Using Clay Bar - Excellent Results

Vapiano

I started reading the posts in the how to Detail section, in particular the one about the types of waxes and their uses. I found the use of the clay bar in the process to be extremely interesting.

My car is new so I thought I’d be okay until a year or so, anyway…I went to the garage and ran my fingers across several areas on my vehicle and found the surface to be "faintly rough" and you could hear a "hissing" sound the faster I ran my fingers across the paint. How in the hell does a new car have contaminates embedded all ready?? I proceeded to Advance Auto and purchased Meguiar's Clay Bar Kit and Gold Class Carnauba Plus Wax. The kit provided everything that you needed to do the job. Two clay bars, quick wax (to use as a lubricant, you can use a spray bottle with soapy water as well), terry cloth and a synthetic spray wax for post wax quick detailing. I have never ever used a clay bar before and thought it might be complicated, after watching a few DYI's on the "You," it seemed simple enough, so I began.

Here are the steps that I took:

1. Wash car with Palmolive dish detergent, using dish detergent really strips off the wax. The water would not bead up after the wash. Next time I will just use the clay bar, I wanted to make ensure the surface was free of wax prior to starting.

2. Dry car with Chamois and pull car into garage.

3. Clay Bar the car using the provided Meguiar's Quick Wax as the lubricant, I used a back and forth horizontal and sometimes vertical stroke motion (please let this one slide fellas). I tried using circles but the back and forth method seemed to provide better results (again, let it slide). I applied firm pressure, it’s kind of like using sand paper; you really have to let the clay do its job. You don’t need a tremendous amount of force for the clay bar to be effective. I focused on one section at a time, after completing an area, I wiped it down with the provided terry cloth in the kit; this provided an instant shine. You could clearly see the difference in the sections that were not done. One thing that I noticed prior to clay barring the car, I had a few brown rust colored specs in a few area that I tried to get out during the wash and was not able to succeed in doing so. As the clay bar process stripped away the contaminants and pollutants, these spots were brought to the surface and were easily removed. I ran my fingers across the paint and it was as smooth as glass, not a hint of roughness anywhere. The product does exactly what it says it will do.

4. Wax car using ONE COAT of Gold Class Carnauba Plus wax by hand.

My results using the clay bar were outstanding! Using the clay bar really allowed the wax to work to its full potential by providing an incredible deep and luxurious shine (even on a white car). I will say that I am stunned at the difference clay barring your car makes; even on a new car. This is absolutely worth doing, if needed. On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the most difficult, the ease of doing this task rates a 1. Total time to wash/dry/clay bar/wax was four hours, I highly recommend it.

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TreeSemdyZee

Nice write-up, but I would suggest NOT using dish soap in the future. Continured use of this stuff will nuke your paint. It is extremely harsh.
You're right though. Clay bar is amazing. I recently was able to remove tree sap that had been on my car for over a year.

Vapiano

Note taken, this was a one time thing only.

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Cmike2780

Dish soap is fine and very effective for removing old wax. It won't damage your paint, just leaves it exposed without the protection of wax. Obviously not something you want to use regularly.

To remove iron deposits, I would try using aquartz iron cut before claying. Works great, but you can't let that stuff dry...and it smells like rotten eggs.

Also, clay bar works great on glass too.

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SvR370z

If you haven't looked at the junkmans
Videos they are a must. Also, check out
Adamsforums.com
They are a great help and teach you
How detailing should be done

Methodical4u

You can use Shampoo or even car wash solution as your clay lube as well. As was said though... dish soap is indeed pretty harsh and will strip off likely most, if not all of your wax or sealant, which is ok if that's what you want because you want to add a new coat or start over, but it's VERY harsh on the rubber and plastic pieces around the car and will severely dry them out.

The car came out nice.. with your wax... wait for a day or 2 and add another layer to make it a little more durable and it will give it a little more shine as well!

Methodical4u

I'm curious... did you see any marring of the paint when you used the clay bar? Some of them will marr the paint up.

Vapiano

Methodical4u - I did not see any marring of the paint at all, I looked very closely from different angles to see if I could see any spider webbing, rub marks or imperfections as a result of using the clay bar and saw none.

I will add another coat of wax today to see how that comes out. Thanks for the tip!

V.

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Methodical4u

Sure... a lot of people have different ideas on layering waxes or sealants... I usually do 3-5 layers over the course of a month or so myself. There is a thread with a detailer who put 51 layers on his car! It was a single stage paint though so I guess he felt like he needed all 51 lol. I believe he used Zaino Z2 on the car? I'm pretty sure anyway.