Hi Mate,
Your pics of your 197 look really good. You have certainly done a good job.
If you don't mind me asking, I want to get my clio looking as good as yours, what snow foam do u use and would you say the following is a good process to start off with as i've never cleaned my car like this before?
1.Rinse car with pressure washer
2.Cover it in snow foam - wait for 3mins,
3.Rinse off
4.Dry with leather
5.Apply Auto Glym Super Resin polish with Sonus Foam pads
6.Use another paint protector with microfibre cloth to remove all the swirls
What would you say?
Look forward to your feedback bud!!
Chris
Cheers Chris!!!
I'm no expert to be honest, just sort of picked things up from asking and reading around on here and speaking to people in the trade at shows etc., also Michael from The Polishing Booth has done my car once before and gave me some really good tips/ideas. I think he's on here under the name ThePolishingBooth actually...
I'd say the same as the others have already, stay away from leathers!!! Buy yourself some large Microfibre towels or ''drying towels''. I use Sonus ones, because I'm a Sonus whore, but anything large and Microfibre should do the job fine... Pat dry too, rather then rub.
As already said, SnowFoam is a pre-wash, it's main job is to loosen up the worse of the crap stuck to your car which will mean you won't need to apply as much pressure with a mitt (don't use a sponge, lambswool or microfibre wash mitt is the only option) to get the rest of the crap off. If you've never clay'd the car before then you'd be best to clay it before applying any polish, it seems quite daunting at first but if you take your time and keep the panels nice and lube'd then you've no need to worry.
My Big Wash;
1. SnowFoam onto dry/dirty car, 3-5mins.
2. Rinse off, low pressure.
3. SnowFoam again, 3-5mins.
4. Rinse off, high pressure.
5. Apply tar remover (I use Valet Pro) if/where needed and apply Bilberry Juice to the wheels and inside arches, agitate and leave whilst you do number 6...
6. Wash with shampoo (I use Sonus) and washmitt using two bucket method.
7. Rinse off, high pressure.
8. Clay (Again, I use Sonus), I only do this bit twice a year.
9. Rinse off, low pressure.
10. Towel dry the whole car, including door shuts etc..
11. Polish, polish, polish, (I use Sonus stuff and have some PoorBoys to try) until you're happy that you can't get things any better. I use a DA now with Sonus pads, but I've also applied the Sonus stuff by hand and had good results.
12. Sealant (You can skip this and go to 13 if you want, it's personal preference).
13. Wax (I use Valet Pro Armetis, but Collonite Marque d'Elegance is great too). I apply by hand, as in literally by hand... Get a bit of wax on my palm so it's nice and warm and the rub it onto the bodywork following the contours of the car. I let it set for a good 45mins and then buff off with a microfibre. Sounds a bit odd, I know, but I saw it on some old as f?ck documentary about hot-rods and the Yanks have been doing the whole detailing thing long before it caught on over here.
14. Have a brew, dress tyres & plastics.
15. Tidy up, the boring bit and take pictures, the geeky bit.
I only do it hat way twice a year. The rest of the time (once a month), I just do 1-7 with 10, 13 and 14. I like to keep the wax topped up when I can, I think that's more important in terms of helping to protect the pain than whacking on 500 layers of polish everytime you do a wash.
Black is a bitch to keep clean though!!!
