electricgreen
06-14-2016, 08:35 AM
When I bought my Mustang back in 2001, I scoured the web and various forums and whatnot to come up with a car care system (paint, interior, etc) I was happy with. It served me and the car well, leading to multiple 1st place awards including a gold at an MCA event. Some life stuff happened and it's spent the better part of the past few years garage bound, although still kept clean! Now I'm ready to start where I left off, but I am finding some of my old favorites are gone and the "replacements" don't make me happy. While I've had a few products here and there outside of the Meg's line (Mothers convertible top cleaner for instance), I do try to stick to one line-although not all one system.
Previously, for exterior care, it was:
soft wash
(Mothers) vert top cleaner
Westley's tire cleaner (in the can, with the built in brush-long gone)
Hot rims
meg's clay
step 1 paint cleaner
step 2 (deep crystal) polish
gold class wax
gold class trim detailer
(Various other things like endurance tire gel, a protectant in a red bottle I can't recall the name of off hand (I think this was Mothers), etc. I am mostly ok with what I've got going with those parts of the system.)
While some is still around (deep crystal polish can be found online it seems, but I find only ultimate polish in stores and don't like it as well), some is gone (GC trim detailer and I've now tried both meg's ultimate and mothers back to black and don't like either as much).
I need a new system it seems. Additionally, I've got our dailies to keep up on, although the systems there are a bit different since they aren't garage kept. I tried swirl X (the new paint cleaner I believe), ultimate polish and collinite 476 on my daily (silver) but it just didn't do it (I did clay first of course). DH recently broke out the old PC DA and did his (black) DD with Griot's (can't recall names yellow bottle followed by white bottle) and it looked a lot better-of course machining is probably going to be better than doing this by hand on a neglected finish (both dailies are new to us this year, and are over 10 years old), but I've got tendonitis in my arm so I'm not sure I want to tackle the DA quite yet.
I guess mainly I'm looking for suggestions on both types of car-the Mustang might stay on Meg's although I'd LOVE to find an actual good substitute for the GC trim detailer if I stick with them, I'll just have to buy my polish online. Is the SwirlX really the same as the step 1 cleaner though? We moved to a rural area and while I completely support the farming, the farm near us uses "soil conditioners" and my poor cars end up with an icky film when there's a lot of wind and the fields aren't planted (and my house, and, well, kind of worries me as far as breathing it, but that's another story). Car wash DOES NOT remove it, unless it's frequent (our old DD had this issue, and it did come off after many trips through the automatic wash-hey, it was winter). I need a good cleaner! I washed the 'Stang last night and it was almost like I was using a towel that had wax residue in it to dry it (it didn't)-that's the best way I can describe the way the film acts. The dd's will need something-I don't think we need the yellow bottle of Griot's product each time, but I will need a cleaner and polish (I'll stick with collinite wax though since it lasts quite a while and I need that to make it through winter here-no heated space for detailing).
*insert green bounce smilie here* (my fav smilie from the Meg's forums)
Previously, for exterior care, it was:
soft wash
(Mothers) vert top cleaner
Westley's tire cleaner (in the can, with the built in brush-long gone)
Hot rims
meg's clay
step 1 paint cleaner
step 2 (deep crystal) polish
gold class wax
gold class trim detailer
(Various other things like endurance tire gel, a protectant in a red bottle I can't recall the name of off hand (I think this was Mothers), etc. I am mostly ok with what I've got going with those parts of the system.)
While some is still around (deep crystal polish can be found online it seems, but I find only ultimate polish in stores and don't like it as well), some is gone (GC trim detailer and I've now tried both meg's ultimate and mothers back to black and don't like either as much).
I need a new system it seems. Additionally, I've got our dailies to keep up on, although the systems there are a bit different since they aren't garage kept. I tried swirl X (the new paint cleaner I believe), ultimate polish and collinite 476 on my daily (silver) but it just didn't do it (I did clay first of course). DH recently broke out the old PC DA and did his (black) DD with Griot's (can't recall names yellow bottle followed by white bottle) and it looked a lot better-of course machining is probably going to be better than doing this by hand on a neglected finish (both dailies are new to us this year, and are over 10 years old), but I've got tendonitis in my arm so I'm not sure I want to tackle the DA quite yet.
I guess mainly I'm looking for suggestions on both types of car-the Mustang might stay on Meg's although I'd LOVE to find an actual good substitute for the GC trim detailer if I stick with them, I'll just have to buy my polish online. Is the SwirlX really the same as the step 1 cleaner though? We moved to a rural area and while I completely support the farming, the farm near us uses "soil conditioners" and my poor cars end up with an icky film when there's a lot of wind and the fields aren't planted (and my house, and, well, kind of worries me as far as breathing it, but that's another story). Car wash DOES NOT remove it, unless it's frequent (our old DD had this issue, and it did come off after many trips through the automatic wash-hey, it was winter). I need a good cleaner! I washed the 'Stang last night and it was almost like I was using a towel that had wax residue in it to dry it (it didn't)-that's the best way I can describe the way the film acts. The dd's will need something-I don't think we need the yellow bottle of Griot's product each time, but I will need a cleaner and polish (I'll stick with collinite wax though since it lasts quite a while and I need that to make it through winter here-no heated space for detailing).
*insert green bounce smilie here* (my fav smilie from the Meg's forums)