Originally Posted by dazco
Well, i already bought the TW platinum, but heres another couple questions.......
1)-i really don't want to clay this car because i don't like using abrasives (which clay does become unless you throw them away fairly quickly, which is expensive at $20 a pop) on a dark finish. So what is the next best thing as far as liquids go to get rid of contaminents w/o being abrasive?
2)-whats a good detailer liquid for in between waxes? I've used mothers and it worked good, but is there anything cheaper thats as good? (i just go thru that stuff too fast to be economical)
Oh, and again, this is a brand new accord that i've only had about a week.
I like Eagle One Wax As You Dry after washing (you can dilute it 3 parts water to 1 part solution too).
The turtle wax platinum series QD is suppose to be good too.
As for the clay question: No chemical cleaner will even begin to touch the contamination as well as clay can. Chemical cleaners are meant to clean oxidation and paint imperfections: not contamination. Most of them contain light abrassives anyway (it's probably just as safe as when you rum some of the dir against the car while washing...so I don't know why there's a concern over using light abrassives anyway).
Why, you're in luck.
First the paint needs to be sprayed with a small amount of clay lube (i mix a drop of car shampoo into 32oz of water and it works great!)
Then you take the clay and form a wafer
Using the wafer you work in a straight line motion in the direction of air and water flow on the panel:
Once the clay gets dirty, it needs to be folded and restretched into a clean wafer so as not to drag larger contaminants across the paint causing more scratches and swirls.
if it looks like this, it is dirty
Wipe off the excess clay lube and move on.
If you keep refolding the clay you will be fine. Yes it gets gritty--then you throw it out and get a new one. You can cut one in half--I do it all the time. A half of a clay bar is more then enough to do one car (i've done 3 with the same bar before putting it in a bag and only using it for wheels).
