Waxing?

Meguiar's Ultimate Quik Wax

 

A good synthetic sealant lasts 4-6 months, a good carnauba wax lasts about a month or two. The stuff that came with the car probably lasts around a month. Like most things related to modifying or maintaining your car, how good of a result you get depends on how much money you are willing to spend on it.

Ask ten car fanatics what is the "best" way to protect your paint and keep a deep shine and you will probably get ten different answers. Personally I have tried Mothers, Zaino, Meguires, 3M, usually I check the online stores and sort by "most popular.". I couldn't really tell the difference in appearance from one brand to another, probably because the good expensive brands are quite close in terms of quality, but I do have a favorite based on a different criteria: durability. I mean if its going to look the same i would rather wax my car once a year than once a month.

Sealants last forever. My personal favorites and perhaps good starting points for your research, are Klasse and Pinnacle products. The ideal procedure, at least my ideal procedure, is to completely remove anything sitting on your clearcoat with dawn dish detergent and a good clay bar. Get rid of the factory wax, tar, road pollutants, etc etc. Then start with klasse all in one polish, a layer of klasse sealant, several layers of pinnacle carnauba wax, and top it all off with some pinnacle detail spray. It's a full day job but well worth it if you are serious about wax. The carnauba wears off over time so you need to reapply that maybe every other month. But the sealant will always be protecting your paint. You can probably get away with just redoing sealant on high exposure areas like hood and front bumper once a year.

 

It depends on how much money and work you want to put into it, and what the car is exposed to on a daily basis. For mild conditions and parked in a garage when you're not driving, a quality spray on, wipe off wax is fine for a nice shine. If you want some really good protection and a long lasting shine you can't go wrong with the Zaino products!

 

Honda aresol spray cleaner, polish, wax. This wax is only sold in Honda motorcycle stores. It goes on light and easy and leaves a showroom shine. It can be sprayed on sparingly and lightly buffed with a mircro fiber or terry cloth towel. I first used it when I owned a Honda motorcycle and still use it on my BMW. I think its like 6.00 a can.

I use nothing else. And it works fantastic if you have had XPEL paint protection added to the front of your car. I have been using this on my cars, trucks, and motorcycles since 1999. For what its worth....

 

If you want to experience fanaticism, go to a site like Autopia Forums - Auto Detailing & Car Discussion Forum and read a few threads about the 'best' products to use and how to use them.

Professionals who want the 'perfect' deep, wet look will tell you that polishing is the most important step. They may use a series of polishes with diminishing abrasiveness to arrive at a flawless surface. That surface is then coated with a polymer sealant or wax, or both as suggested above. Debate rages on about what the 'best' products are.

After that, how one washes the car becomes the most important aspect of properly caring for the surface. I drive by a DIY car wash everyday and see people using those foam brushes on their cars, you know, the ones that have just been in some off-roaders wheel wells. Improper washing - any method that rubs the surface dirt around on the clear coat - does more harm than anything else. Learn how to clean the surface before polishing or sealing or waxing.

I washed and used a clay bar within the first week. Since my car had not sat anywhere and was protected during shipment, there was hardly any contamination to remove with the clay. It did come with a scratch in the clear that I pointed out to the dealer at delivery and they offered to repair. I don't really like other folks messing with my car. I was able to polish it out with a wool pad and Meguiar's 105 ultra-cut and then moved to foam pads and a couple of fine polishes from Menzerna. After an isopropyl alcohol cleaning, I just put on a WOWA (wipe on walk away) polymer sealant. I have found Optimum Opti-Seal to be a very good product that provides months of protection at a reasonable price. My personal experience is that applying a carnauba wax on top of that is more trouble than it is worth.

I do have to disagree with someone above who stated that you get what you pay for. In this business there is an enormous amount of hype. For example, a really, really good carnauba can be had for about $5 an ounce. Then there is something like this: World's Most Expensive Car Wax

So learn a proper washing routine, polish when needed (I enjoy this, so I do it more often) protect with a solid product and enjoy the fruit of your efforts.

Almost Disguised | PriusChat

Some shots of my old genII prius, which I polished a lot.

 

Do you have to repeat the whole procedure outlined above? Like washing off all the sealant with dish soap, using clay bar, etc? Or simply just reapply sealant?