Advice on what products to use on Corolla and Durango

[rebelde33]

I have my G110 sitting in my garage since 2008 and decided it's now time to do a full blown detail on both a black 08 Toyota Corolla and a 98 green Dodge Durango, I just don't know where to start. Both are full of swirls/scratches and haven't gotten waxed or anything for a few years. Does anyone have any experience working with these types of cars and their respective types of paint? What products could I use? I already have some orange and yellow pads, just need the right products!

[Mark58]

Re: Advice on what products to use on Corolla and Durango

Yellow cutting pad and Ultimate compound for start and finish with Ultimate polish or you can get Microfiber Correction system which will do a great job for you. Now you need to wash the cars then use clay bar with quick detailer as a lubricant before starting on correction process.

[ChevyNick]

You should read over the article on here for the 5 Step Cycle.

Essentially you need to:
1. Wash
2. Clay (you can do this while washing, or use a quick detail spray to lube the clay after washing.)
3. Ultimate Compound will be a good choice for getting rid of the swirls and scratches. I recommend using the yellow polishing pad from meguiars.
4. Ultimate polish to bring back the gloss to both vehicles paint. Reommend using meguiars yellow pad as well.
5. Protect all your hard work with a wax just as Ultimate Paste wax or NXT2.0

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Advice on what products to use on Corolla and Durango

It's a bit difficult to tell you to use a specific line up of products and say that they will definitely be what you need - paint systems vary and so we always recommend doing a test spot whenever you work on a car for the first time.

That said, we find most modern Mopars to be pretty straightforward to correct even though they're built in various factories. Having worked on a variety of model years of the 300, PT Cruiser, Challenger, Avenger and Crossfire we can say that only the Crossfires have consistently been shown to have extremely hard paint. All the rest respond quite nicely to Ultimate Compound, a polishing pad and speed 5 on a DA with moderate pressure. That combo is sort of our defacto starting point for most cars and in the majority of cases it gets the job done. Whether you need to follow with Ultimate Polish or M205 is going to depend on how the paint responds to the Ultimate Compound - meaning is there any micromarring or hazing - and your expections and goals.

As for the Toyota, they tend to have softer paints in general. This can be a double edged sword as some soft paints are also very delicate, meaning they can very easily be hazed quite badly. A regular to our Thursday Night Open Garage sessions has a 2011 Prius in non metallic black and that car has some of the most delicate paint we've encountered. But in what might be good news for you, my niece has a metallic black Corolla that's a few years old and super easy to correct with no marring at all.

So, with all that in mind, we'll recommend the same product combo as a starting point for both vehicles. Definitely do a test spot first on each vehicle though. Depending on the level of defects and your goals, you may find that one of the two vehicles needs more work time or more passes to reach the same level of correction as the other. We wouldn't be surprised if the Durango takes twice as long to correct as the Corolla, and not just because it's a lot bigger.

[rebelde33]

Re: Advice on what products to use on Corolla and Durango

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I will definitely give Ultimate Compound a go and follow up with results as soon as I get to it.