Sealant and wax is pretty much the same in lifespan tbh

I use triplewax shampoo on my white GPS, which is great for removing pretty much all the crap that accumulates from high speed driving.

Follow this with spray on Demon shine...hey presto, looks the dogs with minimal effort.

Forget polishing unless your paint is weathered, all your doing is wearing the top coat away.

And use a Kent wash mitt, lifts up the dirt when shampooing better than anything else I've tried... Also an autoexpress best buy!

With hand polishing? Nah wont really have any effect on the clearcoat. Most polishes just consist of fillers anyway with minimal abrasives in. Only time you have to worry about clear coat is if you are machine polishing it every 6 months or less as you will go through it quickly then.

punto_matt said:

With hand polishing? Nah wont really have any effect on the clearcoat. Most polishes just consist of fillers anyway with minimal abrasives in. Only time you have to worry about clear coat is if you are machine polishing it every 6 months or less as you will go through it quickly then.

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On new paint you don't need polish, end of. All polish contains abrasive material which will wear your paint away. My car has a great gloss finish so wash and wax does the job.

Each to there own but I know what works on my WHITE car.

I disagree but i cba to argue. Yes it does contain abrasive but nothing harsh enough to make a massive difference to polishing clear coat away. White hids swirls and scratches very well so yeah a wash and wax probably does do it fine if you arent looking up close in lots of detail. Black car like mine however completely different story. If i used your washing technique/ methods my paint would be buggered.

No swirls in my paint, that never happens if you're careful, use the right tools and use "two bucket" approach.

Agreed, black is much harder to keep looking good.

Had a black C2 GT absolute nightmare to keep clean. Looks great after a good clean and wax but there's no way I'd have black again, the paint was like glass, the slightest bit of grit etc shattered the paintwork and any imperfection is magnified, slightest scratch or swirl is painfully obvious. Also looked dirtier quicker than any other colour imo.

It happens how ever you clean it. My paint was perfect, machine polished when it was 3 weeks old, 2 bucket method wash mitt for upper half, one for lower, one for wheels still got minor swirls. White does hide imperfections when just looking in normal light purely because there is no depth to the paint to show them up like there is in black cars

Like so: https://www.fiatforum.com/grande-punto/153643-t-jet-detail.html


Just after clean yeah there is reflection but after machine polishing it there is loads more depth in the paint work

Polish may contain abrasives however mild as well as petroleum distilates.
Wax is none abrasive and the purer the wax the better.

The old Simoniz hard wax was real good stuff but very hard work.

Yeah but wax just protects and wont fill swirls so you need to polish before waxing if your paint has defects.

punto_matt said:

Yeah but wax just protects and wont fill swirls so you need to polish before waxing if your paint has defects.

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Agreed With Zymol that is what the HD cleanser does. It's just a milder form of claying but prepares the surface for waxing.

I cba with zymol personally. No question its good but i dont see the point in spending more than £30-40 on a pot of wax when the majority of the work done to get the paint looking good is done by polishing with wax just protecting it.

sonax is great..i'm using sonax..

personally go for the full lot i would clay the car though to remove any sh*te from the paint--> re-wash-->Polish (SRP on a an applicator small amount at a time worked well to avoid dusting)-->a glaze might be an idea here (something like Poorboys White Diamond)-->Sealent (i find sealents and after reading DW find this best for light colours) (personally FK1000p (Alex at Serious Performance is the only stockist in the UK for this 23 quid for a huge tin delivered)--> wax (this is a minefield tbh,i agree with Matt on what he's said alot of the waxes its all in ur head the only real way of improving paint is in the polishing/glazing stages) sealents and waxes are just saraficial layers....its sort of like thhe guy who polishes it really well and has a 20 quid wax and the guy who has zymol vintage or whatever, hand on heart the 20 quid one would probably look alot better....i admit to owning BOS but that is mostly because i enjoy applying it more than anything....

as for DW i agree some of them have very very close ties with X/Y/ Beany bot i thought the responses you got on your thread on DW were awful, i was somewhat disappointed in the replies you got from certain members of DW....the few i have met have been fine although on some occ. i admit there are a few a holes on there....

sorry for the long reply....

Shropshire_lad said:

On new paint you don't need polish, end of.

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LOL @ that comment.

Tris Harris said:

LOL @ that comment.

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:doh:


It probably doesn't tris its a new car init......


Even though its probably been sat in several car compounds between Italy and here picked up various contaminates from the metallic brake dust from rail transport industrial fall out from the docks which is then lovingly rubbed into the car by the Satuday YTS car cleaner at the dealership with a black sponge and half a bucket of water thats been used to "clean" 10 other cars including a 4x4 thats been stuck in a ploughed field

oh and thats for walking in the stealers first thing i see a hideous swirl mark..and RDS im thinking wtf...3 miles on the clock...i dont wanna be the owner of that...

Ninja59 said:

oh and thats for walking in the stealers first thing i see a hideous swirl mark..and RDS im thinking wtf...3 miles on the clock...i dont wanna be the owner of that...

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should have seen the look on some pompus salesman's face when i was aimlessly walking round a shopping center in york whilst the lass i was with was walking round the same cloths shops for a 2nd time in the centre atrium there was a couple of big Jeep Compasses both in black.....

the chap saw me looking and started on his sales patter

(baring in mind these must have come on a low loader and they still had the paint lines on the tire treads, the paint was absolutely mullered as you say swirl's and RDS's and what looked like hoograms on the roof (wasn't polish/ wax residue i swiped my finger over it)

told him in no uncertain terms i wouldn't buy a push bike off them if this is how they prep a car

hehehe

Blimey this thread has become a bit wild with all kinds of different recommendations, some basic principles as already suggested early on. Clean with some sort of wash product, a polish and then wax/sealant for protection. If you want to take it a step further then using a clay to remove the ingrained particles which aren't removed when clean normally.

You can't go too wrong with the Autoglym products line not too expensive but good quality and would recommend super resin polish for the polish step and extra gloss protection for the wax sealant section. I hear they've also just started selling a clay. Get yourself down to halfords for the 3 for 2 offers they always have on.

Clearly there are loads of other makes and products I could recommend but can't be bothered to suggest anything else as they all do pretty much the same thing and the latest must have product is only just a step away, punto_matt hit the nail on the head about hyping up products on detailing world.