*** The Car Cleaning Thread ***

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Got any pictures? Really need to see how trashed the paint is to recommend anything..

Will get some after I next wash it. In most places the paint looks reasonable, but you can see that it is completely covered in paint swirls with the sun hits it, there are faint scratches littered around here and there especially around the door handles where people have slipped with the key, there are a few deeper scratches which are probably in-curable here and there, one per panel on average I suppose. Additionally, there is cracked paint/stress marks on the bumpers from where it has has low-speed shunts and bumps in the hands of previous owners, but there are only two small rust spots on the whole car, which I'm going to deal with.

So it is never going to look great, but if I can get rid of the worst of the swirlyness and reduce the visibility of the scratches, then that would be good. :)

I was thinking about grabbing a cheap orbital polisher and giving it a polish, as it will do a better job than doing it by hand, but I've never used one and I hear you can do more harm than good if you don't know what you're doing?
 
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You're best investing in or borrowing a dual action polisher like the DAS6 Pro. I use mine about twice a year and am always impressed with how good it leaves the paint. Having said that it's very time consuming.
 
Cleaned the coop today :D

Just a thorough wash, then SRP + EGP. I've heard EGP is pretty durable but this is the first time I've used it, hoping it'll last a while...

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Just spent a load of Halfords Vouchers I got from work, on some Maguires cleaning products (recommended by 'shauncr91' cheers buddy). So I'm looking forward to trying them all out over the weekend. Fingers crossed the weather stays nice :)
 
Tis good **** man!


Recommend:

Mer.
Auto Glym gear: particulary the shampoo, pro water blade, super resin polish and paint sealer.
Maguires, first thing I got was one of their microfibre wash mits and a clay bar kit.
Loves me a bit o' Rain X on me glass.
Tons of microfibre cloths/towels and 100% cotton cloths.

Halford 3 for 2's and BOGOF is the time to buy
 
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Cleaned mine too, will stay like this for about 3 minutes before getting filthy haha.

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The wax I'm using at the minute is Fusso Soft Coat Dark, really impressed with it. Seems to have great water behaviour (see below video) and doesn't attract anywhere near as much dust as the AG HD Wax I was using.

Don't know how to embed the video so the link is here.
 
Very nice, always like the GTD, VR6 and R32's. Black looks great when properly polished up but it's a bitch to keep clean and nice and usually ends up just covered in swirling which stands out lie a sore thumb.

3 hours to perfect it, 3 seconds to clart it back up to the eyeballs in ****! :mad:
 
Very nice, always like the GTD, VR6 and R32's. Black looks great when properly polished up but it's a bitch to keep clean and nice and usually ends up just covered in swirling which stands out lie a sore thumb.

3 hours to perfect it, 3 seconds to clart it back up to the eyeballs in ****! :mad:

Cheers mate - you're not wrong about the 3 hours to clean and then dirty in 3 seconds.
 
I'm picking up a 330ci on Friday and the first thing it needs is a good clean- I've only ever really used fairly liquid and the hose on my old car but I'm keen to make the most out of the paintwork so what is the basic procedure for 'properly' cleaning the exterior of a metallic paint car, and in what order?

My main aim would be to get rid of all of the little scratches- i.e.

DSC_0178.jpg

(taken from DXP55's link http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19248&sid=527089b4503b92cb0271a82603979a4f above)

Also I might be tempted to take the alloys off and give them a good clean inside out. What should I use for this?
 
Has anyone here got experience of polishing stainless steel? I have a couple of stainless covers in my engine bay (battery and rocker cover) and they are scratched from being wiped down with cloths. Can I use my DA to get rid of these or will I just make them worse?
 
I'm picking up a 330ci on Friday and the first thing it needs is a good clean- I've only ever really used fairly liquid and the hose on my old car but I'm keen to make the most out of the paintwork so what is the basic procedure for 'properly' cleaning the exterior of a metallic paint car, and in what order?

My main aim would be to get rid of all of the little scratches- i.e.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13203382/DSC_0178.jpg
(taken from DXP55's link http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19248&sid=527089b4503b92cb0271a82603979a4f above)

Also I might be tempted to take the alloys off and give them a good clean inside out. What should I use for this?

The answer to this question could stretch on to pages and pages so this will be brief-ish but should give you an idea. If you need to know anything more specifically then feel free to ask.

If you are going to polishing then you are going to need to do more thorough wash than a maintenance wash. I would go with a pre-wash first, as you aren't going to be trying to protect wax/sealant then I use an APC (all purpose cleaner) cleaner, Daisy from Tesco is pretty good and cheap. Depending on how dirty the car I mix it between 8:1 - 5:1 and spray it with a pump sprayer and leave it for a 5-10 mins and then wash off - a pressure washer works best but works well enough with just a head on the end of a hose. You will then need to actually wash the car, 2 bucket method with a good quality mitt and shampoo is recommended as there is no need to add more scratches with bad washing technique. You can then dry the car or let it dry naturally then depending on the age I would consider using a fallout remover (Iron-X) and if there is a lot of tar spots a tar remover too (Autosmart Tardis). After that (or if you skipped fallout and tar) then you will need clay the car, I like Bilt Hamber clay as you only need water as lube but loads of other choices. You should then have beautifully smooth paintwork ready for some polishing. I wont go into polishing as it depends on if you are going to be hand it polishing or buying a machine.

Once you have polished the car you will want to protect the paint work with a last stage product (LSP). Traditionally this was a wax but there are many synthetic sealants and wax/sealants hybrids now to choose from, just pick one you that fits what you want.

Wheels - Depends how bad they are really, if they aren't too bad then I would say get a non acidic wheel cleaner which should remove dirt and recent-ish brake dust. If there is any baked on brake dust then this can be removed by using a fall out remover. If the wheels are really bad then you can step it up to stronger cleaners like wonder wheels and use fall out gel to really get them clean. Like the paint work once clean you need to protect them, there are again many LSP's for wheels but I would recommend sealants as they are a lot better and longer lasting - Gtechniq really are the best for this.

Once LSP is on paint work and wheels a regular maintenance wash is a lot easier. For the body I go for a good pre-wash, something like ValetPro Citrus Pre-Wash, rinse, then 2 bucket method on car, rinse and then dry it. Depending how the LSP is holding up you can apply a quick detailer to help last a bit longer. Wheels, I clean my regularly enough that the pre wash and pressure wash is enough but if bad then a weak wheel cleaner can be used (I use bilberry wheel cleaner at 20:1 for this)
 
I made my first purchases today, nothing extreme but enough to gauge how likely I am to consistently clean the car:

Valet Pro - Advanced Neutral Snow Foam (1Ltr)
Premium 'thumbed' Lambskin Wash Mitt x2
CleanYourCar Huge 'Fluffy' Drying Towel x2
CarPro - Iron X 500ml
Valet Pro - Inch Round Wheel Brush
Detail GO EZ Brush
5 Gallon bucket x3
Scratch Shield x2

I have a Karcher K4 so going to give the built in cleaner feed and gun head a go and see if I need a seperate foam head or not.

Next purchase will be a clay bar & lube, wax and sealant. I want to do a bit more reading up before getting these though.
 
Nice selection there Mirage, should be able to keep your car nice and clean with that lot.

I have a Karcher K4 so going to give the built in cleaner feed and gun head a go and see if I need a seperate foam head or not.

The ones that come with pressure washers are useless for snow foam, they more spray a soapy water mix rather than proper snow foam. However ANSF is supposed to be very good pre-wash just used through a pressure sprayer so if the lance doesn't work too well might be worth trying a £1 pressure sprayer rather than a £30+ snow foam lance.
 
Hey,

My mate kindly bought me my first machine polisher for my birthday. In the past I'd used Super Resin polish and done it by hand. I'm aware of the two bucket method, how to clay, etc, but using a machine to do the polishing is new to me. Now the first car I'm going to do this on is a red MK2 MR2. As with most untreated red cars, the colour has dramatically faded and so it will need to be cut. The polisher and pads came in a set, but with german instructions!

Here's the polisher: TekTake Car Polisher


Here are the pads that came in the set:

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

and here are the Velcro pads which I assume is what you attach the foam pads to:

6)

7)

So my question is, what pad do I use and for what stage? The polisher also comes with a towel/sheep skin wool pad, I guess this is for removing the polish? I was going to use Microfibre cloths for that.

Also, what compound should I use? Now I know I should have ordered this before, but my limiting factor here will be being able to buy it from Halfords tomorrow morning.

Advice?

Thanks :)
 
if you can't find the english instructions on their website/online you could take pics of the instructions with your phone, there will be some nifty apps that convert the pic to a text document and then copy paste into google translate :D

not what you asked but would be helpful to have it in english :)

good luck with the polish and lets get a before and after to show off your hard work! :D
 
Lets start with the definites - 6 & 7 are the backing plates for the pads yes.

Everything after that is a guess but judging by the other pads, I am guessing the black pad in #2 is a finishing pad, impossible to tell though which pad is which between 1 & 3. A possible indicator of pads, and I stress possible as it doesn't work on all pads, is to put them face to face and squeeze them. The harder foam pad will compress less, the softer pad will compress more and generally, the harder the foam the more the cut. As for what pad at what stage, you want to use the least abrasive pad possible to get the correction you are after. a lot of, but not all, Japanese cars are known for soft paint so you may not need the really hard pads but work up from the least aggressive pad and work up until you get the desired effect.

I can't work out what 4 & 5 is though, guessing by your description one could be a wool pad? Wool pads are usually used for really heavy cutting above what foam pads can do so I would use microfibre cloth for removal of polish.

I am guessing based on my experience but it is still ultimately guess work and I would keep trying to find English instructions.

For polish if you are stuck with what you can get from halfords then the best you might be able to get will be Meguiars Ultimate compound.
 
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