I'm sure the subject of claying has been done to death.. However, I have a few questions.

Firstly, my car looks fairly shiny right now. I can't imagine what it would be like after claying? It's a 2003 car, so must benefit from it?
What can I expect to achieve from doing it, if anything?

How often should it be done? I mean, if I do it next week, will it go back to how it was before after a few weeks, or will the benefit live on?

And also, I've always had best results from Autoglym products, so tend to buy their stuff for everything. Is their clay a safe bet?

Thanks in advance for any tips or pointers! If I decide to do it, I'll watch plenty of videos first

lightly rub fingers over paint before, then clay a bit and rub fingers over that,

So presumably that'll result in it looking better/shinier/reflectiv-er?
Don't want to have to say to people "stroke my car!"

It'll remove impurities. Do what Dave says and you'll both feel and hear the impurities before claying, when done properly you can rub your hand over it and it'll be silent and smooth like glass

Get a good few layers of wax / sealant on it after and you'll only need to clay once a year IMO.

because its smoother then when you polish and seal it after the results will not just be better but should last a lot longer as all the rough bits dirt sticks too will have gone.

Sounds good! That's enough encouragement for me - the autoglym stuff should be as good as any?

I'll pickup some decent autoglym wax too.
So wash, dry, clay, wax?

I've got a week off next week, so will hope for a dry day to do it

wash with 2 buckets and mit no sponge. pat dry with micro fibre drying towel, clay, polish, then wax or sealant, on a dark car i prefer modern sealants to wax, some thing simple like megs nxt2, if you are flush top that off with ag egp all available from halfords, drying towels from asda.

Edit looks like halfords have the 3 for 2 deal on again

Wash with or without shampoo?

I'll check out the different waxes and sealants.
I've always used turtle colour magic polish before, but for this procedure I'm tempted to get something like the autoglym resin polish.
I guess I'm just always worried that normal white polish might get in any small scratches. I'll just be careful.

This is what I'll go for:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/...gId=-1&productId=764457_en_gb&catalogId=10151

Although to be confusing, what they include as a "sealer" is actually called a polish

Reading around (on detailing world especially), it looks like Clay > Super Resin Polish > Extra Gloss Protection is a good choice.

penguinpaul said:

This is what I'll go for:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/...gId=-1&productId=764457_en_gb&catalogId=10151

Although to be confusing, what they include as a "sealer" is actually called a polish

Click to expand...

srp is a polish there is no sealer in that kit, as its 3 for 2 you can buy some nice shampoo (not wash n wax) and a sealer too

i like this http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/..._productId_201873_langId_-1_categoryId_165682

Yeh, I saw that Clay > SRP > Extra Gloss Protection is a good idea.

On that 3 for 2, I might get the Clay kit, some EGP, and some of that Shampoo. My Autoglym shampoo is just about out, and I'm happy to try others if you've had good results from it.

Will also need some microfibre cloths, and some brake pads for my push bike.

Trip to halfords coming up this weekend

asda do kent microfibre cloths about £2 for 5.

carefull if buying lots of stuff from halfords as its cheapest free, so may be worth going in and out a few times to get the best deal buying the 3 most expencive things first, then nest 3 and so on, may also work out a better deal buying the things in the kit seperate

penguinpaul said:

Yeh, I saw that Clay > SRP > Extra Gloss Protection is a good idea.

On that 3 for 2, I might get the Clay kit, some EGP, and some of that Shampoo. My Autoglym shampoo is just about out, and I'm happy to try others if you've had good results from it.

Will also need some microfibre cloths, and some brake pads for my push bike.

Trip to halfords coming up this weekend

Click to expand...

I tend to use CarPlan Triplewax shampoo http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/..._productId_721259_langId_-1_categoryId_165682
and get very good results. However at the moment I'm using Tesco car shampoo (in the red bottle) and that seems fine too. Personally I don't spend too much on the shampoo because to me they all give more or less the same finish. Now when it comes to polishes that's when I'd rather buy decent stuff, I also use Autoglym Super Resin Polish. I am also going the same route as you Paul and apply the Extra Gloss Protection after using Super Resin


Phil

ooo there is more to shampoo than that, ones with wax leave a horrible film on winscreen that makes them smear in the rain if not cleaned off. some others are too harsh and take off all your wax/sealant.

I tend to find different shampoos work differently for me.
Perhaps it's because I live in Cornwall, and there are lots of back roads that it gets dirty on.
The autoglym shampoo & conditioner I've been using recently works well - removes a lot without too much effort.

Well, I spent 7 hours solid outside today, cleaning the Stilo.
Washed, dried, clayed, polished and then waxed.

Used Autoglym shampoo and autoglym clay.
I tried the Super Resin Polish and didn't find it very good at all. Ended up using my Turtle colour magic polish instead.
I've heard that SRP is good for light coloured cars, so perhaps because mine is a dark colour, it didn't work as well.
Used autoglym extra gloss protector wax.

The clay got a lot off - but to be honest it didn't make a lot of visible difference. It feels smooth now, and the clay got quite dirty by the end, but it doesn't look that different. (I always keep it well polished)

I'm sure it was worth doing once, but I won't be bothering with it again.

In the future I think I'm going to try Ultra Deep Shine, which is meant to be great on darker cars.
Maybe the claying would have looked better if I'd used this one today.

Did the EGP make an improvement to the shine Paul?

Phil

I think so - my car has always been very shiny anyway (perhaps I clean it too much!), but it is very glassy.
I have read that some people like to build up a couple of layers, so I'll continue tomorrow with it.

It's fairly easy to work with, which is an added bonus.

Autoglym gear is absolute pants,
I mean really bad,
If you want crazy finish, then use zymol wash, then claybar, (I don't use the lube just zymol wash) then leather Chamis (best dryer in the world) then zymol cleaner wax will give you a mind blowing finish.
I've tried A LOT of wash's and waxes and just washing your car with zymol wash gives a better lasting finish than the best Autoglym polish.
Zymol stuff is the best in the world, and the best I've found in 20years,

I've found Autoglym stuff to be the best I've tried so far - out of the normal stuff that's easy to get (Meguires etc).
I'll have a look into the Zymol stuff, but whenever I've seen it mentioned online, everyone says it's overpriced and overrated - hence not having looked at it yet.