OK, so my Xfire sorely needs a clay job and a coat of wax (It's my daily driver and I don't have a garage).

I picked up Meguiar's Smooth Surface clay kit. Anyone used it? I've never used a clay bar before. Got any advice to pass on? I'll probably get to it next weekend.

Thx

 

I'm sure Mike in Orange will chime in on this. I used the Wolfgang clay and lub. Just follow the directions. It's super easy! Just be careful not to drop the clay.

Also, see Golfdude's sticky https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...ad.php?t=12891

 

if you dont mind me asking how you do know your car sorely needs a clay job? What signs do you see?

 

1) You should clay at least once or twice per year.
2) Take a baggie, put your hand in it, and pass it over your hood or any other part of the car body. If it's not smooth, and you feel the imperfections, it's time to clay.

 

Thanks for the link

 

Claying is a very easy process and does wonders to help prep the paint before applyng wax. Basically, here's all there is to it:

Wash and dry the car.

Remove one of the two pieces of clay from the kit and knead it into a flat disk that fits in the palm of your hand. Spray some of the supplied Quik Detailer spray onto an area of the car roughly 2' square. Simply start rubbing the flat pancake of clay over the surface - back and forth or circular motions makes no difference. You don't need a lot of pressure, and you should move it fairly quickly. In fact, if you move it back and forth quickly enough to splash a little of the lube around then you're doing it exactly right. If not, you most likely don't have enough lube on the paint.

As you work and area you'll feel the clay start to glide more easily - this is because you're removing the bonded surface contaminants. Once you've worked an area just wipe it dry with the supplied microfiber towel and move on to the next area, repeating until you've clayed the entire car. Several times during the process you'll need to fold the clay over a few times, kneading it as you go, to reveal more clean surface. This shouldn't take you much more than 30 minutes or so unless your car is a total disaster. One bar of clay should be sufficient, but if you do drop it, throw it away immediately.

When you're done there should be no need to rewash the car. Evaluate the surface and proceed to a paint cleaning step if necessary, or just go straight to wax. The Smooth Surface Clay Kit comes with a sample bottle of Cleaner Wax, more than plenty to do an entire car. This is actually a great product for those who aren't hardcore detailing fanatics but like to keep their car looking above average. It does a very nice job of deep cleaning the paint and can remove very light swirl marks (although that's fairly difficult with our rock hard clear coat). You would apply this product just as you would any wax, but work it against the paint a bit more enthusiastically, then let it dry to a haze and wipe off. Feel free to apply any other wax or sealant of your choice over this.

 

Thanks for the great primer! Sounds like even I won't be able to screw it up!

 

Watch these links for the best details on clay bar use.

http://www.adamspolishes.com/t-Videos_DVD5_16.aspx
http://www.adamspolishes.com/t-Videos_DVD5_17.aspx

 

i realise this is slightly off topic, but i relaise the need to clay, and polish.

but what is the difference between a wax, and a polish? is there any difference, and should be done over the other, or in conjunction, or at different times. hmmm.

also. i have swirl mark on the car. slight. but can be seen in the sun. how do i get rid of these?

 

I just clay barred my baby and it was a very simple process and it is smooth as glass and shines like never before. Highly recommend doing it, you won't beleive your eyes.

 

Go to the detail section of the forum, and there's a great write-up step-by-step explaining this (How to detail your Crossfire). You will learn much from it.

 

Thx. I'll check it out. Things aren't as simple as they once were. So many products with 1,000 different names.

 

It's very difficult to screw this up. The most common mistakes are using too little lube and/or not wiping off the area you just worked.

 

Unfortunately there aren't any real hard and fast definitions for various terms in the auto detailing world. For example, Zaino calls most of their products "polish" but since most of those are used as the final protection step their definition seems a bit out of place.

Meguiar's uses the following definitions (and we've been doing so since long before Sal Zaino was born):

Wash: The removal of loose contanimants such as dirt, road grime, etc
Cleaning: As in "paint cleaning", the removal of bonded contaminants that are not removed during a routine wash. These include both bonded surface contaminants such as rail dust, tree sap, hard water mineral deposits, etc that are removed with a clay bar, and below surface defects such as fine swrils and scratches, etching from bird droppings and acid rain, dirt in paint, etc that are removed with either an abrasive or chemical cleaner.
Polish: The creation of a high gloss shine.


Washing is pretty self explanatory: a bucket, a hose, some car wash soap and a good wash mitt.

Cleaning is broken down into the clay bar treatment for all the stuff that makes the paint feel rough to the touch and the step that literally levels the paint to eliminate fine swirls, scratches, etc. Yes, in order to actually remove a swirl you have to remove some clear coat. Sounds scary, I know, but done properly it really isn't. Tests using coating thickness gauges have repeatedly shown that use of DA polisher and a light abrasive cleaner removes so small an amount of clear coat that it can't even be measured. Wet sanding and compounding are a different story, but that's best left to a pro. Do these two steps together and the paint will look incredible - super high gloss and incredibly smooth to the touch, but it will not be protected at all.

Polishes are essentially similar to a glaze - something that can hide fine swirls and buffer trails, which a body shop will inflict on your finish when they take a rotary buffer and wool pad to it just to bring up the shine of a fresh paint job. The problem is these products have a very short lifespan and are just intended to either hide minor defects (as in the case of a body shop) or add a level of depth and gloss to paint that has been fully cleaned as outlined above. We consider it to be an optional step when dealing with well prepped paint - our best known product of this sort is M07 Show Car Glaze. As the name implies it was designed with show cars in mind and it does an amazing job of darkening the paint and adding a very high gloss shine. But it won't last very long unless you apply a wax/sealant on top of it. It wasn't designed to last long, so keep that in mind.

We also make a broad range of cleaner polishes that are, as the name implies, a combination of paint cleaner and polish in one. The most common are M80 Speed Glaze and M83 Dual Action Cleaner Polish. M80 has more polishing oils in it than M83 does, while M83 has stronger cleaners. Both have the ability to actually remove swirl marks, not just hide them. When properly used you can wipe the surface with a 50/50 mix of water and alcohol to remove any traces of the product, and the swirls are gone - this proves they aren't just filling.

It should be noted that the paint on the Crossfire is extremely hard. Products and techniques I use regularly on my 2004 PT Cruiser to remove every single defect from the paint don't have a lot of impact on the Crossfire. I had to step up to a new product of ours - M105 Ultra Cut Compound. This requires a bit more advanced technique but the results are just amazing.

Keep in mind too that even before I started working for Meguiar's I had detailed all sorts of different cars, with a wide variety of finishes. Not all paint systems are created equal. I've been to numerous shows, recently including the Los Angeles Conours d'Elegance, and am always amazed at the amount of swirls in the paint on even multi-million dollar cars. Talking with the owners just confirms that many, many people simply don't know what they're looking at when evaluating paint. I've actually had people tell me that their process, whatever it might be, keeps their paint 100% swirl free, yet when we walk over to their mega-buck car sitting before the judges the swirls just about jump out and slap you in the face. We're rather picky at Meguiar's when it comes to truly defect free finishes. When I have to go out and select a handful of cars as candidtates for the "Best Paint" award at a show, and Barry Meguair himself is making the final call, I'd damn well better have a nearly perfect car for him to give the award to. And trust me on this, they are extremely hard to find.

 

PREP THE CLAY BAR...

I like to start by preping the clay bar. It is sometimes a bit hard, so to soften if up I roll it into a ball and then I spend 3-5 min. throwing it on to the cement repeatedly to soften it up a bit. You'll be able to tell when it is nice and soft when you throw it an it doesn't roll or bounce on the cement - or when there is a nice even patern of specs from the cement in the clay.


This is a joke!
LMAO

 

Sand works better than cement.

 

Man, you had me for minute there....talk about swirl marks...

 

Swirl marks?

It would look like my old copy of "Cheap Thrills" after a 30 person beer party!

 

Now that's funny I don't care who you are. You don't have much faith in the forum members in that you had to say it was a joke. I can just visualize some goober throwing his clay bar into the cement and then rubbing it on his paint. Kind of gives you chills like running fingernails down a chalkboard.

 

I just wanted to make sure - I'd feel bad if someone ruined their paint after reading