My ride is a Boxster S. It's in pretty good nick and I give it two serious cleans a year - once before winter, and once before summer. By serious, I mean decent wash, polish, 2 top coats of Zymol wax etc. However, I keep it outside.

Last weekend was my wedding anniversary and my wife bought be a Meguiars DA polisher as a present. This was amazing, though I was very apprehensive at first. Marks I thought were ingrained (bird ****e stains which has stained, cat scratches etc) I lifted out with a bit of effort using Poorboy's black polish (can't remember the name) and the DA. The polish wasn't great, it doesn't have enough kick and it fills scratches more than remove them evidently (ok for me in this scenario though).

However, what amazed me, was the clay bar I used for the first time ever (again Meguiars). I followed the instructions to the letter and wow - did I re move a lot of contaminants! I couldn't believe that a well maintained car, that had just been washed and dried, would have so much crap on the surface. I've seen pics online before from people who have shown their 'before and after' clay bar pics, and I'd say mine was worse even than that for the amount of dirt lifted!

However, whilst I didn't remove all previous swirl marks yesterday (it was my first time using the DA method), I do now have a brilliant finish on the old porker and am now a clay bar convert (and power polish) for sure. Next time, I'll use a different polish and will finish with a finishing polish as well.

Polished Bliss guide to using the DA was brilliant though and gave me a great deal more confidence than I'd otherwise have had...


R

 

Try having a 21 year old French bucket

First time I clayed my 205 GTi, it took nearly 3 hours to totally decontaminise it But afterwards the paint was ridiculously smoooooth and prime for a good ol' hand polish and top coat of wax sealant.

I'm currently building up the confidence to purchase a machine polisher and attack the paintwork on the Pug. My biggest fear is burning or damaging the paint beyond repair, oh and having no money

 

I went for a cheap orbital sander for this exact reason.
It does not have enough grunt to burn but it does have enough to get the product working.

If you have some spare time check this thread, I went for the silverline mentioned in it:

Alternative Random Orbital Polishers - Detailing World

 

Ooooh... will have a read on that later

 

I've just got a clay bar, done the bonnet and passengers wing(doing the rest tomorrow!), can't believe how smooth it is! I thought my paint was pretty good too!

 

To be honest, I was ****ting myself as well when I had to first put the pad onto the bootlid of the Porsche. I remember as a teenager polishing through (by hand) the paint of my then, Ford Capri. I read though that a DA removes just a mere percentage of a micron of paint, so unless you dwell in one area for too long, you should be fine. As I say, the Polished Bliss guide from some time ago (adapted from Scoobypaint) was spot on - remember to prime the pad and the bodywork, and if anything I probably went OTT on this. I also got the Mrs to buy the Meguiars DA as it had good write-ups of it's ease of use, and it was to be fair, pretty easy.

But the clay - yeah - you could actually feel the 'after' affects, and it did become, like they said, as smooth as glass, it really was quite amazing.


R

 

Always great to hear about people getting on well with new products and methods - I'm glad you braved up and had a go, and I'm also glad the advice helped out too. Later this year when our new brand image and website is finished and released, there will be lots of HD video guides to take the advice to the next level and beyond. Watch this space, and keep up the good work!