bs

well after reading up on the subject here and at <a href="http://www.carcareonline.com" target="_blank">car care online</a>, i decided to do a thorough treatment of my paint. i bought some 3M fine cut rubbing compound, imperial hand glaze, and perfect it show car liquid wax, and started by washing the car with some dish soap and car soap to remove all the old wax.

then i used the rubbing compound with great success on the scuff marks behind the door handles and with bad results on the marks on my roof. it appears to me that a PO let some bird **** sit on there for awhile until it damaged the clearcoat; i had quarter sized spots with a spiderweb of tiny tiny cracks are small enough to appear as discoloration until viewed from a few inches away. the rubbing compound did not help this at all and in one case actually took all the damaged clear coat off the paint.

next i worked over the whole car with the hand glaze. i have to say that after hearing a dozen people on here rave about this product i was a bit dissapointed. any time i look at the reflection of a bright light on the surface of my car, i see a halo of scratches around it, this effect was what i was hoping to get rid of with the glaze. perhaps i should have used swirl mark remover but i was sketched out by the fact that they had a different one for light and dark paint which made me think it had some kind of filler or something, which i didn't want. any way, this was only marginally reduced by a good hearty application of hand glaze. i thought the car looked shinyer at first but then i did half the hood and carefully compared to the other half and could really only barely tell the difference.

now i know that CCO and some people on here say they've had "clouding" with polymer waxes, including the 3M stuff i bought, but i had used 3M one step cleaner wax back in my stupider days with no ill effects so i thought this was just the ramblings of obsessive compulsive detailers. well, you don't have to have OCD to see the effect this wax left on my car. i'm not sure i'd call it clouding, but on the roof where i was afraid to wax all the way to the sunroof seal for fear of staining it, there is now a visible line around the seal marking where i stopped waxing. it doesn't look cloudy as much as it looks a little darker, and it is only noticable from certain angles. when i did the hood, there was not such a line to look for but as the sun set i could swear i saw streaks on the hood in the direction i had been buffing. i went and got a clean cloth and buffed more but no matter how many times i went over it, there still appeared to be a fine residue.

i did not continue waxing after that. today in the bright sun it is not as noticable but frankly considering that i spent all the daylight left after work 3 days in a row (putting off dinner til after 9) the change in appearance of my car is not very noticable and kind of dissapointing. it looks better than it did right after i washed it, but not enough to justify $40 and 9 hours and repetitive strain injury to my wrists.

i'm damn sick of this now and am just going to leave it be. next time i wash i will use dish soap again and try a different wax. i wish i'd just spent my time and money cleaning my seats or something, i have a feeling they'd have benefited a lot more.

in conclusion i will say that i know 3M pretty well having done 3 internships there and i still think all their products kick ***... they are just not idiot proof mass market consumer products so you better know how to use them and what not to use them on.

--EDIT--
my car is "baltic blue" by the way... that beautiful dark metallic blue color that looks almost violet if viewed from the right angle at dusk

Flight_951

I've used imperial hand glaze by itself before applying zymol (costco variety) with great results on black and also burgundy paint. Was it hot and humid where you were? That may explain the difficulty in removing the wax residue. I think CCO recommends water mist from a spray bottle on the area before buffing it out again to remove the residue. Good luck.

PorscheG96

Let me just say once again that Zaino rules. I was a tard once at an autocross event and removed my sunroof...I layed it in the back of my 944 with the paint against the carpet so I didn't break any of the delicate plastic hinges. The carpet left countless tiny scratches all over my roof, and I was pissed. Zaino fuggin' rocks, no more scratches.

pologuy

Maybe someone here can help me out.

Whats the difference between hand glaze and just regular glaze?

Thanks

Loki

My best results have been with McQuire's(sp?) Polishing compound and then 2 coats of Liquid Glass. Liquid glass comes in an old style metal can, colored gold. I don't have the container to look at right now. It costs about $18-20 a can, but is amazing. Works great on dark colors. You also need to bake it in the sun between coats.

Chris

Sami951

bs,

Sounds like you've got the exact same paint as mine... LY5Z? At first I didn't even want a blue car, but now that I got one, I'm really loving it. The only thing that might be better is the new Porsche color "Basalt Black", which is like a metallic black with a very small amount of dark blue. Hard to describe, but I once saw a new 911 in that color and it was plain awesome.

Here's a (poor) pic of me polishing the hood of my car:


As for the products, I've gotten really good results with first putting on a coat of Autoglym red stuff (cleaning wax or something) and then a coat of the golden stuff (high gloss something). Takes a while, but to me it's worth it!

<img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

Paul C 944

I used the swirl remover on my black car and it did help me,I followed it with hand glaze( not a lot of difference) then 3m wax I thought it was worth it it was a solid black reflection no swirls! I also had clayed the car eairlier,so it was very smooth!

Jason-85944

bs.......

Anytime that you use a compound with a grit in it you should use a buffing wheel to apply. Reason is that you need to heat the clearcoat up in order to get the scratches out of it from the compound. This is an art as you can really screw you paint up if you don't know what you are doing. Also, my 2 cents on the 3M products...they are OK. I use wizards products to do my cars and that stuff is great.

Good Luck,

Jason

bs

thanks for the input guys... i'll drag this thread back up when i next wax my car and try something different.

i drove my car to work for the first time in awhile yesterday and went out a few times to look at it under different light conditions as the day progressed. i really kept thinking that she looked a bit shinier and glossier than before... maybe it's not just in my head. either way in low light or light from an oblique angle you can still see the lines around the sunroof.

pologuy: hand glaze is just a glaze specifically designed for hand, not machine application.

sami: our paint color RULES!! I haven't seen the black you are talking about but i have yet to see any 944 in a color i like as much as mine.

jason: the rubbing compound i used was "fine cut" and designed specifically to be suitable for hand application (per the label). i would want to practice on an awful lot of chevy's before i'd ever take a polishing machine to my paint.

Paul C 944

Sometimes a good wash after wax in 2-3 days later takes away some uneven streaks.I dont know why. <img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

Jason_86_951

[quote]Originally posted by Sami944S:
<strong>bs,


Here's a (poor) pic of me polishing the hood of my car:


<img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>

JK-
Polishing the red hood and the blue hood at the same time.hehe
Sorry I couldn't resist.