OCBen

In the interest of helping new car owners who are really, really confused about waxing here’s a little primer on waxing that should hopefully remove some of the confusion and help you understand what some of the advanced detailing sites are talking about so you can become better informed about how to protect your new Porsche’s paint finish. (Incidentally, a new finish is completely cured at the factory – you don’t need to wait out some waiting period before you can begin to protect your new car.) Also, this is not meant to be comprehensive in any way, just a basic bare-bones guide.

First of all, what most lay people refer to as wax (e.g. Turtle Wax, Simoniz, etc. – the stuff you used to use when you didn’t know any better, the stuff that typically comes in a can, that was the inspiration for the martial art move “Wax On, Wax Off”) is essentially a one step product that is comprised of polishers (mild abrasives) and a protective wax. It’s easy to use – wax on, wax off. And you use it maybe once or twice a year on your tractor or lawn mower or beater car – certainly not on a fine automobile such as your Porsche, if you care at all about preserving the finish a long time. The reason being is that every time you use it you are actually removing a small amount of paint in the process, due to the mild abrasive polishers contained in the product.

Wax, to those of us who are better informed, is a protective product with no abrasives – zip, zero, nada – that is either synthetic (acrylic polymers and other synthesized products) or natural such as pure carnauba waxes. These are only applied to protect a perfectly scratch-free, swirl-mark free, polished painted surface. If the wax is doing a good job of protecting the paint, you don’t need to polish (remove paint) every time you wax. Theoretically, a painted surface can be polished perfectly smooth just once and protected forever with repeated waxings. (A museum piece that is encased comes to mind.) But you never, never ever apply a pure wax on a painted surface that has contaminations (even though it’s just been washed), has swirl marks, scratches and other surface blemishes. Unless of course you don’t care about wasting a good wax.

So, in order to remove these contaminants and blemishes you could immediately proceed to polishing the paint after washing your car and then apply your wax of choice, but you’ll be unnecessarily removing paint where you really don’t need to. This is where detailing clay comes to play. Clay is used to remove the environmental contaminants that have bonded to your paint finish. The clay, remarkably, will remove only the contaminants without affecting the contaminant free areas. (Read up on using clay in detailing sites mentioned here and elsewhere for more info.)

BUT, before you clay and after you wash, you’ll need to remove the old wax first so you can get down to the bare paint where these contaminants have attached themselves. If you’ve never clayed your car before, chances are that there are contaminants being protected underneath your previous wax coat, that’s why you need to remove the old wax before you clay. I would NOT recommend using a harsh detergent such as Dawn, as the Zaino zealots swear by. Harsh detergents tend to dissolve oils and can prematurely dry up rubber molding and trim. I recommend using a paintwork cleanser that is specifically designed for removing old wax. (P21S makes a good one, as well as Pinnacle and others.) Once you remove the old wax you can then proceed to claying, then to polishing, and then to waxing.

It should be obvious that you don’t clean, polish, and wax, and then repeat the process thinking you are doing something good by doing it again and again in that sequence. That would be like stacking building blocks one by one, and after the last block, you knock them all down and start all over again. (You’d be surprised, you’d be surprised.) The only step you would want to repeat is the waxing step (assuming you did a thorough job in the prep stages).

So basically it boils down to two distinct operations: Prepping the paint & Protecting the paint. The first is the most laborious, the second the most fun!

Leader

OCBen knows of what he speaks!

JSMDMD

Ben, I have been reading your posts on care and upkeep of our cars and have learned a great deal from them. Thanks!
Because of your posts, I have decided to try using Klausse and P21S on my car. But first I am going to have to remove the old layers of Zaino that are on.
If I wash with something other than Dawn, then clay it, will this remove the layers of Zaino?
I had thought that one of the reasons the Zaino folks were so high on the Dawn is because it removes the Zaino from the car finish.

OCBen

Well, and thank you for appreciating, JSMDMD. I can only recommend the products I've had good success with, which were recommended by others more experienced than me. I'm absolutely sure that the Pinnacle Paintwork Cleanser will remove the old Zaino. It's basically a wax stripper. You might want to do a search on this product as well as the P21S Paintwork Cleanser (which I haven't tried yet) for detailed product information. But yes, that's what these products are for. I suppose they could just as well suffix the name "Wax Stripper" to these products, but the marketing brand managers probably think this would sound too harsh and so they call it a "cleanser" or a "cleansing lotion" - how nice.

alin330

OCBen what polish do you use?

1080iAddict

Thanks again OCBen for the valuable info. Very informative.

NVRANUF

OCBen, I agree with you completely on procedure and principle.
However I doubt that a few drops of Dawn in a bucket of warm water used once or twice a year prior to claying, sealing and polishing will cause the catastrophic problems you have voiced. Does that make me a zealot...??
Again, subjectivity rears it's head. If you like a product and it truly works for you, that's wonderful, however does it really make one "premium" line better (a very subjective term at best) than the rest. We can discuss the differences and nuances of each, but really.... what makes one better can only be determined by the individual....
Maybe next year I'll try using one of the other premium product lines mentioned here online, but for now I quess I'm just a Zaino Zealot

OCBen

I use 3M’s Imperial Hand Glaze as my high gloss polish. When people on the street ask me, after seeing the high gloss finish on my cars, what kind of wax I use, what they’re really asking is how I got such a high gloss on the paint. And the answer is, with a good polish. But I can’t say that to a lay person, because to them polishing and waxing are synonymous, and they would be misinformed if I told them to get IHG by 3M.

Really, the key to a high gloss shine is in the polishing step – this is what is ultimately getting preserved and protected by the waxing steps. To me this is the most important step, being a high gloss freak – that’s the only bling I indulge in. I really finesse at this step. I bought a pair of 3X reading glasses just so I could zoom in for up close work and polish out the finest of scratches invisible to the unaided eye. I also polish under fluorescent lighting only, to maximize the visibility of fine scratches. For some unknown reason I always seem to get an attack of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when I polish. The wife knows to throw the life preserver if I’ve been in the garage too long.

When you use a polish be mindful that you are actually using an “abrasive” product, no matter how finely abrasive it is. A polish removes microscopic amounts of paint with each pass. That’s why you never polish in circles, unless you’re after the crop circle look. Polish in a linear direction only, generally in the direction of air flow. The one exception I make is in the rear lid area that has many horizontal slats, making it impractical to polish in the direction of air flow, as well the small horizontal area of the roof in front of the sunroof. But once you’re done polishing, you’re done, don’t over do it – easy for me to say. It’s time to seal that gloss and protect it.

I used to use Meguiar’s polishes but I really like this 3M product. It delivers a real wet-look shine that I really crave. I also have other polishes that are a little coarser for more difficult to remove surface imperfections, but I seldom need to use them.

alin330

OCBen, Do you hand polish or use PC with 3M’s Imperial Hand Glaze ?

kl997s

Thank OCBen, that is great post. If my car is new (2 weeks old), can I skip the claying and polishing steps, and only do the washing and waxing. How many layers of wax should I apply for the very first wax job? If I plan to detail and wax my car only 2 or 3 times a year, what products would you recommend?

rss997

OC, thanks for the info, now go see a therapist! You are a sick individual who need to take his 997 and hit the mud track to get over your addiction to cleaning!!!!!!!!!!

XOXO

fontaines911

Ok .... thanks for all the info OCben. But I am still not clear on one thing. Should I be claying and polishing my brand new 997S ( GT Silver thanks for asking) of can I just to the Klasse "all in one" and then the Klasse Sealent. The paint feels pretty smooth and I do not want to get into claying and polishing if I do not have to. It does scare me a bit.

royalpar1

That is a great question, what should we do with our new babies, they have never been waxed?

OCBen

Gunner (nice avatar btw),

I hear you man, it's a very subjective subject and as a result often controversial. I don't claim to be an expert at all, and I certainly don't have the time and money to try as many products as possible to make a good assessment of the best available – I wish I did. I leave that up to the guys who get paid to do that and then I put my trust in their evaluations since they certainly have more experience than me.

As for using Dawn (and I just checked Zaino’s website and they most definitely say to use Liquid Dawn hand dishwashing detergent for wax removal) I’m a little leery of someone strongly recommending a particular brand of a staple product that has many equivalent alternatives. They don’t say “use a good grease cutting dishwashing liquid such as Dawn or Palmolive Liquid” but they specifically specify Dawn, which clearly raises my suspicions about this recommendation. Do they own stock in Procter & Gamble? Why should they care what dishwashing soap their customers use? Are they just being strongly biased in pushing their subjective preference for a particular dishwashing soap? And if so, how confident can I be that they’re being objective about their product claims and not trying to sell me snake oil? And why, oh why, do they have an ungodly list of products ranging from Z-1 through Z-18 and beyond? Am I expected to buy every one of them once I become a convert?

I can’t vouch for these products, not having used them. And if someone is happy using them, then protecting your car’s finish is really what it’s all about and being happy with the way your car looks. I can only vouch for what has worked for me. And again, I’m no expert. I’m just trying to offer a little help to get newbies on the right track.

Btw, the websites I can vouch for that I have learned quite a bit from are Autopia.org and Carcareonline.com. There are others out there I’m sure that are good, but I can’t speak for them, not having read their content yet.

OCBen

Is that a trick question? I hand polish whenever I use 3M's Imperial Hand Glaze. I know you were being serious, it just sounded funny when I read your question.

But to elaborate a little, I do use a machine polisher with some of 3M’s machine polishes to smooth out the paint some if it’s never had a machine treatment, and then I give it a final polish by hand using IHG. I prefer a rotary polisher only because I know how to use one and it does a better job than the orbital kind. The risks of doing damage with a rotary polisher are greater, but so are the rewards. I use a Makita 9227 professional unit. If you’re interested in knowing more about this polisher PM me.

kl997S, fontaines911, royalpar1 and others:

Check out this link for detailed info regarding your concerns:

http://www.guidetodetailing.com/topics.php?topicId=17

On a brand new car that is garaged and generally well taken care of, you can simply do as fontaines911 suggests, until you feel the need to make it look new again. That's what I would recommend if you're not confident using anything more.