Waxing my new truck for the first time

[father_ray]

I was reading the five step process do I have to clean the paint and then clay bar or can I clay bar and the clean the paint. Do I even have to do both can I just do one? Thanks,

[Carfire]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Welcome to Meguiars Online. I would clay for sure. The wax.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

What are you working on?
What condition is it in?

Usually you do things in this order as outlined in the 5-Step Paint Care Cycle,

Wash
Clay - If needed, if not then skip
Clean - If needed, if not then skip
Polish - Optional, you don't have to apply a pure polish\
Protect - Apply a coat of wax

You can tell if the paint needs to be clayed or cleaned by evaluating the condition of the surface after you wash and dry the car.

Clay - Feel the clean paint with your clean hand,if it feels smooth like glass you don't need to clay it. If the truck is a daily driver and is parked outside for any length of time has NOT been clayed in at least a few months then you probably need to clay it.

Clean - Look at the paint in bright light like sunlight or good florescent lighting and look for swirls, scratches, stains and etchings, if discovered and if you don't want these kind of defects in the paint then you need to use a paint cleaner to remove a little paint as that's how you remove these types of defects.

If the paint on your truck is like the paint on a brand new truck that is it is smooth as new glass and beautifully to look at then you can simply wash and wax the paint.

What you do to any vehicles paint is determined by the surface evaluation and your car care goals.

Lots of people are happy to wash their car or truck and then use a cleaner/wax like ColorX on it which will clean, polish and protect in one step. Then they can get back to their other duties in life.

[yalerd]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

I was reading the five step process do I have to clean the paint and then clay bar or can I clay bar and the clean the paint. Do I even have to do both can I just do one? Thanks,

The process would be Clay and then use a Paint Cleaner.

You'll have to evaluate your paint and feel it to see if you'll need to use both.
Wash your car first and when you've removed all loose contaminants then feel your paint, if it's rough then yes you should clay, if it's soft than no.

If you are doing a full detail I would recommend claying, it doesn't hurt the paint to do it

[father_ray]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Thanks for the replys. My truck is about 1 year and 9 months old. It looks very nice and shiny still but when you get up close you can see swirl marks and an orb. It is outside 24/7 my wife has the garage. My truck came with a free year to the wash tub and I think that was a big mistake. I will let you all know how it comes out. One other question if I clean the paint do I have to clean the entire truck or just certain where there are swirl marks etc......Does the same apply to claying the truck?

[Murr1525]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Definitely clay everywhere.

You can do a mild overall paint cleaning to remove dirt, but removing swirls by hand takes a fair bit more effort.

Just let us know what your goals are with the cleaning step, as far as swirl removal, etc goes. To remove swirls, it may be easier to wait until some of these new products start coming available.

[akimel]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Hi, Father Ray. I agree with Mat (Murr1525) that you may want to wait for the new products (SwirlX, ScratchX, and Ultimate Compound) to become available in early 2009. Working by hand to remove swirls and scratches is a bear, and the new products will apparently make this work considerably easier. But in the meantime, there's no reason why you could not go ahead and wash and clay your car and then apply a coat of ColorX, which is a cleaner-wax combination. It's a great product, easy to use, available at your local auto store, and will bring some real improvement to your paint surface. And to really make it shine, then top it with a coat of NXT. --Al

[father_ray]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Definitely clay everywhere.

You can do a mild overall paint cleaning to remove dirt, but removing swirls by hand takes a fair bit more effort.

Just let us know what your goals are with the cleaning step, as far as swirl removal, etc goes. To remove swirls, it may be easier to wait until some of these new products start coming available.

Well I wash my truck on a regular basis it was brand new when i bought and its about 1 year and 9 months old. I have never waxed it. I never really paid attention to how smooth the surface was I know there has to be some kind of rough spots because on my way to work i go by some pretty dusty areas. Basically my goals are just to keep the shine it has right now and it is pretty shiny but you can see swirl marks when you get closer to it because I had a membership to a car when i bought my truck and think their use of dirty rags wasn't good for the truck. Thanks

[akimel]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Ray, if you want to preserve your truck's current shine, then you will need to adopt a regular regimen of waxing. You need to keep your paint protected. The trick is to keep the regimen as simple as possible, so it doesn't become over-burdensome. The simplest method is to use either Cleaner Wax or ColorX every couple of months. Both of them will clean amd polish the paint and leave behind a layer of wax; in other words, they are all-in-one products. So pick up a bottle of one or the other and try it out on your truck. I think you will be very pleased. For even more durable protection, then apply a coat of NXT on top.

If you still want to try to eliminate the swirls, pick up the new products when they become available. But regardless, start the waxing regimen now. --Al

[Murr1525]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

An easy detail that covers all the steps would be:

1. Wash - Good soap, 2 bucekts, etc.
2. Clay
3. ColorX
4. Nxt 2.0

Then, as mentioned, when some of the new prodicts come out, you can tackle the swirls panel by panel over a few days if wanted.

[father_ray]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Thanks for all your replies I will keep you posted!

[father_ray]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Well I did it and it took me about five hours to do. The process I used was wash, clay and used color x. I was amazed with the clay bar and how smooth it made my finish and to find out how rough the surface was. Thanks for all the advice I had pics but stupid me erased them by accident they were pretty good can't believe I did that. I will try to take some more tomorrow. By the way can you wash the next day? I went out last night and some idiot created a big dust ball and I woke up in the morning and my truck was covered in dust. Thanks

[Murr1525]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

You can wash if you want, or let the weather mess your car up a bit, then wash it.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Waxing my new truck for the first time

Congrats, glad it all worked out for you. Sorry to hear about the idiot and the dustball. You could wash if you wanted to.