Lost KJ West Jeep Club at Meguiar's!

[Mike Phillips]

Next up...

The Purple Jeep!

[LuckeyDuckey]

The MudPuppy is famous!!!

thanks for posting all of the weekend's info--especially the 5 steps--very helpful!

[Mike Phillips]

Here's what the MudPuppy looked like before,

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[Mike Phillips]

When it comes to detailing your car, one of the things Meguiar's teaches during our Power Point Presentation is to determine your goal at the beginning stage as this will help you to determine which products, tools and how much time you expect to invest into the project. In talking with the club members during the Walk by, it was apparent that for these types of vehicles, the goal wasn't to create a perfectly swirl free finish because these people take these rigs off-road and torture them!

To remove all the swirls and scratches would be counterproductive because chances are good on the next outing, the swirls and scratches would just be put back in while driving through brush and rough terrain.

So for today's class we discussed the benefits of using an All-in-One product such as ColorX .



ColorX is a powerful cleaner/wax. In Meguiar' terminology, this means this product,

• * Cleans - Removes swirls, scratches, oxidation, stains, etc.
  * Polishes - Restores clarity, richness of color and gloss by introducing Meguiar's rich polishing oils to the paint
  * Protects - Leaves behind a protective coating made from a blend of polymers, resins and Carnauba wax

The goal is not remove all defects, but to diminish their appearance while restoring a clear, rich, glossy finish overall. This makes ColorX the perfect choice for these types of rigs. It's a one-step product that will deliver awesome results.

After driving the Jeep into Meguiar's Garage, the first thing we did was to wipe the finish down to remove any loose dirt or airborne contaminants, it's always important to work on a clean surface to prevent instilling any further swirls or scratchers.



Next we clayed the finish to remove any above surface bonded contaminants.



After that, we taped-off a section on the hood to show the difference in before and after.



Then we applied the ColorX to the drivers side of the hood. It's important to note, that when applying a cleaner/wax, you want to put a little passion behind the applicator pad as part of the cleaning and swirl and scratch removal ability comes from the ScratchX while part of it comes from you! That is to say, a cleaner/wax like ColorX is not a wipe-on, wipe-off product, it is a product formulated and intended to be worked against and into the finish. Also, in some cases, you may want to apply two applications as your second application will build on the results achieved by the first applications.



We applied two well-worked applications for this demonstration, then backed the Jeep into the sun to check our results...


Inspecting


Evaluating


Scrutinizing and confering



Here's the before photo...






Here's side-by-side, before & after...

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As you can see, while not perfect, the goal was not perfection, but dramatic improvement using only one product and your hands.

Later we let club members practice using the G100 Dual Action Polisher over the entire hood so they could see the difference in results achievable by hand and by machine.

Here are some after shots after applying M80 Speed Glaze followed by NXT Tech Wax.

[corvetmike]

Great photo's Mike. That's hard to believe you took those close up pictures with a 2.1 megapixel camera. I guess I will have to break out my 2.1 from retirement to get those type of shots to post on the forum.

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by corvetmike
Great photo's Mike. That's hard to believe you took those close up pictures with a 2.1 megapixel camera. I guess I will have to break out my 2.1 from retirement to get those type of shots to post on the forum.

There's a lot to be said for working with what you have...

In the South, around drag racing, there's an old saying that goes like this,

"Run what you brung"

It's all about doing the best with what you have, because in the long run, that's all you can do anyways.

[Teak]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
The technique for getting good results with a hand applied swirl and scratch remover is the manner in which you apply it. We learned in the Power Point Presentation that ScratchX is not a wipe-on, wipe-off, but instead is a product that must be applied to the finish and then worked against the finish with a little passion and enthusiasm.

I like this explaination for hand application. It looks like everyone was having fun working on the Liberty.

Eric