A few questions, Washing & Claying

[Drashnar]

Hey everyone. I apologize ahead of time for the length of this post, I didn't realize it would get this long.

I am a complete amateur when it comes to any sort of car washing or detailing, so please be gentle. :P I've recently begun to actually care about the appearance of my car. It's not an elaborate car or anything, just a white 2005 Chevy Classic that I use as a daily driver for my kids and I. I've had the car since 2007 and have washed it maybe once per year since then. And even then the wash was almost always at an automated place behind a local gas station.

So I've been doing some reading for the past few days and realize just how badly I've treated the finish of this car. I already picked up a couple things from my local Autozone for washing. I already got a bottle of Gold Class car wash, and a basic mitt. http://www.autozone.com/autozone/acc...questid=516679 I'm not sure if this mitt is acceptable or not, but I needed something to wash with so that is what I grabbed.

Now, I do not have a grit guard yet. And while I plan to purchase 1 or 2 in the very near future, I'm not able to yet. My question regarding washing is: "Is it still worth washing my car regularly with what I have even though I don't have the grit guard to help keep the dirt out of the mitt? Or am I better off waiting until I have absolutely everything I need? I did do one wash immediately after I got the Gold Class Soap, because it needed it so badly. Of course, after reading here, I find that I made all the classic rookie mistakes, soap then jetted water in for too much suds and almost no water, and trying to wash the whole car before doing any rinsing are the two that come to mind, though I'm sure I made many more mistakes. In fact the only thing I probably got right was doing it in the really late afternoon / early evening when it was cool because I don't have a cover on where I park, but is just under trees enough that leaves will fall on the car.

Now I found a few spots that obviously wasn't chipped paint or anything, but just stuff seemingly permanently attached to the surface of the car, no matter how much I tried to scrub it off with soap and the mitt. The most problematic places were directly behind the wheels at the bottom of the body (after not being washed in so long, its not surprising I suppose), and the front of the car. I'm not sure how much of my front problem is road rash, and how much is just dirt and stuff that won't come off because it's been there so long.

Next, in the coming month, when I purchase my grit guards, I also plan on at least doing some claying to the vehicle to help preserve what is left of the finish. Now when I was washing it that first time I noticed a lot of small chips in the paint, particularly near the front, what I recently learned is called road rash. Should I try clearing up the road rash before doing any claying, or just ignore the road rash for now and focus on getting the rest of the car as nice as possible? I'm obviously not a pro, but I'm committed to trying to take care of my car's appearance, and not neglecting it as I already have for so long.

Anyway, so that's basically where I'm at right now and I'm looking for some advice. If its possible, I really do want to make my car look nice again, but 1 I'm not sure its possible, and 2 I'm thinking that being able to do it all by hand without a power tool of some sort might not be practical for me and my schedule, and that thought is very intimidating.

I'm loving this place though. It's full of helpful information, and from what I've read so far, great people that will help point me and others like me in the right direction as well. Thanks!

[Murr1525]

Re: A few questions, Washing & Claying

Now, I do not have a grit guard yet. And while I plan to purchase 1 or 2 in the very near future, I'm not able to yet. My question regarding washing is: "Is it still worth washing my car regularly with what I have even though I don't have the grit guard to help keep the dirt out of the mitt? Or am I better off waiting until I have absolutely everything I need?

If just light dust, not a big deal to wait. But not really a problem to wash, just rinse the mitt out good as you go.

Now I found a few spots that obviously wasn't chipped paint or anything, but just stuff seemingly permanently attached to the surface of the car, no matter how much I tried to scrub it off with soap and the mitt. The most problematic places were directly behind the wheels at the bottom of the body (after not being washed in so long, its not surprising I suppose), and the front of the car. I'm not sure how much of my front problem is road rash, and how much is just dirt and stuff that won't come off because it's been there so long.

Yeah, could be tar, brake dust, bugs, and anything else. Something like TRIX, or similar products, is good to use after washing, before claying to start getting stuff off.

I also plan on at least doing some claying to the vehicle to help preserve what is left of the finish.

Clay everything....

Now when I was washing it that first time I noticed a lot of small chips in the paint, particularly near the front, what I recently learned is called road rash. Should I try clearing up the road rash before doing any claying, or just ignore the road rash for now and focus on getting the rest of the car as nice as possible? I'm obviously not a pro, but I'm committed to trying to take care of my car's appearance, and not neglecting it as I already have for so long.

You cant fix up rock chips with paint are products, need actual paint.

Some people have had good success with the Dr. Color Chip system, so that is something to look at.

But no reason not to wash and clean everythin up first, then deal with that.

Anyway, so that's basically where I'm at right now and I'm looking for some advice. If its possible, I really do want to make my car look nice again, but 1 I'm not sure its possible, and 2 I'm thinking that being able to do it all by hand without a power tool of some sort might not be practical for me and my schedule, and that thought is very intimidating.

Not too bad by hand, can always do a couple panels a day if needed. If you just keep things simple at first, a detail can look like:

1. Wash
1A. TRIX, or something similar to help with the tar and whatnot.
2. Clay
3. cleaner/wax - White Wax
4. Wax - Ult. Wax

That will be more of a general cleaning detail... wont focus on scratches, swirls, etc... and would have to hope the cleaner/wax is strong enough for any dirt built up, but should be ok and make a good improvement.

[C8N]

Re: A few questions, Washing & Claying

Fellow noob here and I have to say that the good quality applicator you use is important but more so, they need to be clean when they touch the paint. That is the whole purpose of a grit guard. If you won't have a grit guard for a while, just use multiple MF towels. Look up Garry Dean's method on this forum and with this method, you only use 1 bucket and no grit guards since once the MF towel gets dirty... you toss that aside and use another clean one.

[Drashnar]

Re: A few questions, Washing & Claying

You cant fix up rock chips with paint are products, need actual paint.

Some people have had good success with the Dr. Color Chip system, so that is something to look at.

But no reason not to wash and clean everythin up first, then deal with that.

Thanks, sorry I didn't mention it specifically, yes, I was talking about the Dr. Color Chip system, but you answered my question anyway by saying I should take care of the rest of the car then work on the chips and imperfections.

Not too bad by hand, can always do a couple panels a day if needed.

As nice as that sounds, that wouldn't work for me with my schedule what it is during the week. Any work would have to be done in pretty much a single day, or at most a Saturday and Sunday.

Though now that I think about it, I also have a question about that approach. If I only do a couple panels per day (still not possible unfortunately, but I'm curious about the approach), do you mean wash the whole car on one day then do the other steps panel by panel on the following days? Can you elaborate on what you meant exactly?

Thanks for your help.

[Murr1525]

Re: A few questions, Washing & Claying

Generally, you would try to do the washing through claying on the entire car at once.

After that, you would take the time you had left to do any of the cleaning, cleaner/waxing, waxing that you were going to do to as many panels as possible.

Then the next day you would clean any dust/dirt off the panels you hadnt cleaned-waxed yet, and work on them.

For people who really get into removing swirls/scratches by hand, it can be pretty tiring and time consuming, so they may just do one panel each evening. But a cloudy day, or a weekend should be plenty for a general detail like I mentioned above.