How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

[sobhark]

I'm having a Honda Jazz, a white one of course....
Anyone have any tips of making it out stand other whites on the road?
Any technique or procedures??

Thanks in advance ^^

[yalerd]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

White is a really hard paint to get it to look like a dark paint vehicle. But this doesn't mean that you can't get a glossy finish.

What I would focus on is to clean the paint as much as you can, I mean by this is removing the bonded contaminants and removing every defect (swirl, scratch, hazing, etching) or as much as you can and wax it.

[Murr1525]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

Is this your first time detailing? Any major scratches/swirls you can see? Start off simple:

1. Wash - Gold Class, Nxt, etc soaps, 2 buckets, good quality towels/sponges.

2. Clay - Smooth Surface Clay Kit

3. ColorX

4. Wax - Nxt 2.0

[sobhark]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

Thanks for the reply

This is not my first detailing, I'v been claying and waxing my car with no.21 twice a month

The result is great, glossy and extremely white ^^ (since my car is about 1 year old)

This might just be a stupid question to ask
But is there any way to give it more.... I don't know how to say this
umm..... more depth look on it's glossy
I don't even know weather if this is possible lol

or I should go with Chemical guys products??
some told me that it gives more depth looking on whites


Thanks for replies

Cheers~!!

[the_invisible]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

Using No. 21 twice a month may be a little overkill.

Claying your vehicle twice a month is also quite extreme.

Even if material costs are of no concern to you, the opportunity cost and energy spent can be overwhelming. Although a wax or sealant may enhance the overall depth and gloss of your car, having a highly polished clear coat is jsut as important. You may have a dull clear coat that is covered with a layer of shiny sealant.

Clay bars have the tendency to dull the clear coat. Although some people on this forum may argue otherwise, that is a fact associated with clay bar usage. Imagine rubbing the clear coat with a block of abrasive clay... how could that not dull the clear coat? You should polish a newly clayed surface in order to achieve maximum shine.

[akimel]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

sobhark, you may find this article of interest: A Lesson from White Paint.

One thing I have learned from this forum is that increasing the depth, gloss, and wetness of white paint is no different than increasing the depth, gloss, and wetness of non-white paint: you need to polish and level the paint, thereby removing imperfections, defects, swirls, and scratches. In Mike Phillip's words: "Gloss comes from smoothness. Period. End of discussion." It doesn't matter what color your car is. This is especially true with clearcoat paint finishes: remember, the clearcoat layers of paint are precisely clear. You need to remove defects, stains, and imperfections in order to allow the pigmented base coat to shine through.

So before you begin a quest for a different wax or sealant, you need to first ask yourself if you are ready to invest time and energy into polishing. If yes, then the folks here will be able to make some recommendations on how to begin. If not, then you might want to consider, as suggested above, periodically using a cleaner wax, like ColorX, to supplement your present waxing practice. ColorX will remove staining and minor swirling. Top it with M21 and see what you think. If you still want to try another sealant, well, the world is your oyster. But M21 is a fine sealant. Do not look for dramatic improvements by changing protectants. You may see slight differences, but not dramatic ones.

Check out: Your Daily Driver: A Simple Wash & Wax Regimen

[Michael Stoops]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

White paint is never going to look as deep and wet as black, it's just the nature of the paint. But that doesn't mean you should settle just because it's white. Your primary goal is to remove as many defects as you can, both above and below the surface. This means making use of a clay bar and a paint cleaner, and quite possibly a machine application of the paint cleaner. Some of our newest consumer products, SwirlX and Ultimate Compound for example, make use of some very specialized abrasives technology borrowed from our top line pro products. These products do a great job of removing fine swirls, etc even when used by hand. But the abrasives in them tend to leave a very high degree of clarity to the finish, which is what you're ultimate shooting for.

Gloss comes from reflection, and reflection comes from a flat surface. All those fine swirl marks are actually scratches with sharp edges. Those edge reflect the light and create a non uniform appearance to the finish. This is ultimately what detracts from the visual depth in a paint finish. Keep in mind that on a modern paint finish, no matter what color the car is you're working on the clear coat above the color. One of MOL's members, 3Fitty, has a white Lexus that just gleams - it is a real testament to what you can do with a white car to make it really stand out.

[Murr1525]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

Getting #21 2.0 may help, or following up future washes with Ultimate Quick Wax or Ultimate Quick Detailer.

[rusty bumper]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

In all my experiences with white paint, all I could ever achieve was plenty of gloss, but no depth of color. White paint has no depth to show off.

[rusty bumper]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

In Mike Phillip's words: "Gloss comes from smoothness. Period. End of discussion." It doesn't matter what color your car is. This is especially true with clearcoat paint finishes: remember, the clearcoat layers of paint are precisely clear. You need to remove defects, stains, and imperfections in order to allow the pigmented base coat to shine through.

...plus a healthy dose of Meguiar's trade secret oils to boot.

[CieraSL]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

Clay bars have the tendency to dull the clear coat. Although some people on this forum may argue otherwise, that is a fact associated with clay bar usage. Imagine rubbing the clear coat with a block of abrasive clay... how could that not dull the clear coat?

How do you figure that claying dulls the surface with repeated usage? Most consumer grade clay bars are not abrasive. Obviously professional grade clay bars are, since they induce marring. But if you watch this video on how to clay bar, Mike Phillips himself says about 2:06 into the video that clay bars are not abrasive (at least not the one contained in the Smooth Surface clay kit). So how will it dull the surface? I'm not trying to start a big argument here, but I would like to have this clarified.

[dope92cc]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

Like Mick said "Paint it black".

[rusty bumper]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

How do you figure that claying dulls the surface with repeated usage?

I presume he is referring to the fact that anytime you rub something across the finish you always have the chance to introduce marring.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

The regular, proper use of a consumer grade clay is not going to have negative effects on the appearance of the vehicle. Yes, technically, clay is an abrasive that you are rubbing over the surface of the vehicle, but in the very mild consumer grade version, used with adequate lubricant, you should have no problems whatsoever.

Having said that, if you don't feel any bonded contaminants on the surface, you will gain nothing by claying just for the sake of claying. That's all clay does, remove bonded surface contaminants. If none are present, why clay? Every two weeks seems unnecessary, unless you find that the vehicle is exposed to an unusual amount of fallout on a regular basis, but that's pretty rare. Keeping the vehicle properly waxed and regularly washed or quick detailed will prolong the time between claying sessions (barring some unusual event, of course).

Now, if you never waxed your car, never polished it, never did any sort of below surface defect correction and clayed it every other week with a more aggressive clay, you may start to have some issues. Something tells us your issues would be greater than anything frequent claying alone could cause, though.

If your wash/dry technique is good, and you regularly wax the vehicle, then once you've done a proper clay job and you've eliminated the below surface defects to your satisfaction you should be good to go for many, many months. In the article How to maintain your car's finish in-between polishing sessions we talk about proper maintenance between full paint correction sessions. For all the talk about how to remove defects and bring out the ultimate shine, we often overlook the importance of defect prevention in the first place. While it is safe to clay and clean your paint on a regular basis, it's an even better idea to keep the paint from degrading to that point in the first place.

[Tuck91]

Re: How to get a white car extremely bright and glossy?

I thought claying creates smoothness which results in gloss. After all, gloss does come from a smooth surface.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I am a fanatic on my truck when it comes to bonded contaminants. I even hate feeling the slightest bump even at the lowest painted surfaces of the vechile such as the lower fenders or doors.

I clay my truck with the Smooth Surface Clay Kit once every two months, sometimes I will even use the Pro Line Mild Clay.