New at this and a few ?

[MTS44]

Glad to have found a producer of car care products with such an informative site.

Wife bought me a 2005 Dodge Ram for Christmas. Used the car wash every week due to the snow just to keep the salt off. Finally was able to hand wash it today and noticed swirl marks mostly on the cab area.

It is red and would like to clean it up real good. I have looked over the site but hoping someone can lay out a plan for me. I will be doing this by hand not enough money for power equipment yet. Would like to get it back to a real reflective deep wet look.

Thanks for the help !

[sneek]

Re: New at this and a few ?

First off
to MOL

Congrats on the new truck! Thats a pretty awesome present!

here are some good links

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

How to Avoid Swirls and Holograms?

How To Remove Swirls By Hand

How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX

How to tell when a Meguiar's wax is ready to remove - The Swipe Test

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: New at this and a few ?

to mol. read those links that sneek listed for you and your well on your way to a show car shine.

[Murr1525]

Re: New at this and a few ?

It may have been the car wash that added a lot of the swirls and dullness to the paint, so you might not want to go back there.

Even just the strong soaps they use will take the wax right off, never mind the spinning brushes, or dirty cloths, filthy water...

And surprisingly, a few drops from a sprinkler system will usualy do more damage in a few days than salty/dirt left on few a few weeks.

[MTS44]

Re: New at this and a few ?

Thanks for the info. The links helped.

It was a pressure wand car wash. The swirls were most likely already in there. The next day after I got the truck before I could really look it overe good we got ice then snow and on and on. SO the roads were almost always covered in salt.

Well when I get a free weekend I know what I will be doing. In the mean time I will just use a wax cleaner after washing for protection.

One question. Given time constraints would it be ok to work one section at a time ? Such as the hood one week and so on ? Get it to the point everything is taken care off so as to just need a wash and wax.

[TrufflePig]

Re: New at this and a few ?

yes it can be done one section at a time, BUT you have to wash that section or the section your working on EACH TIME and CLAY IT before you do anything.

personally, i'd book off one whole day or start late in the afternoon and do half the car then, and then take the rest of the day off and finish it off the next day.

the whole idea of doing one panel at a time and then allowing it to get dirty and then doing the next panel means that the first panel might be 4 weeks dirtier than the last panel? that make sense?