carnauba wax

[Hightower]

I've been speaking with someone that uses carnauba wax on his car. He swears by this stuff and says it just wipes on and wipes off so easy, even in bright sunlight/hot days.

I'd be interested in anyone one else using this on their car, to find out how you faired with this type of wax and whether you used any other pre treatments like clay bars etc before application?

How long did the shine last for before reapplication?

[mick]

dont now much about it my self but if you go on the Disco3.co.uk and pm JKP he is a car detailer and sells all the gear and will advice you

[ashbypower]

Hi Andy, we use it on our Van and the family cars, excellent stuff, very easy to apply and remove. We use it twicw a year on the vehicles, early spring and late autum..... Good on Gel as well we use it on the boats we sell,service/valet.....

[Hightower]

Is this clay bar worth the money? Or would just applying it after a wash be OK?

[neilda]

The clay bar, if used correctly, is very good for removing almost microscopic dirt. The routine (and you wouldn't want to do this too often as it takes a while) is this:

1. Wash and dry your car thoroughly. No short cuts.

2. Take a smallish piece of the clay bar and using the lubricant spray (VERY IMPORTANT) gently polish the whole car. Bearing in mind that the piece of clay bar you'll use will be about the size of a 50p piece, you'll see this takes a while. You have to frequently refold the clay bar to give a clean side to the paintwork.

3. You could, at this point, use a cleanser for the paintwork such as Zymol HD Cleanse.

4. Applying the wax.... If you're using Carnauba wax, this is not put on by cloth but by hand. Take any rings off, put a 10p coin size in the palm of one hand and rub both hands together vigorously to warm and melt the wax. Then rub in using the palms of your hands! Kind of weird, particularly if anyone is watching!! Depending on which Carnauba you use (there are many grades) you either wipe off immediately or leave for 20 minutes. Generally you'd wipe only once hard in the direction of the lines of the car - it's not polished off in the normal way.

The advantage of the wax is the easy application and non white residue. You can keep applying it, coat after coat too. It should last 3 or 4 months on a daily driver.

All of this will sound terribly anal. Actually it is terribly anal! However having had a few 'serious' cars, I do like to keep them very shiny. The clay bar is kind of fundamental to starting the deep shine.

Not sure you can really capture the depth of shine in a photo:

[Hightower]

Not quite as exotic as an Aston and quite the opposite end of the car market, but my missus car

But as it's new, I just want it to remain looking new for as long as possible.

[bedajim]

Have a look here

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/

You shouldn't need the clay bar if it's new out of the box, but you may need to machine polish it to get rid of the orange peel

[neilda]

Originally Posted by Hightower

But as it's new, I just want it to remain looking new for as long as possible.

You can still use the clay bar on a new car - it's non abrasive and removes all the crap from the paintwork. You must wax after using it though as the paintwork is effectively unprotected.

Try having a look at some of the Zymol range of waxes, they are pricey though starting at £50 for a pot.

[ADS]

I use www.cleanyourcar.co.uk and the best wax I have used is Collinite, very hard wearing, and quite reasonable too in terms of price. They sell it on there, you can't get it off the shelf.
Even leaves a nice shine on this old rust bucket

[chewy]

I would use a clay bar as it really does make a difference.
After that you can use a harsh polish to remove any defects then something liek Autoglym SRP which contains fillers to get rid of any little scratches.
You can then use a glaze, I use Red Moose Glaze and it works really well, should bring the red out nicely.
After that either a wax or sealent, a wax can be layered over a sealent but not the other way round.
I like Meguiars #16 wax.
All my stuff also comes from cleanyourcar too.

[Hightower]

I ended up with a wax called Smartwax. The worst thing was getting rid of 1 million little flies that had decided to commit suicide on the roof of the car leading up to the car wash. Their little wings had burnt and glued themselves to the roof and could only be removed with Mer polish.

After I got the car looking as good as I could I set about applying the Smartwax. Very easy to apply and pretty easy to remove too. The only thing I would say was it was difficult to remove from the black plastic trim pieces and kept staining them with light/grey patches. This was only remedied with back to black bumper trim restorer.

My shoulder ached for days afterwards.

Time for a wash again

[neilda]

Did you use a clay bar in the end (before waxing)?

[chewy]

Originally Posted by neilda

Did you use a clay bar in the end (before waxing)?

He can't have done, he wouldn;t have been able to type if he had!

[Hightower]

No, I didn't have a clay bar when I came to wash the car. Whilst I was polishing all those dead fly wings off I remember I was thinking that I wished I'd bought one

[chewy]

Aclay bar makes light work of flies and tar spots, leaves the paint feeling like glass.

[wavelength]

we used a clay bar on our trusty old CRV which is really the firms dogsbody of a car. The paintwork was unbelievably bad with embedded contaminents from sea air, blackpool tramway, gypsum deliveries at one of the ports we work from and general neglect. T cut would not work on it, it just destroyed the cloth, impossible to polish it. Used a clay bar and quik detailer as the lubricant and the finish is unbeleivable. Absolutely gleaming. Addictive though-neighbours reckon that much car cleaning is an unhealthy obsession and perhaps I should be taking pills to cure it

[Hightower]

I guess a clay bar will be on order though ebay pretty soon

[chewy]

A clay bar will also remove any other wax previously applied.

[neilda]

Originally Posted by chewy

A clay bar will also remove any other wax previously applied.

Yes indeed.

Also, for any converts to clay, you should really only do it once a year. It is abrasive, although only to a very small extent, however it's not something to do at every wash as you'll end up going through the clear coat. But annually it's ideal, as it takes 12 months worth of crud off....

[bedajim]

Originally Posted by neilda

Also, for any converts to clay, you should really only do it once a year. It is abrasive

Originally Posted by neilda

You can still use the clay bar on a new car - it's non abrasive .