Ultimate Products (Compound, Polish, Wax) or M20 for Older Black Car

[Ghawk]

Re: Ultimate Products (Compound, Polish, Wax) or M20 for Older Black Car

Hi and welcome to the forum!

its very nice to see that you have taken good care of you car throughout your ownership. But as you know, unless you are incredibly attentive everytime you wash or touch the car, scratches will build up during its life time. I can tell you understand what swirls and the such are, and to restore the gloss back to the paint you must level back out the finish.
A cleaner wax is a very very mild abrasive mixed in a protective sealant of some kind. Most swirls and scratches cannot be removed by just cleaner wax alone.

To to answer your questions:

Stepping up to Ultimate Compound and Polish is the right route, but understand, achieving a flawless finish with abrasives on clear coat paint is quite a skill. If you want a perfect or even just greatly improved finish I would buy a DA Polisher.

The reason I don't recommend the one step polish and wax is that in reality it is nothing more than a more aggressive cleaner wax. Working by hand would also very much hinder its effectiveness.

For protection (sticking in the meguiars line) your best bet it the Ulitimate Wax. It does require a very clean and thin application. And an attentive removal, but it's durability and protection are incredible. It doesn't have nearly as many fillers as Gold Class wax this is why your finish might not be as deep, but Gold Class can not compare to UW's protection.

Hope I answered some of your questions! I'm just sitting in study hall and saw your post.
Have fun, and once again welcome to the forum!

Griffith Hawk

[armeliusc]

Hello,

I have an 2004 black Civic that I want to do some work on. As long as I have it it has had wax on it, so the paint condition is not terrible. In the past I haven't been very diligent in claying or detailing though, mainly just wash then apply gold class wax 2-3 times a year. As with many older cars there are many small imperfections on the paint, some spray/watermark, etc, although as far as I can tell only very minimal swirl.

Last weekend, I claybar-ed the trunk panel until it's really clean (smooth), then used Meg's Cleaner Wax (red bottle) on it, then applied Ultimate Wax. I don't really like the result. I can still see defects on the paint; it seems the cleaner wax didn't do a good job. More after, although initially UW makes the car look wetter, it seems to streak easily even after a day or two. Whenever I touch it I can see my fingerprints on it. And it looks easily dirty and dull with just little dust after few days. I don't remember this issue with Gold Class Wax. It's just seems less glossy.

So maybe I did things wrong. Could it be that UW didn't bond with the paint correctly because I had the cleaner wax under it ? I don't know.

Anyway, now I am trying to redo the works and deciding which way to go. After lots of reading recommendation and searching forum online, it seems that I can do either one of these:

Go with all Ultimate product route (this seems to be recommended by Meg's and Meg's support):
A. Start over with U. compound, then U. polish, then U. wax
OR,
B. Start over with M20. It seems that M20 combines step 2,3,4 and use synthetic sealant also.

The nice thing about B is that it's a much shorter step, and I guess much less work. It seems that M20 is highly recommended for dark colored cars (a.g. Amazon reviews, etc). My concern with A, other than it's a long process, is the abbrasiveness of Ultimate Compound compared to M20. I am only going to work with hands (no power tools, I'm not confident enough to use it), but I am afraid of marring the clear-coat, paint, etc if it's abbrasive.

So, which choice would you experts recommend ? Which one would be the most durable / provide the longest protection ?

One more thing, I am thinking to probably either top either one of those with Gold Class wax or M26 hi-tech yellow wax to add more depth to the color. Necessary or not ? Or should I just spray GC quick detailer to make it easier, or even GC spray wax ? If I do any of that, will it negate the Sealant protection (provided I let it cure for 24 hours).

Thank you very much for any advise.