Clay bar is a waste of time!

E

evo77

New member
Don't mind the title. Just letting out some frustration. :wall



My rear bumper is the most dirtiest part of my vehicle. Its gets to see PLENTY of carbon deposits from my exhaust. Specs of it all over coupled with your average "summer" construction zone tar deposits to join in the fun.



I could clay for HOURS and although it makes some improvement, it just doesn't seem to get everything. I'm using Meg's clay bar. I could literally stare at a black spec and rub and rub and rub and rub and lubricate and rub and rub and rub and rub some more and although its making a dent at this rate it'll take me days before I can finish the entire bumper because I'm just working on one little spec.



What do I need to do or use to make my life easier? Are my expectations too high to think that I can succesfully remove all of it? Do I need more aggressive clay? I thought about applying some TW tar remover and let it dwell for a while to help breakdown the carbon and tar to help ease removal with the clay.



Thoughts?
 
Yeah dry a body Solvent; the Meguiar's one is great and I also like Stoners as well.



This will help get rid of a majority of the crud. You then can try some clay. Try their professional line?



OH! And I just thought of something; I remember a clay sponge being sold somewhere, though I forgot where. It will definatly mar the paint and swirld it, but from the reviews I read, it will take off anything with ease!
 
I don't know what kind of abrasiveness the clay you are using.:nixweiss



But if you can, up the abrasiveness of your clay to medium.



Good Luck!
 
From the sounds of it, there is just a lot of junk there. Like I said earlier, try to get as much of that off as possible with a body solvant. This will help get rid of a majority of the containments. You may then want to try the Hi-Tech Body Sponge. From what I have read, this thing will remove just about anything and has a LOT of life in it. Word of caution is that it will mar the paint no matter how careful you are, but if you are dealing with some heavy stuff, it might be worth looking into.
 
Thanks guys. Hopefully I can find one of those locally. Probably the Stoners as the Meg's Body Solvent I'll have to purchase online.
 
Yeah, I use to be a purist and try to use just clay to remove everything. Pffft. Don't waste your time. Take half of it off with the wash, the next 40% with B&T remover (I use Stoner's) and the final 10% with clay. Just not worth it to use clay to remove bugs & tar. It works great when you get down to that last little bit where ther's just a shadow of something on the paint though.

Oh, and B&T + clay...not a good idea. Gave it a whirl once & ended up with thousands of little specks of clay.
 
Meg's clay - in the kit, 2 white bars? Been there, done that. Those are very mild clay bars and weak as water compared to the Wolfgang clay I first tried. Sounds like your best bet is Stoners Tarminator and some elbow grease!
 
evo77 said:
Thanks guys. Hopefully I can find one of those locally. Probably the Stoners as the Meg's Body Solvent I'll have to purchase online.
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Go to your local paint or hardware store and pick up a pint of mineral spirits. That's basically what these tar remover products are. A good rub down with the mineral spirits and it should lift up all the tar and carbon accumulation then you can clay and polish.
 
94BlkStang said:
Go to your local paint or hardware store and pick up a pint of mineral spirits. That's basically what these tar remover products are. A good rub down with the mineral spirits and it should lift up all the tar and carbon accumulation then you can clay and polish.
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Oh yeah +1 on mineral spirits!
 
Are you keeping the surface waxed? I've found that a well coated surface makes it MUCH easier to remove tar. If you are, try another product and see if it gets any better.
 
I'd like to follow up on this thread in regards to my situation although my recent results aren't of my car but of my wifes van. She doesn't have carbon deposits but she did have tar and rust specs from a neglected brake problem.



I purchased the Stoner Tarminator and I'm pleased to say that this stuff rocks! This solvent really loosens up any contaminants. I found that spraying it liberally on the panels and letting it dwell for 5 minutes works well. You can see the tar start to run immediately. As I mentioned previously I was using the Meg's clay bar and this did nothing of the rust specs. I actually ended up finding an old box of Clay Magic I had from a few years back. After some Stoner prep work, I followed up with the Clay Magic and the rust specs were disappearing. Something the Meg's clay could not remove.



I'll be using the Stoner and Clay Magic on my rear bumper issue. At this point I'm guessing that the Meg's clay just wasn't aggressive enough to remove all of the contaminants from my car and may not be aggressive enough in general.
 
Use DIESEL to clean off tar that sticks to the below panel & bumper..... It removes them soooo easily. No other product remove the tar so easily. My dad saw me using polish, clay bar & tar remover and was rubbing & rubbing without much results.



He called me over & ask me to go & buy some DIESEL from the petrol station. He said trust him. Hehehe. So I did.... :) Thanks a lot Dad.... :)
 
yakky said:
Are you keeping the surface waxed? I've found that a well coated surface makes it MUCH easier to remove tar. If you are, try another product and see if it gets any better.
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Evo77- Glad to hear you found a solution that works well. In the future, I'd try to keep the contamination limited to the LSP, rather than letting it get so firmly adhered (presumably to the paint itself). Claying [stuff] off LSP isn't a very big deal, but once it penetrates into the paint you can have the sort of hassles you just dealt with.
 
Yea sometimes you seriously have to think outside of the box to get the best result. Body prep solvent. Brake clean (use with caution) deisel fuel etc etc etc. will wipe out any carbon deposits and brake dust on contact. Citrus based degreasers will do the same thing. Sitting there claybarring for days on end is just futile and a huge waste of time.
 
Try a Decontamination Kit, Clay is designed to take most of the top portions of contaminants.
 
If you can find it, try 4000 grit sandpaper. It will remove almost anything(even acid rain) and will hardly marr. A quick pass with a foam pad after sanding makes it look new. You can do a very contaminated bumper start to finish in less than 15 minutes complete. That's how I'd do it.
 
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