Overwhelmed

Huh, OK. I can't really slam cleaner-waxes...some non-Autopians I know have kept their vehicles very nice with such stuff. Though I do think that AIOs are kinda the "modern" version of such stuff and overall better for most people.
 
Accumulator said:
Huh, OK. I can't really slam cleaner-waxes...some non-Autopians I know have kept their vehicles very nice with such stuff. Though I do think that AIOs are kinda the "modern" version of such stuff and overall better for most people.



Yep, you certainly can do better product wise BUT wash every few weeks and use the above stuff or Mother's every three months on a DD and you will have paint that will outlast the car, with minimal effort.
 
Just a suggestion, make sure if you're using Meg's UC and UP to do IPA wipedowns to get rid of the filler and see what you're really correcting. If you were doing the whole vehicle at once it wouldn't be too big of a deal, but since you're just doing one panel at a time and washing it weekly it could be problematic.



By problematic I mean by the time you get the last panel done the filler will have washed away from the first panel you did and it will look like you hardly did anything to it, thus creating a seemingly endless amount of work. If you're doing it one panel at a time I would really recommend going with a product with no filler such as HD Uno followed by HD Polish or HD Speed. Speed is by far my favorite polish because it gives you a durable wax and real correction at the same time. Saves me a lot of time when I'm doing other people's cars or my own.



HD products aren't OTC but you'll be much happier with the results by waiting the week or so it takes to be delivered. You'll be amazed at the quality of products available once you stop limiting yourself to OTC solutions. It will save you quite a bit of money in the long run too (for instance: diluting ONR and using that as clay lube is WAY cheaper than buying Meg's QD or the like for clay lube.) If you're only doing your own vehicle you'll find that soon you'll just be ordering a thing or 2 here and there to stock back up instead of constantly going back to wal mart or the auto parts store spending way more than you intended to lol. Don't get me wrong, Megs ultimate is a good OTC line, I still use it when someone wants to pay me very little for corrections (I always let them know what they're getting and that there are fillers in the Meg's products,) but it's not exactly up to par with the other products available to us.
 
Well, I really think I will move on to something that is not OTC but for the first time and learning technique I am going to use the OTC stuff as it is available. When I am ready to purchase, I will have to research it out even more. From what I can tell, there is no right answer to the best.



Tomorrow I will be going after my tailgate and will actually see how it goes. If well I really intend on going on around the entire vehicle. If it goes not well, it means I messed something up and will be trying to fix it. I am pretty excited about this, ya'll pry don't get excited about it but dang, I haven't been wound up to do work in a long time :)



Happy Detailing
 
A quick follow up. I did what I set out to do with the tail gate.



I came to the conclusion that I did not work the UC and UP hard enough. While I did improve the two trouble spots by a large amount, MANY "defects" remained that I feel should have come out. I error'd on the side of caution as it was my first attempt and will do this again once I gather better tools.



In the mean time I need to find solutions for the following items, none more or less then the others, just realizing how poor my current products/process is/are.



-tire/wheel cleaner

-tire glaze/finish

-trim

-glass



I will start searching and see what comes up as most used and why. With all the help I've gotten so far I had to come back and let you ALL know it was appreciated. This place rocks!
 
screeby- Other than the time/effort factor, nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution.



For wheels, I usually LSP them and wash with a sorta-strong car shampoo mix. Otherwise, I like Griot's Wheel Cleaner.



I clean my tires with Griot's Rubber Cleaner and then apply Zaino's Z16.



I generally just do my trim with a trim-friendly LSP (e.g., Collinite 845) and/or with ValuGard's Fast Finish, a leaves-stuff-behind QD that is simply *wonderful* on exterior trim.



I use good glass cleaners like SprayWay, or the HD one, or Griot's Window Cleaner, or the Meguiar's dilute-it-yourself product (forget the name/number), or Zep16, or...well, you get the idea; not consumer-level stuff like Windex ;)
 
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