Please post questions to the forum...

[RSW21]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

What Is The Best Polish/glaze/wax For White German Paint?

[great adventure]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

Dear Mike,

I have painted ford pickup with copper metallic and clear coat.
Then sanding it with 1000, 2000 and used diamond cut 85 with wool pad.
Then speed glaze with foam pad
And the last step is 26 yellow wax...

the car is perfect and very shiny but i still can see

few scratches.. on the hood?? shall i re-sand and polish??

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

Dear Mike,

I have painted ford pickup with copper metallic and clear coat.
Then sanding it with 1000, 2000 and used diamond cut 85 with wool pad.
Then speed glaze with foam pad
And the last step is 26 yellow wax...

the car is perfect and very shiny but i still can see

few scratches.. on the hood?? shall i re-sand and polish??

If these are "Tracers", then you might try saning just the individual scratch out using a piece of sanding paper the size of a postage stamp and then buff out these sanding marks. This way you won't have to re-sand the entire truck.

Or you could re-compound the entire truck.

both options are a lot of work.


Also, check this thread out as it discusses this topic and the guy asking the questions is having the same problem as you're having and actually lives in the same country that you live in. What a coincidence!


Tracers or Swirls? Which one?

Click on the link and read through the thread, there are some helpful tips for removing swirls after the compounding step is finished.

[Antoine]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

Hi Mike,
Im driving a new car since 3 weeks.It's a BMW 320i color Black. I never realise black color is so prone to scratches and swirls. I had my new car washed couple of times and already I found a few swirls.
I bought a tube of Meguire scartchX but still hesitate to apply it to affected area on this new car.I'm affraid since the car is still new and may result in patches on trying to remove these light swirls .I'm also not familiar with these products. Can you give me some advises.

Best regards
Antoine

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

Hi Mike,
Im driving a new car since 3 weeks.It's a BMW 320i color Black. I never realise black color is so prone to scratches and swirls. I had my new car washed couple of times and already I found a few swirls.
I bought a tube of Meguire scartchX but still hesitate to apply it to affected area on this new car.I'm affraid since the car is still new and may result in patches on trying to remove these light swirls .I'm also not familiar with these products. Can you give me some advises.

Best regards
Antoine

Hi Antoine,

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

I know it can be confusing when you first joining a forum to know what to do or where to post a question, in the future it's best to start your own thread and post your questions in the

Detailing 101 Forum

As this is a thread asking people to post their questions to the forum and not send them to me in an e-mail. No big deal, it's just I can't move your post in this already established thread to the Detailing 101 forum.

Hi Mike,
Im driving a new car since 3 weeks.It's a BMW 320i color Black. I never realise black color is so prone to scratches and swirls. I had my new car washed couple of times and already I found a few swirls.

Can you give me some advises.

Best regards
Antoine

Yes. The first thing you have to do is to stop letting other people wash your car.

No one will ever care about your car as much as you will. The exceptions would be a few Professional Detailers scattered around the country and for these guys you'll have to pay top price even for a car wash.


Even the places like this,

100% Hand Car Wash

Can't be trusted because just because they wash your car by hand doesn't mean they're using a clean, high quality wash mitt. What are the chances that the wash mitts they use have been dropped on the ground? You know they use these mitts all day long, all week long, all month long.

Do you think they stop the wash process and get a new mitt every time they drop it? The answer is no, they pick it up and keep moving along.

Do you think that when you pull in they break out the new mitts, change their wash bucket water and use the high quality soap? Or do they just keep using the same mitt and wash water they used to wash the truck the came in before you?

Do you think they care that your car is brand new and special to you? Do they know you? How much do you think they are paid to wash cars? Is that enough to also make them care?

Maybe the first day or two...

Nope, if you don't want swirls in your car's finish you either have to search out a Professional Detailer that offers high quality car washing or take ownership of the process yourself.

Here's some stuff we've written about clear coat paint, the paint on your car that like so many people that have come before you, we're here to educate you about this thin, delicate film.


Clear coats finishes are what we call Scratch-Sensitive, that is although most clear coat paints are much harder than traditional single-stage paints, they still scratch very easily and because there is a solid color coat under the clear layer of paint, the swirls in the clear coat finish are very easy for our eyes to see.

These appearance of these unsightly swirls tends to bother serious enthusiasts and frustrate everyone when they try to remove them because of the "Paint Hardness Factor" common to most clear coats paints.

In a nutshell, the harder the paint, the more difficult it will be for you and I to remove the swirls and scratches, especially by hand because removing swirls and scratches, (below surface defects), means removing paint, more specifically, it means removing the upper layer of paint in an effort to level the entire surface until the highest or uppermost surface is level with the lowest depths of all the swirls and scratches. Because clear coat paints tend to be harder, not softer than traditional paints, removing small particles of paint with some type of paint cleaner or cleaner wax is difficult, even if you use the right technique and even if you're good at doing this, it's still a tough job.


As for removing the swirls in the finish of your BMW, there are a lot of threads on this topic in these two forums,

Hot Topics

Meguiar's How-To Articles


If you don't have a lot of experience applying chemicals to your car's paint and then properly working them to get the results you're hoping for then taking ScratchX to your car's black paint can seem a little daunting, it's not as bad as you think.

• The most important thing is to work clean, that is the car must be washed and clean before starting.
• Work in the shade on a cool surface
• Work a small section at a time, about a foot squared
• Apply the product to your applicator pad then spread it out and then work it against the paint using about 8-15 pounds of pressure and with a fairly fast hand movement. Clear coat paints tend to be hard and simply wiping a product on and then wiping the product off will do nothing. You have to put some passion behind the pad.
• After you work the product for a about a minute, stop and wipe the excess product off using a clean, microfiber polishing cloth and inspect.
• If it looks good or better then continue around the car overlapping into the previously worked section.
• If it looks worse, stop and be thankful you only worked a small area and come back here and post your results. The product works great, usually when there's a problem it has to do with how it's being applied not the chemical itself.

Another option would be to just wash and wax the car and live with it as dealing with swirls on clear coat finishes will alway be a problem and a challenge. Many people after owning a black car and not being into the "Detail Thing", will next purchase a white or silver metallic car so it's harder to see the swirls. (They're going to still be in the paint you just can't see them as easy).

If you're not going to take ownership of the washing process, or search out a quality place or person to wash the car for you then the next best thing you can do is either learn to live with the swirls or use a wax like NXT Tech Wax which has the ability to eliminate fine swirls and restore a showroom appearance to the paint.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but remember it's now our fault the car manufactures have all switched to clear coat paint technology, we just do our best to make products that enable you to be effective when you work on these types of paint.

The fun paints, or the easy to work on paints are the old-fashioned single stage paints like lacquer and enamel, the type of paints that came on cars in the 1950's and 1960's and even the early 1970's.

[MikeCS1]

A "How To" question

About 3.5 years ago, I bought a new set of Buick style Ralley wheels (black and chrome) for my '71 Buick. The car has not been a daily driver, I exercise it at least 1-to-4 times per month (depending on the weahter), except during Winter; it is garaged; my maint. regimen has included the use of Meguiar's products (such as Meguiar's "Nxt generation All Metal Polysh), and it has won trophies/awards at car shows; so of course I had thought the wheels were ok too, since they would be key to helping the car be such an award-winner. However, little "rust dots" have appeared on the outer half of the chrome on the wheel rims; not like "a coat of polka-dots", but "here & there" around the rims; and you almost have to sit down and look for them, but they are there, so they can be found. Therefore, I must ask how do I remove those "rust dots" from the chrome on those wheel rims, or is it already too late for anything short of a "professional"?

[d.mopar]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

Not guilty but i have called u becuase of someone needing to talk to u, yeah sorry about that, he has decided to not talk to me anymore.

[coolcat350z]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

HI yeah.. I was wondering if someone from the company can lead me to the right direction. But I was wondering or wanting to know who I need to talk to in finding out if they need a car in the Meguiar's both for certain shows in GA. I know DUB's car show will be in ATL on may 20th and Would like to get my car in the both or even for NOpi internationals in Sept! Would liek to talk to whomever!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

HI yeah.. I was wondering if someone from the company can lead me to the right direction. But I was wondering or wanting to know who I need to talk to in finding out if they need a car in the Meguiar's both for certain shows in GA. I know DUB's car show will be in ATL on may 20th and Would like to get my car in the both or even for NOpi internationals in Sept! Would liek to talk to whomever!

Sent you an e-mail with contact information.

[d.mopar]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

whish i could come to meguiars. i think ill meguiars up weathers dodge vehicles since thats alot closer being that i live in pa.

-maybe i can make deal with meguiars to send me products to use on there cars

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

Just had a gentlemen e-mail me the below

If you want can you give me the complete steps to follow beginning with the shampoo and all the steps i need to use to make my car beautiful.

While we would love to type up a book and e-mail it to people, the entire idea behind a public discussion forum and the power of the discussion forum is if a person posts their question on the forum, we can type up an answer and not only can they see it and learn from it, but there will be hundreds of people in the future, (likely thousands), that will have the same question and now... the benefit of the answer.

We'll e-mail him some links, but there is only so much "Typing Time" in each day that typing answers via e-mail is not a good leverage of time.

[aynardi]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

I hope I'm doing this right.
What is a good way to hand wash a car and wax/ polish it with minimal damage(swirls) to a single stage paint. Is Dawn dish soap o.k.? Turtle Wax? I'm serious. I've never had a car that I cared about until I got my 71 Dart Swinger painted Plumb Crazy purple.

[Murr1525]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

Welcome..

I am sure you are going to have quite a few questions about the whole process, the best thing would be to go to the Detailing 101 Forum and start a new thread, so you can keep all the info in one place.

But, to help start you off, here are some basic links that you should read to start getting the feel for Meguais products and techniques. And we'll look forward to your new thread, and maybe some pictues of your plumb crazy Dart.

Meguiar's 5-Step Paint Care Cycle

Step 1 Wash

Step 2 Clean

Step 3 Polish

Step 4 Protect

Step 5 Maintain

Suggested Products for Taking Care of a New Car

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

***Bump***

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Please post questions to the forum...

***Bump***


We do this after we check our e-mail and find we have lots of e-mails with questions...