Which Clay Bar

[abrcrombe]

You can go over the whole car with regular clay. Ultra poly is just designed to be used more frequently than 2 times a year. Regular clay will pick up a lot of the specs of junk in your car just fine.

[Torsion Tool]

Thanks, abrcrombe. You guessed it. Living in the city I must travel two hours just to get to a friend's place to detail. Two or three times per year is all I can reasonably hope for. Would love to spend my monthly parking garage fees on products. That said, I will be ordering a PC kit by week's end. Which is the best value, the Edge 2000 or a polish package; I need everything!

[abrcrombe]

If you don't have any products, I would go for a products package. The Lake Country pads are excellent, and they will work great for you. The Edge Pads offer convenience, but if you are rarely going to get a chance to detail, don't spend the extra money right now. You don't need it. In what condition is your car's paint. A little insight will help me recommend a kit for you.

[Torsion Tool]

Well, it is fairly decent. I was hoping to find a good shop, but gave up in exasperation. No one wanted to polish the few small scratches, and past bad experiences hurt the finish; most professionals I interviewed admitted that they knock off six to a dozen cars a day, "full treatment", whatever that is. It was painted candy apple green four years ago. No glaring scrapes, mostly normal wear for a car infrequently used but never polished. Am hoping to buff away the minor flaws until it can be repainted in a year or two. From five feet away it still looks great. Have decided to shampoo, clay, spot compound, polish X 2, glaze, wax X 2. Lean toward KlasseAIO and SG, but am considering Pinnacle XMT, Poorboys or Wolfgang HG and DG before the Souverain. What would you do?

[Torsion Tool]

Almost forgot: I've been using the Mother's three step system with bug remover and pre-cleaner. It just isn't enough, and now I have the typical scratches and chips, oxidation and pollution mess one expects from mostly city driving with occasional long jaunts for hunting and camping. The drek from the other cars in the garage and roads truly is awful.

[abrcrombe]

Well the best way to go is to get a polish to remove those minor imperfections. If you are leaning towards a wax, you can pretty much just drop the AIO and SG. You most likely won't need the spot compound, because your polish should be able to take care of everything. For what you want, I would consider going with XMT kit. http://www.autogeek.net/xmtpocaswrek.html
Comes with great polishes, and a glaze. You are going to use souveran, but if you weren't, I would have suggested the Poorboy's kit that comes with Natty's Blue Wax. Can't really beat this car shampoo. http://www.autogeek.net/pbss32.html For claying, I bought the DP, the one that you use twice a year, and at a great price, you can't beat it. http://www.autogeek.net/dp720.html The only thing you might need is a good QD. If you have mother's showtime, you can use that, but really it is just personal preference, most work great. Good luck and PM me if you have any more questions.

[P1et]

I recently purchased some Pinnalce Ultra Poly clay to remove overspray on my truck. Even though I had to do a few passes, it removed it completely and left much less marring on my truck than the Zaino Z-18 did.

Also, the Zaino started crumbling apart when doing my wife's Explorer, but this was not the case with the Pinnacle.

[koibybrian]

Just bought a pound of sig series of Pinicale plus gallon of the lubricant? How long or how much clay for the lubricant?

[01SVTvert]

Havent used the pinnacle lube but spray goes a long way, I cant see a normal person just doing their own cars going through a gallon for a long time. Think of spraying on some water to a surface to make it wet and keeping an area like that. That is how much you use per area. A spray bottle worth is more than I needed for a single car that had a bunch of stuff in the paint but wasnt totally borked

[killrwheels@autogeek]

Ive used the Pinnacle Ultra Clay and DP Clay Lubricant for over a year without issue. It seems slightly less aggressive than the yellow clay of Pinnacle past, but never had a problem with either to date.