Ive just got a new motor (seat leon excellence, diesel, full leather, 184bhp). Bit of an upgrade from my previous!
Can anyone recomment simple to use (/quick) cleaning materials and polishing gloves? I already have an autoglym washer.
Its impressive how shiny they all looked in the showroom!
Pics of motah (apologies its just the ones taken by sales)
Polishing gloves? Like just nitrite gloves to wear while using the polishing products? I just bought a pack of 100 off Amazon.
Well, you can use an applicator pad for the polishes. I bought a heap off ebay from China for pennies. So they are single use for me. Not great quality, but they work fine. I used to just apply with microfibre cloths though. You get a massive pack from Costco for about £14 or so. They are VERY useful. I use them for taking off product / buffing, so they are definitely worth having. Cheap enough to be disposable too.
What do you mean by autoglym washer? Like a snow foam thing? Or a pump action thing? To be honest, snow foam is just a pre-wash, so helps get most of the dirt off, probably similar to what you have if it's not an actual snow foam lance. But I still use one. It doesn't replace a proper contact wash, you will still need a microfibre "sponge". Again, you can get decent stuff from Costco, but I do also have a Meguires microfibre "glove" for the wash stage. What car shampoo you use is up to you. Whatever you can find locally should do the job really. Autoglym / Gyeon / Meguires etc... I've used them all, and they are all much of a muchness.
You could get a claybar mitt for after the wash, I have a G3 one, and it's ok. I don't find it a replacement for a proper clay bar in terms of its effectiveness, but it is significantly quicker. This does a decent job of getting all the smaller dirt off the car. If you want to use a proper clay bar, then the Bilt Hamber stuff is meant to be very good, and will be the next bar I buy. I have used Meguires up until now, but the B.H. stuff can apparently just use water to lubricate, so that'll save a bit of money, ha ha. Before this, a bug and tar remover, or iron out stage is useful though. But this really comes down to how thorough a job / how good a job you want to do is.
Then time for a polish. I just used Poorboys Black Hole on my Clio and it looks great. It's designed for darker cars, so should work great with yours. I then use either sealant or wax, depending on how I feel. No point spending a couple hours polishing the car, then not protecting that work. I use Menzerna Power Lock sealant, and it really is great. Easy to use, easy to apply / remove, great results, and lasts ages. But have also used Bilt Hamber Double Speed Wax. Which is also pretty good, although my experience is it's a bit more effort to apply, and doesn't last as long.
I use Gtechniq G6 to clean the glass, G4 to polish it, then G1 to seal it. It's not nothing to do all this, but the results are fantastic. 18-24 months of rain water just flying off the screen. It takes an hour or two to do the windows on the car properly, but then that's it done for a year or so. Just normal maintenance afterwards.
I also use Auto Finesse Imperial on the wheels. It's great stuff. Spray it on, leave a few mins, agitate with wheel brush, rinse off, done. Then, if I'm feeling particularly unlazy, polish then seal the wheels. I just use regular polish, like Autoglym Super Resin Polish (SRP), and have some Poorboys Wheel sealant. It's ok, but needs a few layers of application to be effective IMO.
Or, if you were meaning something simpler than all that, then just get a good car shampoo (like Meguiars Hyperwash), lambswool / microfibre mitt, a few microfibre cloths, wheel brush, and some polish.