Mild vs Aggressive clay.

[Zuke]

I just ordered some more mild clay from ADS, who uses the Aggressive clay, and if so how often and for what types of surfaces? For tar, brake dust? Does it have a lot more grab than the mild?

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Mild vs Aggressive clay.

I have heard that the aggressive clay can cause micro-marring. I like the mild clay. Comes in a larger bar then the consumer clay. I use last touch diluted 1:1 for the lube. Works great for me.

Good luck with it.

[john m.]

Re: Mild vs Aggressive clay.

The mild clay is great stuff you will love it! And on the aggressive, you really will not need it unless you are starting up a business and even then probably wont use it much. Like J.A. said it will cause some marring, and I would only use it if the car was had tons of fallout and contaminents embeded in the paint and didnt want to take the extra time to use the mild. In the majority of cars you come across the mild blue clay will work fine

[Zuke]

Re: Mild vs Aggressive clay.

I have already gone thru a bar of the mild and one from the smooth surface kit, i really enjoyed the mild. Just was wondering how many out there use the agressive, and how aggressive it is.

[john m.]

Re: Mild vs Aggressive clay.

I know Nick Chapman has some aggressive thats how I found out about it but ive never seen him use it the few times ive worked with him. Hopefully he will see this and chime in his thoughts on it. Or Mike will see it and blow us away with lots of information

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Mild vs Aggressive clay.

Here's a couple older threads on this topic...

Differences between Meguiar's Clay Bars?
Difference between Meguiar's clay


Aggressive clay will remove above surface bonded contaminants faster but there's the potential to haze or mar the paint due to the more aggressive characteristics of the clay.

The philosophy,

"Use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

also applies to claying.

[the other pc]

Re: Mild vs Aggressive clay.

We were working on a car with horrendous bonded contaminants last week. The white, mild clay worked but it was really slow going.

The paint was old, white single stage and very hard. I was also seriously hammered. To get the scratches out we kept stepping up the aggressiveness to find what would work and ended up rotary compounding with a wool pad.

Since it needed rotary buffing anyway we figured we didn’t care if we induced a little hazing with the clay. We went ahead and tried the red clay. It worked great, waaaaay more effective on the nasty gunk that was all over the car.


pc.

[Markus Kleis]

Re: Mild vs Aggressive clay.

Like PC mentioned, if you are going to follow with extensive polishing anyway than causing some marring may not be an issue. BUT, also keep in mind it's fairly easy to cause marring but not have the right light to see the marring, and thus one needs to be EXTRA careful not to do a small test spot in poor lighting thinking they are not marring and then proceed to mar the whole car.

When you test the clay, test several sources of light too!

[oldmodman]

Re: Mild vs Aggressive clay.

I use both the mild Blue Clay Magic clay and the aggressive red Clay Magic clay.
If I am going to be working on a car that has never been properly detailed. I wash, red clay, wash, and then feel the paint for "crud". If it feels smooth then I start the correction with a rotary and either 105 or SIP. Either one will remove any marring that was added by the red clay. And either one will generally take care of the swirls and small scratches that were there to begin with.
I only use mild clay if the car has been clayed before and the paint is still in excellent condition. And will not require either 105 or SIP.