Guys, I've been reading these forums for almost two weeks and have a few comments and questions.
Mike - You're amazing. If I can get my car to look half as good as some of the cars you've detailed, I'll be thrilled.
Shameful confession time - I've had an 02 Maxima and 04 Maxima, both black that I used to take through a local car wash (brushed). Never had or never noticed an issue with scratches or swirls. I took my new Black 05 Mustang GT through a day or two after I bought it, and the car wash just made a mess of things--light scratches all over the place. Based on my experiences with the Nissans I thought I'd be ok, but I'm wrong, so....lesson learned, never through a car wash again.
I think I took the "Use the least aggressive method to achieve the desired result" to the extreme. I started ScratchX by hand, no luck. Then DC Swirl Remover by hand, no luck. Swirl remover with Orbital, no luck. Purchased a PC 7336 @ Lowes for $99, tried DC Swirl Remover with the pad that came with the 7336, no luck. Went to Pep boys looking for #80 and #83, they only had #7 and #9 2.0. I cleaned my pad and used #9...first pass, nothing, second pass, hmmm, looks better, third pass, looked really good. Followed that up with #7 and NXT. All of this was done on a small section on the passenger rear quarter panel. I thought I'd repeat it in another area, no luck.
Now I have #80 and #83 on order along with 3 8006 pads. I'm sure I could've gotten there with #9 and the 8006's and a few passes, but I do have other things I like to do on weekends, like drive the thing.
Next I tried #9 and #7 on my Honda VTX 1800c Motorcycle. #9 on the PC, #7 by hand and 2 coats of NXT and the bike looks better than I've ever seen it. Not a single scratch or swirl in it.
I used ScratchX on my wife's Grand Caravan, and it suprised me by taking some fairly substantial (looking) scratches right out, with very little effort. Her car looks great!
I bought Zymol, Mothers Carnuba, Gold Class and NXT. I haven't tried the Carnuba yet, but I used all of the others. Zymol: Not impressed. They say to apply and take off before it dries. That's ALMOST impossible to do. I followed all the obligatory application rules: Warm, but not hot, out of the sun, no wind. The Zymol stuff just dries way way too fast, then it leaves dust all over the place when you take it off. It also left a very uneven color, dark in some areas, lighter in others. I felt I had to buff whatever wax was on the car off just to get the surface uniform in appearance. Kinda bummed too, that was a $14 bottle of wax. Totally not impressed.
NXT: What I can say, easy on, easy off, not a spec of dust, very nice looking.
Gold Class: Also easy on, a little hard to take off. The paint looked noticeably darker though over NXT and Zymol. I'll try Carnuba next to see, but my money is on GC.
So here are some of my personal observations:
1) ScratchX and DC Swirl Remover will work for fairly light duty jobs by hand. Smaller areas, light scratches on some finishes but do virtually nothing on others. Did almost nothing to the Mustang, worked fine on the Caravan.
2) I think #9 2.0 will be a great maintenance cleaner, but it took a good deal of effort on fairly minor scratches. Didn't do much with the Mustang, looked FANTASTIC on the VTX. So I now believe all the talk of varying degrees of clearcoat hardness.
3) Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on this, but after using all of these products, I think the order of least aggressive to most aggressive is:
DC Swirl Remover
ScratchX
#9 2.0
#83
4) GC looked darker/wetter than NXT to me.
Here are some of my questions:
Does anybody know how the white pad that comes with the 7336 compares to the 9006? I'd like to continue using it if I can, but I need to know where/when to use it.
How does #7 compare to #80, or DC Polish? I'll have all three in a few days so I could probably figure it out, but it seems like they all do the same thing?
I'm *REALLY* hoping #80 or #83 will take the scratches out of the Mustang. After all the reading I've done, I think it should with the right pads.
I've dropped over $250 in the past week on products to find the perfect mix and a system that works for me considering what I want the car to look like and how much time I'm willing to invest.
I believe I'll wind up with Mike's standard recommendation of #83 then #80 with 8006's. Perhaps a DC Polish with a 9006, then NXT or GC.
PS I did clay the car prior to all of this testing and I'm using Meguiars Terry Cloth Towels to remove the first 'layer' of polish/wax, then I buff with MF. Seems to work well.
I don't have decent pictures in the Sun that show the issue, this is the best I've got.
Mike - You're amazing. If I can get my car to look half as good as some of the cars you've detailed, I'll be thrilled.
Shameful confession time - I've had an 02 Maxima and 04 Maxima, both black that I used to take through a local car wash (brushed). Never had or never noticed an issue with scratches or swirls. I took my new Black 05 Mustang GT through a day or two after I bought it, and the car wash just made a mess of things--light scratches all over the place. Based on my experiences with the Nissans I thought I'd be ok, but I'm wrong, so....lesson learned, never through a car wash again.
I think I took the "Use the least aggressive method to achieve the desired result" to the extreme. I started ScratchX by hand, no luck. Then DC Swirl Remover by hand, no luck. Swirl remover with Orbital, no luck. Purchased a PC 7336 @ Lowes for $99, tried DC Swirl Remover with the pad that came with the 7336, no luck. Went to Pep boys looking for #80 and #83, they only had #7 and #9 2.0. I cleaned my pad and used #9...first pass, nothing, second pass, hmmm, looks better, third pass, looked really good. Followed that up with #7 and NXT. All of this was done on a small section on the passenger rear quarter panel. I thought I'd repeat it in another area, no luck.
Now I have #80 and #83 on order along with 3 8006 pads. I'm sure I could've gotten there with #9 and the 8006's and a few passes, but I do have other things I like to do on weekends, like drive the thing.
Next I tried #9 and #7 on my Honda VTX 1800c Motorcycle. #9 on the PC, #7 by hand and 2 coats of NXT and the bike looks better than I've ever seen it. Not a single scratch or swirl in it.
I used ScratchX on my wife's Grand Caravan, and it suprised me by taking some fairly substantial (looking) scratches right out, with very little effort. Her car looks great!
I bought Zymol, Mothers Carnuba, Gold Class and NXT. I haven't tried the Carnuba yet, but I used all of the others. Zymol: Not impressed. They say to apply and take off before it dries. That's ALMOST impossible to do. I followed all the obligatory application rules: Warm, but not hot, out of the sun, no wind. The Zymol stuff just dries way way too fast, then it leaves dust all over the place when you take it off. It also left a very uneven color, dark in some areas, lighter in others. I felt I had to buff whatever wax was on the car off just to get the surface uniform in appearance. Kinda bummed too, that was a $14 bottle of wax. Totally not impressed.
NXT: What I can say, easy on, easy off, not a spec of dust, very nice looking.
Gold Class: Also easy on, a little hard to take off. The paint looked noticeably darker though over NXT and Zymol. I'll try Carnuba next to see, but my money is on GC.
So here are some of my personal observations:
1) ScratchX and DC Swirl Remover will work for fairly light duty jobs by hand. Smaller areas, light scratches on some finishes but do virtually nothing on others. Did almost nothing to the Mustang, worked fine on the Caravan.
2) I think #9 2.0 will be a great maintenance cleaner, but it took a good deal of effort on fairly minor scratches. Didn't do much with the Mustang, looked FANTASTIC on the VTX. So I now believe all the talk of varying degrees of clearcoat hardness.
3) Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on this, but after using all of these products, I think the order of least aggressive to most aggressive is:
DC Swirl Remover
ScratchX
#9 2.0
#83
4) GC looked darker/wetter than NXT to me.
Here are some of my questions:
Does anybody know how the white pad that comes with the 7336 compares to the 9006? I'd like to continue using it if I can, but I need to know where/when to use it.
How does #7 compare to #80, or DC Polish? I'll have all three in a few days so I could probably figure it out, but it seems like they all do the same thing?
I'm *REALLY* hoping #80 or #83 will take the scratches out of the Mustang. After all the reading I've done, I think it should with the right pads.
I've dropped over $250 in the past week on products to find the perfect mix and a system that works for me considering what I want the car to look like and how much time I'm willing to invest.
I believe I'll wind up with Mike's standard recommendation of #83 then #80 with 8006's. Perhaps a DC Polish with a 9006, then NXT or GC.
PS I did clay the car prior to all of this testing and I'm using Meguiars Terry Cloth Towels to remove the first 'layer' of polish/wax, then I buff with MF. Seems to work well.
I don't have decent pictures in the Sun that show the issue, this is the best I've got.
![](http://losibk2.com/gtpics/HotGt1.jpg)
![](http://losibk2.com/gtpics/HotGT2.jpg)
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