Gonna try to clean up a black car: Question about claying

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I attached a picture of the situation of the paint on the car I'm about to do. It's about 12 years old, the paint seems to be in great condition under all those light swirls. There's definitely stuff that needs to be clayed out. It feels a little sandy when I run my hand over it.



Tommorrow, I'm going out and grabbing a few things. Something to clean off whatever wax is already on there, a clay bar, polish (or paint cleaner?) and wax. My question was, in what order should I do everything?
 

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You'll want the vehicle to be as clean as possible before you clay. If you have any road tar, sap, or bugs on the vehicle that won't come off during washing, take care of them with a bug & tar remover, mineral spirits, or 3M adhesive remover (naptha).



Clay the vehicle before polishing. A few passes is all it takes. You will probably need to check the vehicle again for rough spots and spot clay as needed to pick up the areas you missed the first time.



Start with the lightest polish you can find and work up to more agressive polishes as needed to remove your swirls.
 
If you're going to buy your products locally, I recommend either 3M Perfect It III Rubbing and 3M Perfect It III Machine Glaze, or Meguiar's #83 DACP and #80 for your polishes. After that, you can do Meg's NXT and/or #16 paste wax.



I am recommending that you use two polishes because your paint is 12 years old. I'm sure it has some pretty nasty swirls and/or other paint defects so it can't hurt to use something a little aggressive. I really don't find 3M PI III RC or #83 to really be all that aggressive if you are using it with a PC or by hand, even though I would never try to use any of these by hand other than the LSP's.
 
Oh, and one more question for those late night owls...a friend of mine recently got a new paint job...but it somehow ended up with some swirl marks. Should I use the same procedure?
 
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