TJinFL
07-23-2017, 01:56 PM
About a year ago I began my journey into the world of detailing. Car detailing that is. Now up to that point my expertise had progressed to a home grown detailing style of one bucket wash using imitation chamois's and a once a year hand application of Klasse AIO with Colinite 476s as the final topping.
My cars looked good enough in my eyes. But then I began to be drawn by some powerful yet indiscernible force to the AutoGeek website. I soon became aware of the “lacking” in my detailing efforts so far. I discovered that I was missing out on a major satisfaction in my life. Namely having my cars “groomed” to their max.
So I joined the forum at AutoGeek and began spending endless hours following threads, watching videos, and researching products and techniques.
Finally I got up my nerve and made a few posts in which I quickly discovered that my artificial chamois's were ruining my paint's finish and that I needed to invest in a machine polisher with many sets of buffer pads of various sizes and degrees of aggressiveness. Also I needed dozens of microfiber towels of varying degrees of softness. Then of course there were the chemicals. IronX, car wash formulas, waxes, polishes, compounds,sealants, coatings, Pad cleaner, and interior cleaners duplicating many of the aforementioned categories. Then there were products for maintaining the tires, glass, plastic trim, vacuums,air blowers, and on and on.
Now being a man I began to get very excited about all this. Especially honing in on the polisher and pads wars.
Soon my arsenal of detailing productshad gown to include about 15 mf towels, a polisher, about 2 dozen polishing pads, Iron X, HD Speed, McKee's 37 Coating Prep and Paint Coating, several buckets and a wash rack, McKee's 914 Rinseless Wash, WG Exterior Trim Sealant, Meguiars All Purpose Cleaner, Mequiars UQD, Meguiars UP & UC, Optimum Car Wax, Optimum NoRinse Wax & Wash, McKee's Plastic Trim Stain Remover, claybar & Nanoskin Softscrub, several sprayers for my various chemical and soon!
Now many of these products especially the one's which duplicate each other came as I moved towards coatings away from waxes.
But as my zeal for accumulating began to run into my zeal for not wanting to waste money, I began to see a pattern much like my late mother's where at one point she spent about$1000 a month on items from HSN & QVC. Many of these boxes began accumulating in the garage never being opened!
Now at the beginning of all this (last July 2016), I had gone over my car with Klasse AIO and Collinite 476s. Then I maintained the finish with first MUQD and then ONR and OCW. Which kept the finish looking very good with much water beading up until the end of the love bug season about a month ago or for about a year.
Now as the practical side of me began to take over I began to anguish over all the hundreds of dollars I had wasted (cringe, cringe) as it became apparent that contrary to popular belief at least in my case my 1 year old Toyota RAV4 had no swirls and didn't need to be IronXed. That my original routine of Klasse AOI and Collinite 476s once a year followed up with Optimum ONR & OCW when needed did a good job of keeping the car looking very good. Now I admit that switching to microfiber was a major improvement I encountered from my AutoGeek time.
So recently it became time to detail my car. What to do?? My old Klasse AIO & 476s routine which I was sorely tempted to continue due to how well it worked for me with the ONR & OCW followups or the new McKee's 37 Paint Coating? Well finally I opted for the coating with curiosity being the main driver or was it to protect my male(there's that word again) ego?
So I did the baggie test and concluded I should do the Nanoskin Softscrup fine sponge thing with ONR concentrated to about 1 in 32 as a lubricant. This took a lot longer than I thought it would and I wasn't thrilled with the way the sponge wanted to stick to the surface/paint. But I got through it in probably about and hour and a half. Not perfect but much better than before. More on that later.
Then I taped my black trim with the blue painter's tape which was not much fun and took probably an hour.
The I began to apply the McKee's 37 Paint Coating Prep. This took a long time as I wanted to be sure I covered all the areas the Coating was going on. I found it hard to see what I had done and what was uncovered as the paint is really in good condition and the solution became clear when applied and was hard to see the coverage. So there was a lot of going back forth and over and over to make sure of the coverage. Probably took an hour and a half.
Then I was running out of time. So I did one application of the coating last evening and another this morning. Probably an hour per application.
When I finished last evening I was pretty tired. I am an old man of 72 but then I run 4 miles 3 times a week so as you can get some idea of what kind of shape I am in. I wasn't having warm thoughts toward the whole coating thing. But as I look at the car today it does look pretty good. Probably more glassy looking than with the 476s but not enough to make a big deal with me.
So I guess any conclusions await how this finish holds up over the next 12 months and 2 love bug seasons. I am not sure how to maintain this car. Do I just do McKee's 914 washes. Or do I do the ONR and OCW? At first I will do the 914 say weekly. If the finish starts to go I could just do the coating over again. But to be honest my impression is that I suspect I will probably go back to 476s as it doesn't look to me I saved anything by doing the coating. You have to wash either way.
Getting back to my original theme. Tales of a rebellious man. I would offer these thoughts. I drive a2016 RAV4 and 1995 Toyota T100. The RAV4 is just a practical non-inspiring vehicle though very dependable. It occurs to me that it is just idiocy to get carried away with maintaining a show car finish on it. Chips, scratches, dings and perhaps much worse are lurking around the corner then what? Basically I have wasted my money on the polisher and pads as they are not needed yet except perhaps for the truck. But even as old as it is it really doesn't have much in the ways of swirls. I can polish it by my old methods and the appearance to me is pretty good and appropriate considering all the nicks and dings it has accumulated.
Now in my recent procedure/detail by AG standards I should have used a dozen polishing pads and several dozen mf towels. I used 4 pads and 3 towels. And though I have many“better” mf towels I used one's from Costco and they worked great. Say what you want the finish is the answer and I have no scratches even under a optivisor and intense LED light or sunlight for that matter!
So there you have the testimony of a rebellious man after probably 1.5 years of AG influence. Excuse my typos but I have no inclination to proof read this!
TJinFL
My cars looked good enough in my eyes. But then I began to be drawn by some powerful yet indiscernible force to the AutoGeek website. I soon became aware of the “lacking” in my detailing efforts so far. I discovered that I was missing out on a major satisfaction in my life. Namely having my cars “groomed” to their max.
So I joined the forum at AutoGeek and began spending endless hours following threads, watching videos, and researching products and techniques.
Finally I got up my nerve and made a few posts in which I quickly discovered that my artificial chamois's were ruining my paint's finish and that I needed to invest in a machine polisher with many sets of buffer pads of various sizes and degrees of aggressiveness. Also I needed dozens of microfiber towels of varying degrees of softness. Then of course there were the chemicals. IronX, car wash formulas, waxes, polishes, compounds,sealants, coatings, Pad cleaner, and interior cleaners duplicating many of the aforementioned categories. Then there were products for maintaining the tires, glass, plastic trim, vacuums,air blowers, and on and on.
Now being a man I began to get very excited about all this. Especially honing in on the polisher and pads wars.
Soon my arsenal of detailing productshad gown to include about 15 mf towels, a polisher, about 2 dozen polishing pads, Iron X, HD Speed, McKee's 37 Coating Prep and Paint Coating, several buckets and a wash rack, McKee's 914 Rinseless Wash, WG Exterior Trim Sealant, Meguiars All Purpose Cleaner, Mequiars UQD, Meguiars UP & UC, Optimum Car Wax, Optimum NoRinse Wax & Wash, McKee's Plastic Trim Stain Remover, claybar & Nanoskin Softscrub, several sprayers for my various chemical and soon!
Now many of these products especially the one's which duplicate each other came as I moved towards coatings away from waxes.
But as my zeal for accumulating began to run into my zeal for not wanting to waste money, I began to see a pattern much like my late mother's where at one point she spent about$1000 a month on items from HSN & QVC. Many of these boxes began accumulating in the garage never being opened!
Now at the beginning of all this (last July 2016), I had gone over my car with Klasse AIO and Collinite 476s. Then I maintained the finish with first MUQD and then ONR and OCW. Which kept the finish looking very good with much water beading up until the end of the love bug season about a month ago or for about a year.
Now as the practical side of me began to take over I began to anguish over all the hundreds of dollars I had wasted (cringe, cringe) as it became apparent that contrary to popular belief at least in my case my 1 year old Toyota RAV4 had no swirls and didn't need to be IronXed. That my original routine of Klasse AOI and Collinite 476s once a year followed up with Optimum ONR & OCW when needed did a good job of keeping the car looking very good. Now I admit that switching to microfiber was a major improvement I encountered from my AutoGeek time.
So recently it became time to detail my car. What to do?? My old Klasse AIO & 476s routine which I was sorely tempted to continue due to how well it worked for me with the ONR & OCW followups or the new McKee's 37 Paint Coating? Well finally I opted for the coating with curiosity being the main driver or was it to protect my male(there's that word again) ego?
So I did the baggie test and concluded I should do the Nanoskin Softscrup fine sponge thing with ONR concentrated to about 1 in 32 as a lubricant. This took a lot longer than I thought it would and I wasn't thrilled with the way the sponge wanted to stick to the surface/paint. But I got through it in probably about and hour and a half. Not perfect but much better than before. More on that later.
Then I taped my black trim with the blue painter's tape which was not much fun and took probably an hour.
The I began to apply the McKee's 37 Paint Coating Prep. This took a long time as I wanted to be sure I covered all the areas the Coating was going on. I found it hard to see what I had done and what was uncovered as the paint is really in good condition and the solution became clear when applied and was hard to see the coverage. So there was a lot of going back forth and over and over to make sure of the coverage. Probably took an hour and a half.
Then I was running out of time. So I did one application of the coating last evening and another this morning. Probably an hour per application.
When I finished last evening I was pretty tired. I am an old man of 72 but then I run 4 miles 3 times a week so as you can get some idea of what kind of shape I am in. I wasn't having warm thoughts toward the whole coating thing. But as I look at the car today it does look pretty good. Probably more glassy looking than with the 476s but not enough to make a big deal with me.
So I guess any conclusions await how this finish holds up over the next 12 months and 2 love bug seasons. I am not sure how to maintain this car. Do I just do McKee's 914 washes. Or do I do the ONR and OCW? At first I will do the 914 say weekly. If the finish starts to go I could just do the coating over again. But to be honest my impression is that I suspect I will probably go back to 476s as it doesn't look to me I saved anything by doing the coating. You have to wash either way.
Getting back to my original theme. Tales of a rebellious man. I would offer these thoughts. I drive a2016 RAV4 and 1995 Toyota T100. The RAV4 is just a practical non-inspiring vehicle though very dependable. It occurs to me that it is just idiocy to get carried away with maintaining a show car finish on it. Chips, scratches, dings and perhaps much worse are lurking around the corner then what? Basically I have wasted my money on the polisher and pads as they are not needed yet except perhaps for the truck. But even as old as it is it really doesn't have much in the ways of swirls. I can polish it by my old methods and the appearance to me is pretty good and appropriate considering all the nicks and dings it has accumulated.
Now in my recent procedure/detail by AG standards I should have used a dozen polishing pads and several dozen mf towels. I used 4 pads and 3 towels. And though I have many“better” mf towels I used one's from Costco and they worked great. Say what you want the finish is the answer and I have no scratches even under a optivisor and intense LED light or sunlight for that matter!
So there you have the testimony of a rebellious man after probably 1.5 years of AG influence. Excuse my typos but I have no inclination to proof read this!
TJinFL