Newbie Detailing and Winter prep

[Reflection]

So I've been slowly building up my arsenal of detailing products and what not for my car.



Before I continue, I have a question that I hope you guys can answer. My car is a black 1995 Integra and I realize in the night and morning, I get a lot of condensation build up on my car and the windows get really foggy. All the other cars on my block look just fine and my car is also the last to dry off from a rainy day. Let me express that my car stays wet for a very long time compared to the other cars.



Back on topic now, I am avoiding polishing because I am afraid of burning through the paint and causing more swirls and scratches than I fix. I am pretty much just doing all that I can before I get it professionally detailed after this winter. The car might not make it into the garage for the winter either so I am prepping it for outdoor storage.



These are the products I have

-Meguiar's Gold Class Shampoo and Conditioner

-Meguiar's Smooth Surface Clay

-Meguiar's Scratch x 2.0 (works wonders under the door handle area)

-Meguiar's Quik Detailer (Useless spray, don't notice a thing when used and it leaves oily smears)

-Meguiar's Interior Detailer

-Meguiar's Wheel Detailer

-Turtle's Carnauba Wax paste



I picked up a tub of Turtle's wax paste since it was cheap and it was my first time waxing. It's not bad at all, the wax coating it leaves really does feel like a hard shell but water doesn't bead off of it as I would like it too. It's also very messy when you wipe it off and I still have some green residue that doesn't seems to want to come off with a regular car wash. I am looking at getting Meguiar's NXT 2.0 wax paste.



Now what's the correct procedure to prepping it for the winter? Wash it, clay bar, then how many coats of wax? Should I do a coat of each wax since one is synthetic and the other is a carnauba wax?



Thanks.

 

[Furd]

There are a least a half a dozen recent "winterizing" threads. A search will provide you with a lot of information.



If your purpose is just to get it through the winter, I would wash it (read up on how to do that properly - there are a few really good threads on that subject - see the pinned topics), maybe clay it (read up on that too) and then apply a coat or two of Collinite 845. Its very durable and easy to apply. You can get the Collinite from any number of internet retailers.



I'd forget about the NXT for winter. Its not very durable.



I don't know about the condensation thing.

 

[Dan]

If your purpose is just to get it through the winter, I would wash it (read up on how to do that properly - there are a few really good threads on that subject - see the pinned topics), maybe clay it (read up on that too) and then apply a coat or two of Collinite 845. Its very durable and easy to apply. You can get the Collinite from any number of internet retailers.

Totally agree. 845 is awesome and very durable. Its not picky about surface conditions either, so if you paint is less than perfect, no worries.