The meguires products are ok and cheap in price, but the 3M products RULE!

 

NAPA stores carry the 3M products. Go to one of there larger distibution stores. They have all sorts of stuff, but you have to get the parts guy to look for it. I got some 3M Finnesse It II Finishing Material Machine polish, 3M detailing clay, and Meguiars #10 and #17 there. Also, you can try the auto body supply and auto paint stores.

If you're into mail order, autopia-carcare.com and autogeek.net probably have what you need.

Have you ever tried Klasse AIO and SG? Great stuff. That's what I have on my 530i. I topped it with S100 carnuba, which is available at most Harley dealers for about $17. It's seems to be the same as P21S wax. The jar certainly is the same. But S100 is half the price.

 

Excuse to share photos..... I wash my car with Meguires today.

 

How do you determine how bad the oxidation and underlying paint is? How do I know if it is just oxidation or paint severly fading? My son has a red 1995 Jeep Cherokee that has what looks like pretty severe oxidation on it. I used some light rubbing compound, but didn't help much and may have even made it look worse. The paint on the rest of the vehicle is in good condition, so I "assumed" there would be good paint under it, but now I'm not sure.

 

MPD,
Do you only drive during the day or is it the track car? I don't see any lights....

 

If your definition of "fading paint" means that you can see primer showing through, or clear coat wearing off, then this is probably good advice. If your "fading" is due to oxidation, acid rain etching, or neglect, then you actually WANT to remove a micro-thin layer of paint in order to restore the faded finish. I recently detailed a black Lexus 300ES with factory single stage paint, (no clear coat!!) for a co-worker of mine. It had paint that felt like 320 grit sand paper, and she thought it looked "pretty good"!!! That is , until I got done with it
Recipe was: Wash, clay bar, Meguiar's compound power cleaner (roof, hood, and trunk, only), #83 dual action cleaner/polish (DACP), applied with rotary buffer, #80 speed glaze, applied with dual action polisher, Dawn dishwashing liquid wash to remove any polishing residue, NXT x2 applied with dual action polisher, #16 carnauba applied by hand. You could literally read a newspaper in the car's reflection, afterwards. Next time the owner saw the car, she denied that it was hers, and then started crying.. gotta love doing things for chicks!!
Most cars don't need this level of aggression, and I'd use caution on old, thinning paint or clear coat, especially on body contours and panel edges. I don't think the NXT sealant has much in the line of abrasives that "takes a lot of paint off," even though it claims to remove minor (and I do mean minor) swirl marks. I used a white pad to apply NXT and there was barely any paint transfer to the pad, from this single-stage black paint, unlike with the other compounding/ polishing products mentioned.

 

Lizard944:
I've never had any luck with clay bars, can't get them to do anything on the paint other than slide around. Is there a special trick to it? Can you be more specific on some of the products you used, I want to go to work on the hood of my son's Jeep again - maybe there's still hope for it, since no primer is showing through.

 

I'm working on a solution to mount Hella 90mm 5200k HID's down where the euro driving/fogs were before. I just got sick of trying to mess with the GT racing buckets I had and stock was not an option. When it's done it will still be a street car.

 

Jim,
A clay bar won't do much to improve the appearance of the paint, initially anyway, but it's just used to remove contaminants (road film) from the paint and "prep" the surface for polishing. I've always found that the finish actually looks a little worse after clay barring because it introduces some fine scratches as it's "knocking down" the surface contaminants. You have to wash the car, then dry it thoroughly, before claying, so you're not mixing water with the spray on "lubricant" that comes with the clay kit. You just spray the lubricant on the car surface then rub the clay back and forth like you're using a chalk board eraser. It sounds like hell when it's removing contaminants. You want to use a light pressure and listen for the scratching sounds to stop, while you're rubbing. Then run your fingers over the area you worked on and it should feel smooth as glass. Then move on to the next panel. I saw that you said you used a little "rubbing compound " on your son's truck and it actually made it look worse. That's kinda the way compounds work; by removing a thin layer of surface paint. It also removes some oils from the paint/clear coat, and makes the surface look chalky or hazy. You have to reduce this 'haze' with progressively finer polishes like I described in my earlier post. If the area that you used compound on, looks better after you put a little wax on it, then it has the potential to look good, because the wax is re-adding oils to the paint that were stripped away by the compound. I don't use that dep't store compound that comes in tins, because it's way too aggressive for most paint problems, and is meant to be used by hand application. I don't think you can restore a heavily oxidized finish by hand because you need to create a little surface heat in order to polish things out well, which can only be achieved by a rotary or random orbital buffer. Good detailing is a learned "art-form." I learned most of my stuff from hanging around buddies that are in the business, and reading a lot! Some good websites that I occasionally refer to are: www.autopia.com and www.properautocare.com They have some good tutorials on the project you're trying to do.. No affiliation, just found them while surfing for detailing info. You cannot buy most Meguiar's "professional" products at Autozone or the like. I get my stuff locally at a auto paint and body supply store, but you can find most anything online, ebay, or through the websites mentioned.. Good luck.

 

Very true. The clearcoat was burnt off by the sun on the fiberglass sunroof and I made the mistake of waxing it. Very little color remains. Just a heads up.

 

You may be able to fix this "on-the-cheap," by repainting the sunroof yourself. Since it's a whole panel, you won't have to worry too much about "blending" it in after it's been painted. I've had very good results with can spray paint that was mixed for my particular color, LV-7 metallic graphite. I bought it from paintscratch.com, after seeing a post awhile ago on this board, recommending them. My special 'trick' was derived from my old days of model car building where we'd warm up a spray paint can in a bucket of warm water, and it would make the paint go on smoother. You just have to be careful because it will also run quicker, so you want to do it in about 3 to 4 light coats. You have the advantage of being able to lay your sunroof down flat when painting it, so it's less likely to run. A clearcoat is also imperative in order to get a good finish. I just used clear Duplicolor enamel for that. I had a left mirror back repainted by a dealership, after a minor accident, and I recently repainted my passenger side mirror, that looked like it was sandblasted by many rock chips, with the spray can. You cannot tell the difference!!!

 

I was going to do that but then I got this avatar and didn't want to look like a hypocrite.

The next owner of my 86 will have to worry about it.

 

Sheesh! Yes, we are a "different" breed, aren't we??
I just haven't found out if that's a good thing or not...

 

I find similar results with clay bars. Clay doesnt do much for my cars with questionable paint. They help somewhat on the cars with excellent finishes. Originally the whole concept of the bar was to use as a tool to remove paint overspray. Doesnt always work.

Not all clay is equal though. My maguires clay bar looks like my bar of soap ive been using for a week. Very small. Griots is very large and much more malleable.

I find a good polish goes further than a clay bar. With clay, you are bringing on yourself yet another once-around on the car. You have to decide if you want to add a cpl more hours of work to the job at hand.

The saying still holds true though. If you can feel the scratch with your fingernail, its pretty much beyond repair. The only exception to that might be if your car isnt clearcoated then you can pull paint and perhaps fill it in a bit. Scratch will still be there, but it might change to a color more closely resembling the color of the car.

Theres only so much this stuff can do however. You cant overcome the obvious.