Car Folk: Step-by-step directions and equipment for waxing (the car, not me)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Happy Wednesday!

I’m very, very excited to be taking my beast to her first BMW rally in May and then a two-day HPDE in June!!! :D:D

I want her to look her very best and need some help. I’ve done the standard amateur Turtle Wax thing with other cars, but I have a feeling I can up my game with this.

Car: '02 530i, carbon black, she has the usual older car scratches, dings, etc.

Can you help me with:
-Equipment to buy (are the electric brushy things good?)
-What to buy for waxing and other treatments
-Suggestions for the bumper, grill, other plasticy areas that are kinda beat
-Anything I can do for my silver aluminum wheels? They look great from a distance, but they have paint missing, dings.
-How do I shine up my engine compartment?

2

I recommend you rent the movie The Karate Kid (the original, not the awful remake) and pay attention to the training that Daniel-San goes through.

3

The car would surely look great with a Brazilian. :wink:

4

Ha! I set myself up for this one! :smiley:

5

Meguiar’s IMO is a decent place to start. Search YouTube for “meguiar’s car care series” and you’ll find info on how to wash, clay bar, wax, and detail in thr 5 part series. With a 15yo 530i, it may need a clay bar to restore the color and luster, and not just a wax.

I have not watched this series, nor have I ever clay bar’d a car, but I can recommend Meguiar’s.

6

Thanks for the tip. I used Meguiar’s products a long time ago and I remember them as doing a good job.

Does claying make a marked difference?

7

Pay a neighborhood kid to do it. Sorry, that’s all I got. I’m far too lazy to wax cars.

Every year I drive my e10 to the gathering, and every year it’s a little dingier than the last.

8

As a not factory-fresh car, I’m going to guess that one of the first steps is to apply polish, maybe even a couple of different stages of it. And when I think polish, I think “orbital buffer”. And then I get my buffer out and think “hire a detailer”.

I used to be obsessed with this stuff. Shit tons of microfiber towels, multiple grades of polish, multi-part sealants, ultra-expensive carnauba wax, a box full of different buffer pads, you know, the whole works. One day, I just looked at all that and said, “I do not want to do this anymore.” So much more pleasant hiring someone. And they always do a better job at the q-tip level stuff that exhausted me.

9

Never, ever wash a car in direct sunlight or on a particularly hot day unless you have it in cool shade and the surface is no warmer than air temp. That goes triple for waxing and finishes. If the paint, trim and glass are hot, they will spot and streak badly, even semi-permanently.

10

First of all, ignore this advice!! That damn Karate Kid and his swirling “wax on, wax off” shit has ruined many a car finish. Long, straight strokes, both when washing, cleaning and waxing. That way if you do create a new scratch it will not be noticed, swirls do get noticed. And please, if you value the car, NO power equipment, hand only. Unless you want swirls, like every other black car.

That said, you will be very pleased with the results of a clay bar treatment on your car. It is a time intensive process and you don’t do it every wash, once a year is fine. Clay bar is not abrasive but it will pull out many contaminants that are stuck into your clear coat that are not removed by a simple wash/wax.

Get a clay bar kit from Mothers or Meguiars. It will have a bottle of detailing spray, a micro fiber cloth, and a clay bar or 2. It is not really clay but a synthetic bar about the size of a small bar of soap.

Wash and dry the car. Then one fender or door panel at a time you will wet the panel with the spray and rub the clay bar across it. You may feel it grab the paint a little and then get smoother. It is picking up bug parts, road tar, small sand and bird crap that is imbedded in the clear coat. Keep using the spray to lubricate the bar as you rub the panel. Now look at the clay bar, it will have all kinds of little specks of crap that has just been pulled out of the clear coat.

Once the clay bar floats smoothly back and fourth just wipe the panel dry again. Now rub your hand over the treated panel, it is smooooth, rub the not yet barred panel next to it that you haven’t treated yet and there is no comparison. You thought you had the untreated panel clean, but now you can feel the difference.

Now the treated panel is ready to wax, because the clay has also removed all the old wax. I prefer NXT Tech wax 2.0 by Meguiars. Don’t use that old paste wax stuff, it is made to involve a lot of rubbing that the clay bar replaces.

Now you are ready to move on to the next panel!! This takes most of a day to do a whole car but you can always stop after doing a panel and pick up where you left off the next day if you want.

Smoooth, glassy, mirror finish that every car nut wants. Just takes some time. And once again, it is not abrasive to the paint. My 15 year old car is still like new and gets compliments almost daily in the summer.

For God’s Sake man, no power equipment!!!

11

Ba-da-bum. :smiley:
I much prefer Turtle Wax over Meguiar’s; had that go moldy on me before.

12

I missed this part.

Simple Green, the household cleaner. Will cut light grease and dust. The old school guys used to use Lemon Pledge furniture polish for the final wipe down but with Simple Green you don’t need that.

Just spray it on a cold engine, let sit for 5 or 10 minutes and spray off with a garden hose. Not on a high pressure setting, just rinse it off. Avoid a high pressure spray directly on computer or electronic components and you will be fine.

These electronics are not as sensitive as some might think. There is a lot of road spray that comes up from underneath the car in rainy weather and they are sealed against that. Just don’t point the water directly at these areas.

Let dry or wipe off with an old towel.

13

Thanks for all the great input! It’s kind of tempting to pay someone :slight_smile: However, this may be a labor of love I’d enjoy doing.

14

I haven’t done it but a cousin bought a 1970s Porsche 911 and he says it’s great.

If you do clay bar please share your experience.

15

Someone already mentioned the clay bar. But yeah, that will get rid of a lot more blemishes. And by the way, for my money, good ol’ fashioned Turtle Wax is the way to go if you’re just waxing. Do it by hand. No power equipment. No quick and lazy wash n’ wax. Do it right. Make sure you’re out of the sun.

For under the hood, any degreaser will cut through that grime. I use Purple Power, but Simple Green is good, too. Not sure why degreasers need a color in their name. That, about a million rags and probably at least a few hours will be required to get the engine bay looking tip-top.

16

I love working on them and driving them, but I* hate *cleaning them.

You might say I have a filthy fleet.

17

I skimmed the above but here’s my process.
Wash car as thoroughly as possible. You want to avoid waxing over dirt, tree sap, tar etc. Look for a remover that specifies those things.

Get some Mequires show car glaze #7, a very mild, fine abrasive paste that takes out minor swirls and scratches that don’t penetrate the finish. As with everything else, start with a small area isolated from other areas that are the same color so if it looks different and you don’t like it it won’t be so obvious. If you are amazed how much better it looks, proceed. No power equipment!
I can’t recommend a specific wax brand, haven’t actually waxed a vehicle in years. Back in the day I liked Rain Dance.

Don’t use Armor-all. This stuff is supposed to be much better but is harder to find. I had to order it online.
303 Aerospace Protectant

18

Back in the day I waxed my beloved car, and thought it’d be better to leave the wax on overnight and buff it off the next day – for the wax to bond more tightly to the paint, or so my 20-year old brain thought at the time. But I had swirl marks that I couldn’t buff out for weeks! Fortunately they weren’t blatantly obvious, but it was annoying to say the least.

19

I usually hand wash and wax the car by hand. But I’ve never used a clay bar. I understand the principle of clay bars but I’ve wondered whether the dirt and abrasives it picks up begin to function like sandpaper as you get further in the process. I know you turn the bar over as you go but I imagine you run out of clean sides of the bar pretty quickly. Do you use multiple bars per cleaning?

Also, I use Meguire’s wax and it’s “approved” by my car manufacturer (whatever that means), but I’ve used NuFinish in the past on my previous cars and was pretty happy with results. I remember it being easier to apply and remove. Any reason to avoid NuFinish?

20

What about leather interiors, what to use there? Especially on the dashboard that gets a lot of direct sunlight?