What to use for ongoing maintenance Silver BMW X5?

[cdmc]

Hi,

I have been reading through the forums quite a bit and have found a plethera of information about cleaning up, detailing, and removing swirls, but not so much on pure maintainence for the guy like me that doesn't want to detail once a month. Here is my situation.

I have (wife's actually) a 2001 X5 that is silver. We are located in the San Francisco Bay are so it never sees snow or salt. The car gets driven about 500 miles a month and the rest of the time, it sits in the garage. It gets washed about 1 time a month as it really doesn't get dirty any faster than that.

I have a PC and decent detail skills, but don't have the time to be detailing every weekend. For someone that wants to keep the car looking nice but only detail once every three months, what will work well, preferably a one step? Here were the things I considered:

1) Number 9, followed by #21 or wax, but don't want to do two steps.

2) #20, but can that be used as a one step product for a finish that is good?

3) Gold Glass Wax. I am still unsure how this is different than #20 or NXT, but have seen comments about it having some polish.

Any tips, suggestions?

Thanks

Cary

[Murr1525]

Well, you are kind of combining ideas of 'maintaining' and 'quick detailing'.

For maintenace, you can wash and use a spray wax afterwards.

How to Get Great Results Using Meguiar's Spray Waxes

Now, for actual quick detailing, you could do some of your ideas:

#20 isnt quite a 'cleaner/wax', but it does have stronger cleaners than other waxes, so is good for a 1-step detail. Now, you could just do one coat of wax, or top it, etc.

Or you could use an actual cleaner/wax like #66 if you need stronger cleaning ability, and then again you have the option of topping it.

Have you tried using the spray-waxes at all yet (Quick Wax or Nxt Spray Wax)? If you havent, I would try washing every 3-4 weeks, and spray wax after each wash, and see if it keeps your finish up to where you like, and if not, then try other cleaners, waxes, etc.

[cdmc]

Looking at the spray wax, the difference in time to me between using one of those and just waxing seems minimal.

Does anyone know how Gold Class Liquid and #20 compare in terms of polishing/cleaning and durability?

Thanks

Cary

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by cdmc
Looking at the spray wax, the difference in time to me between using one of those and just waxing seems minimal.

Getting good results and cutting down the time required to apply and remove a spray-on wax is a learned technique.

Originally posted by cdmc
Does anyone know how Gold Class Liquid and #20 compare in terms of polishing/cleaning and durability?

Thanks

Cary

M20 is a Polymer Sealant with a light cleaner for use by professionals in our Professional Line, while Gold Class is a polish/wax in our Consumer Line. they are both quite different products.

If you don't wax very often, you can use the cleaning ability of the M20 to your advantage to help clean your cars paint when you do wax. If you maintain your car's finish on a regular basis, you might enjoy the gloss and shine you'll get with the Gold Class Wax.

[cdmc]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips

If you don't wax very often, you can use the cleaning ability of the M20 to your advantage to help clean your cars paint when you do wax. If you maintain your car's finish on a regular basis, you might enjoy the gloss and shine you'll get with the Gold Class Wax.

Thanks for the response, but it really doesn't answer my original question. Given my fact situation (set forth above in my first post), which would be more appropriate for my conditions, ongoing time availability, equipment?

If you are detailing once a quarter, is it expected that you would have to use something like #80 every time to clean up the paint, or is #9 sufficient, or would using Gold Class along be enough? It seems to me that using something like #80 every quarter or more often so would wear through the paint in a few years.

Will either #20 or Gold Class last 3 months?

What do you define as "maintaining your car's finish on a regular basis"? Once a week, once a month, once a quarter, once a year?

The information I have found talks a great deal about doing a full detail from scratch but gives little guidance about what is required on an ongoing basis, especially for those of us that don't have time to be out detailing our cars every weekend or month.

Finally, to me at least the term professional is really a misnomer, and for purposes of my question, it is irrelevant if #20 is a "professional" product or retail product. In my geographic area, it seems most of the "professional" detailers, don't know **** about what they are using, or care about the long term effects of using overly agressive products on someone's car. I have over the years tried 3 different shops that were considered the best in the area, and each time I was out $200+ for a detail that wasn't as good as I do myself. In fact the last shop that does 5+ cars a day in 3 bays, succeeded to burn through the paint on a black porsche I took in, both rear fenders, the edges of the decklid, the gas cap. They thought I wouldn't notice the 3" bright white circles when I picked up the car and then actually insisted I pay them before they would release the car. To say the least, that finished me off on "professionals." I know there are some great detailers out there, but I have not found them in may area. There was one about 15 years ago, but they charged $300-350 for a detail, did incredible work, but went out of business because people wouldn't pay that much.