imported_rachelanne16
New member
I try to clay my car twice a year. Although it is parked outside, it gets driven only 500 miles/year. The clay picked up very little and I always thought it was a pretty subtle, if not dubious, step in the process ...
Until I started a detail on my SO's four-year-old daily driver. This car had been washed and QD'd almost weekly, but it had been almost a year since it was last polished and sealed (AIO/SG). I could not believe what the clay picked up! With plenty of EO wash as lube, the clay would catch continuously the first time, but glide smoothly the second. I suppose that this is fine particulate matter that you get from driving that you largely avoid when parked (you are in a veritable slipstream of brake dust, road grit, exhaust fallout, etc. as you blast down the highway, yes?). It also took tar right off of the lower door frames.
It was a pretty amazing experience that I just wanted to share. The results of some of these steps are indeed kind of gradual, so it was really gratifying to get such immediate and tactile feedback from the clay step.
Until I started a detail on my SO's four-year-old daily driver. This car had been washed and QD'd almost weekly, but it had been almost a year since it was last polished and sealed (AIO/SG). I could not believe what the clay picked up! With plenty of EO wash as lube, the clay would catch continuously the first time, but glide smoothly the second. I suppose that this is fine particulate matter that you get from driving that you largely avoid when parked (you are in a veritable slipstream of brake dust, road grit, exhaust fallout, etc. as you blast down the highway, yes?). It also took tar right off of the lower door frames.
It was a pretty amazing experience that I just wanted to share. The results of some of these steps are indeed kind of gradual, so it was really gratifying to get such immediate and tactile feedback from the clay step.