance for any advice.

[WanderinNomad]

Originally Posted by rudraksh2005

Many thanks for this idiots guide- it truly made me realise what an idiot I had been.
I have recently bought a 4 year old pre owned landrover discovery sport directly from JLR around 6 months ago. They delivered the car in great condition. Since then it is being "cleaned" by my car wash guys with wet wiping followed by drying with cloth. The car certainly doesn't look anywhere as nice as before.
I need help in few areas:
I would appreciate any advice on what to instruct the car cleaners to do on a daily basis.Since seeing this thread I have bought microfiber cloths and the jopasu duster for daily use. I presume the Proklear rinseless wash is the other thing I need?
I intend to keep the car for a good number of years and would like to know if any of the previously discussed treatments like film/ceramic/pain protection are worthwhile and what I should go for. Also any suggestions for what I would need to repeat on a regular basis.
Final newbie question- what exactly is detailing? Sorry for my ignorance!
I personally do not have the time to be able to do the daily cleaning and it will have to be left to the cleaners.
The car is a deep blue with a few scratches that I would like to get sorted. I am based in bangalore in electronics city.
many thanks in advance for any advice.

Guys got my car serviced and dry cleaned recently. The car's beige interiors had water leakage issues and some areas were really dirty. I would like to add some easy on the pocket products for keeping my car fresh for atleast a year-
1 upholstery cleaner to clean off stains in between dry clean- Ezee in a spray bottle and a brush? Will it work ?
2 glass cleaner - colin ? is a frequent supply in grocery ? will it work for glass cleaning as well as windshield additive
3 Shampoo - Will waxpol extreme clean do ?

Also do fabric protectors help in mentaining beige plastic.

Bieng a student, want to spend as low as possible. Have already exhausted money on Jopasu, poorboys EX P sealant, Rain X and meguiars spray wax

[Abhi_abarth]

Need advice on two types of stains on my 2017 Baleno Ray blue color.

1. Hard water stains on my bonnet. Doesn't go after using 3m car wash shampoo.
2. Tiny white pain stains which fell on my car while going under a fly over (which was getting painted). The stains are minute but can be seen with naked eyes upon close inspection.

I have ordered a clay for the paint removal but haven't used it yet. The hard water stains were gifted by my cousin as he had to park the car at his house for two days under a dripping wall.


Please advice. My last resort will be taking to the 3M car care guys. Want to explore any alternatives until then.

[Vaahan]

Hello All,

Firstly thanks to GTO to have started this post all those years back and to so many members who have provided their valuable comments. I am mightily impressed with the knowledge that so many of you possess and the pages and pages of content on the topic of car cleaning, detailing and such. The thing is that after having read a lot of pages, I seem to have learned a lot but am still NOT any wiser. Here is the help I request (And thanks for your patience in reading one more in a long list of such requests)

I am getting a new dark navy blue car in a day or two and need to quickly determine my cleaning schedule. All these years I had my society cleaner clean the car with water and cloth but want to change that to a better regimen.

Considerations -
- I will either spend 5 minutes ( and no more) myself or endeavor to train the society cleaner in a simple regimen. It has to be sustainable
- my building parking is covered (almost), office parking could be covered or open with / without shade
- at office sometimes bird poop, tree sap and leaves falls on the car
- I live in Mumbai and find it always dusty in the morning (when leaving home) and dustier when leaving office
- I will try and get the car detailed once a year and get it washed from a professional service center after long outstation runs. I will also have a car cover and hopefully use it as much as possible.

This is what I plan to follow and my questions embedded:

1. Use a Jopasu duster for light dusting - body, glass
2. Use a waterless or rinseless cleaning with microfibres (question - please suggest 3 brands that I can use for this)
3. What should I do for bird poop and such - Can the same cleaning material above be used for bird poop
4. I can do once a month wash with 4-5 mugs of water put on the car and get it wiped with a MF towel. if required.
5. Hoping the above is enough?

Also - Could you kindly suggest a material / liquid or whatever in bullet point 2. above, which does cleaning, protection and shine?. Will not be able to sustain a regimen which includes multiple products, processes or time etc.
And can the same product or a different one (if yes, pls suggest 2-3 brands) be used for windshield and glass to not only clean but repel dust, which will also help in rainy season.

Finally, please do suggest a product, material that can be used for everything interior - plastic, leather, fabric, info screen, dashboard etc. - for cleaning, and maintaining such that it looks new. Again humble request to suggest 2-3 brands.

Thanks in advance.!

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by Abhi_abarth

Need advice on two types of stains on my 2017 Baleno Ray blue color.

1. Hard water stains on my bonnet. Doesn't go after using 3m car wash shampoo.
2. Tiny white pain stains which fell on my car while going under a fly over (which was getting painted). The stains are minute but can be seen with naked eyes upon close inspection.

I have ordered a clay for the paint removal but haven't used it yet. The hard water stains were gifted by my cousin as he had to park the car at his house for two days under a dripping wall.


Please advice. My last resort will be taking to the 3M car care guys. Want to explore any alternatives until then.

1) Hard water stains are mineral deposits that can be removed with either a mineral deposit remover (like MDR from Optimum) or you can simply polish it off with a rubbing compound, the level of aggression needed will vary by the intensity of the spotting, sometimes a fine finishing polish is enough, sometimes even a compound isn’t enough and you need to wetsand with 1500-2000 grit sandpaper.

2) Paint spots you can try with clay, but it will leave micro marring (fine swirls) behind as it is abrasive in nature, if clay fails to remove then you’ll need to wetsand and again you can do it yourself but you need basic detailing skills and a polishing machine as sanding scratches are difficult to remove when compounding by hand. If you don’t have the skills take it to a detailer. Cheers.

Originally Posted by WanderinNomad

1 upholstery cleaner to clean off stains in between dry clean- Ezee in a spray bottle and a brush? Will it work ?
2 glass cleaner - colin ? is a frequent supply in grocery ? will it work for glass cleaning as well as windshield additive
3 Shampoo - Will waxpol extreme clean do ?

Also do fabric protectors help in mentaining beige plastic.

Bieng a student, want to spend as low as possible. Have already exhausted money on Jopasu, poorboys EX P sealant, Rain X and meguiars spray wax

1) Get a dedicated APC (all purpose cleaner) for cleaning fabric by Megs/3M/Turtle even Wavex is decent, after dilution you’ll find these are about the same (if not cheaper) than using Ezee.

2) Colin leaves a slight haze behind, just use 10-15% IPA (isopropyl alcohol) solution diluted with filtered water in a spray bottle, it’ll do a much better job than Colin at cleaning glass.

3) Try Wavex if you’re on a budget, it’s decent quality shampoo with good lubricity.

Fabric protectors do not help in protecting beige plastic trim, you can use APC to clean the beige plastics without worry. Plastic dressing is used to protect the dash and other dark coloured plastics from fading due to UV exposure but beige plastics are never dressed. Single best thing you can do for your inteiror (and exterior) is to park away from direct sunlight. Cheers.

Side note: avoid using that duster as it will scratch your paint over time, you don’t want to touch the paint at any time without proper lubrication.

[Piyush_DT]

I am getting a new black color car next week and has gone through this excellent thread. Thanks for your comments.

After reading, I am going to buy below stuff

3 Micorfibre cloth
Jopasu duster
Meguiar's Ultimate Waterless Wash & Wax Easy to use High-lubricity/Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine

Can anybody please suggest or provide link for all purpose cleaner spray? I can only find Wavex which further needs to dilute. I am looking for something which can be sprayed without diluting and does the job. Thanks!

[Artyom]

Originally Posted by Piyush_DT

Can anybody please suggest or provide link for all purpose cleaner spray? I can only find Wavex which further needs to dilute. I am looking for something which can be sprayed without diluting and does the job. Thanks!

1.You can buy either of them . I would suggest to go for ONR wash and shine(Green One)
2.Most of the APC are in concentrated form for the simple reason that different dilution ratios cater to different applications. For Instance Dilution ratio for APC to clean fabrics will be different than dilution ratio used to clean Plastics or Engine bays or paint. Most of the APC have the dilution ratios mentioned on the bottle itself.

[streetfighter]

I am caught in a tricky situation...
I ordered a Turtle Wax Seal and Shine from Amazon for quick detailing my car during my weekly or bi-weekly cleaning schedule. Instead, Amazon sent me Turtle Wax Graphene Paste Wax. Supposedly, the price of this paste wax is more than double of "seal and shine" spray. I understand that applying paste wax would take more time and effort, hence I called Amazon to fix this goof-up. The customer care offered to send a new product or refund my order, but they wouldn't take the paste wax back, and asked me to dispose it off
I, obviously, asked for a refund; but this also means I am stuck with the paste wax.
Last weekend, I tried my hands on the paste wax and it was quite an effort to remove (buff off) once applied. This is contrary to all the claims in youtube reviews. I did follow the "work on one panel" rule but the product was quite sticky to remove. The gloss and smoothness does show up (I've not tested water beading though), attaching a picture for reference.

Overall, looks like a ok product, and not worth the price.