How Do You Detail?

[carcareproducts]

drsmithy,

With the Gernie snow foam lance, to be honest i am unsure what the mixture rate would be as i haven't used one is i dont know how many years. Its more of a guess-timate each time until you find the mixture you want. You can purchase snow foam as an alternative as well and mix that which would be easier.

You can layer it if you wish, how much better it would look and how much depth you will get from this is really here say to be honest with you. There however would be no benefit on protection wise by having it on top of the Nanolex.

If you want little to do with the car other than your washing routine than Nanolex would be definitely the way to go for yourself. If you do however want to be involved with the car every 6 months maybe a polymer style sealant like Duragloss 601+105 or 601+111 otherwise stick to Nanolex if you dont have the time and as mentioned just maintain easy off you go sort of thing.

[drsmithy]

Ok, gave it a quick wash this afternoon. Decided on Meguiars NXT after doing some reading about which one worked best with the foam lance, but it didn't seem to foam up much at all - presumably I need more shampoo and less water next time ? Or maybe I was holding the nozzle too close ? Will give it a few goes with different ratios over the weekend. Might get something cheap (but pH neutral) in bulk and just put the shampoo into the mixing bottle straight ?

Paint appears to be in fairly good condition, I couldn't see any swirls or scratches, though by the time I'd finished it was dark so could only look using the work lights. Couple of stone chips on the front bumper but that's to be expected on a ~3 year old car. Tomorrow in daylight will show for sure.

(Ugh. Embedded images seem broken. Album is visible here.)

Bonnet:


Driver's door:


Roof (w/flash):


I also found what I think are filled in cracks in the rear bumper ? There were a few scratches there as well.:


Closeups:



It will definitely benefit from clay, though, I could feel stuff grabbing even through the microfibre cloth while I was drying.

drsmithy,

You can layer it if you wish, how much better it would look and how much depth you will get from this is really here say to be honest with you. There however would be no benefit on protection wise by having it on top of the Nanolex.

If you want little to do with the car other than your washing routine than Nanolex would be definitely the way to go for yourself. If you do however want to be involved with the car every 6 months maybe a polymer style sealant like Duragloss 601+105 or 601+111 otherwise stick to Nanolex if you dont have the time and as mentioned just maintain easy off you go sort of thing.

I'm happy with a bi-annual "big wash" to strip back the sealant/wax, clay if necessary, reapply sealant/wax, etc - I can fit that into a similar schedule for tyre rotation and oil change and just make a whole weekend of car maintenance twice a year. I'd also like to be able to get away with only fortnightly maintenance washes of <=1hr - foam, two-bucket hand-wash, rinse and dry. Do your recommendations above still stand based on that ?

How about the wheels ? What sort of sealant would be best based on a bi-annual reapplication (while rotating the tyres, so they'd be off the car) ? They seem pretty clean now, without much brake dust on them (even on the inner rims), so presumably I won't need too savage a cleaner to start with ?

[carcareproducts]

drsmithy,

With the snow foamer its very hard for me to estimate how much to use. As by not using a true snow foam product its very hard to get the mixtures. Maybe some other members who have experience on this could shed some more light possibly? You can try Autobrite Snow Foam which you can just dilute with some water and also has pH Neutral Shampoo inside to give it bit of a clean as well.

I would myself recommend maybe the Duragloss Paint System which will give a very true wet look/shine/sharpness to the car and works very well with lighter colours (Best for light colours if you ask me personally). This would protect for about 6-8 months at a time and offer you some good protection as mentioned. You can just maintain as mentioned 2 buckets, pH Neutral Shampoo of your choice and continue doing that and be fine.

Clay bar wise, theres several options. Mint Clay Bar Kit is a great kit for a single car, if you do intend on wanting to do more then 2/3 cars i would probably suggest the Clay Magic, 3M or Dodo Juice Clay Bars as they are 200g vs the 100g from Mint.

Wheels being VW and the lovely amount of brake dust it shoots out i would probably suggest going straight Sealant from Nanolex which will give about 6-9 months protection for them (depending on driving style of course). I would do the inner and outter of the wheels with the Nanolex Rim Sealant (nanotechnology based sealant)

Alternatively you could just purchase the Nanolex Premium Paint protection kit and do the entire car + rims and it would probably be most cost effective. Paintwork wise protect 12 months from one application as well. (Kits do come with all relevant instructions as well).

Ok, gave it a quick wash this afternoon. Decided on Meguiars NXT after doing some reading about which one worked best with the foam lance, but it didn't seem to foam up much at all - presumably I need more shampoo and less water next time ? Or maybe I was holding the nozzle too close ? Will give it a few goes with different ratios over the weekend. Might get something cheap (but pH neutral) in bulk and just put the shampoo into the mixing bottle straight ?

Paint appears to be in fairly good condition, I couldn't see any swirls or scratches, though by the time I'd finished it was dark so could only look using the work lights. Couple of stone chips on the front bumper but that's to be expected on a ~3 year old car. Tomorrow in daylight will show for sure.

(Ugh. Embedded images seem broken. Album is visible here.)

Bonnet:


Driver's door:


Roof (w/flash):


I also found what I think are filled in cracks in the rear bumper ? There were a few scratches there as well.:


Closeups:



It will definitely benefit from clay, though, I could feel stuff grabbing even through the microfibre cloth while I was drying.


I'm happy with a bi-annual "big wash" to strip back the sealant/wax, clay if necessary, reapply sealant/wax, etc - I can fit that into a similar schedule for tyre rotation and oil change and just make a whole weekend of car maintenance twice a year. I'd also like to be able to get away with only fortnightly maintenance washes of <=1hr - foam, two-bucket hand-wash, rinse and dry. Do your recommendations above still stand based on that ?

How about the wheels ? What sort of sealant would be best based on a bi-annual reapplication (while rotating the tyres, so they'd be off the car) ? They seem pretty clean now, without much brake dust on them (even on the inner rims), so presumably I won't need too savage a cleaner to start with ?

[drsmithy]

Having had a look at the car in sunlight now, there appears to be some light cobweb-style swirling on the bonnet and roof (hard to see unless you're looking though). Will an additional treatment like Meguiars SwirlX be appropriate, or will the Duragloss stuff above be enough on its own ?

Bonnet:

Roof:

[carcareproducts]

drsmithy, order came through, order already gone mate! done and dusted!

regarding the spiderwebbing, scratch-x will 'hide' those marks but not correct those marks for you.

To be completely honest i wouldn't want to recommend a product to attempt this by hand as the paint on the VW/Audi's are well ... a pain in the ass and why that is? Well more so that the fact is the paint is so damn good and its impossible to do any correction by hand to remove those. A light machine polish with a dual action ro machine would remove those easily to give you a smooth non-spider webbed finish.

Unfortunately though, you could try a few products i could recommend but highly doubtful you will get it out. (I speak from experience with my own vw/audi itself). Paint quality is good, just impossible to get any result by hand unfortunately.

Hope that helps, sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

[dieterbohlen]

Just a quick question, to avoid stripping Nanolex protection can you just wash the car with water without using shampoo?

Not sure, even though it says "pH Balanced" shampoo, still don't feel confident washing it without the need to re-apply Nanolex sealant.
I have Meguiar's Soft Wash Gel" - will it strip protection or it won't?

[Corey_R]

I haven't used Megs Soft Wash Gel in over a decade, I used to use the Gold Class though and have done so up to about 3 years ago. I think both of them are fine, but when it comes time to top up, I'd be going for Duragloss 901 or one of the Dodo Juice washes instead. They're just newer, and designed with using with these modern sealants and waxes etc.

I would not ever wash a car without car wash. The suds in the wash are meant to help soften and losen any dirt which hasn't come off from the pre-wash rinses. That's the entire idea of a "foam lance", the fact that you're getting the suds on the car immediately so they can spend a lot of time doing their job before you wipe over the car. The wash also "lubricates" the surface so that your wash mit has far less chance of scratching the paint and making swirls etc. Just wipe your bare hand over the post-rinse wet surface and then throw some suds on their and compare the diff....

[dieterbohlen]

Thanks Corey, what about this one:
Car Care Products / Mint / Exterior / Wash Shampoos / Bathe Car Wash Shampoo
is it as good as Duragloss 901 or Dodo Juice?
Can you get Duragloss or Dodo Juice from your regular auto shop?
Thanks

[Corey_R]

I haven't used the Mint Car Wash to be honest. 25ml for 10L of water sounds impressive if it's legitimate. Duragloss is about 25ml per 3L of water! hehe.
No idea about regular auto shops... they're often just restricted to the big marketting brands such as Megs and Turtle and Armour all etc...

[dieterbohlen]

Thanks for your advice.