Waxing and follow up after Full Detail 3 months later... What’s my next step?

[muslenutz]

Im curious for some advice so I can prepare for my next detail. I had my car fully detailed, I want to keep up with it to keep things looking great. When I need to wax it, I will. The local shops told me there is no need to polish it - just continue waxing it. The car is relatively new, I just want to make sure I continue to keep up with the shine. A couple of questions....

1. Before I wax it again, what is the recommended step if the paint looks good. Do I repolish to bring out the shine?
2. Perhaps I may want to use a ceramic product instead of wax. Do I have to strip the car of what I just paid to have done? What would be the recommended process to do a ceramic as the wax is close to a finish here.

[SWETM]

Do you know what the detailer put on the car is in what wax?

1. Do a baggie test after the wash when you feel like the wax has degraded in it's water behavior. I think that you call it a sandwich bag and put it on your hand. And lightly feel on the paint on different parts if you find the feel smooth you are okay to put another wax layer on after the next wash or this wash too. If you feeling a lot of bumps and uneven feel between the different parts of the paint. You have gotten contaminants on it. The baggie test excells your ability to feel these bumps and what can be on the paint. Depending on where you find the most non smooth feeling parts as on the vertical panels or horizontall panels or the lower side panels and the back of or the front of the car. You can have different kind of contaminants that you can use different kind of chemicals that desolves them. Try to look closely as where you feeling these bumps and see if you can see the embedded dirt on the side panels and the back of the you may have tar spots and iron particals. On the horizontall panels you often has tree sap and industrial fallout. In the front you have mostly bug squash residue left on the paint. Then the road film that it's of all of the dirt that's on the roads and gets on the paint a lot of when it's rains. This is often oily and attracts dust and other dirt to get a rough feeling on the most part of the vehical. If you can figure out what kind of dirt and contaminants you have on the paint you can get dedicated chemical products that desolves these. Like degreasers for the road film and tar remover for the tar spots and tree sap and other oily dirt build up and iron remover for the iron particals and industrial fallout on the paint. Also if you have water spots a water spot remover can be effective if they have not bond to hard and etched the paint. This is called a decon wash and can be enough to get these contaminants off if it's not too bad. The next step after you have done the chemical decon is to do another baggie test and if it's smooth it's ready to wax it. If you still have bumps and such left you move on to the mechanical decon step which is claying. If you use a mild grade clay bar or clay alternatives and a great clay lube. You can clay it without any clay marring that's visual at least. If you get clay marring and many suggest you to do a light polishing either way which gets the paint more cleaner and the light defects corrected. And then wax or use a sealant to get you a longer longevity from it than 3 months.

2. A coating needs to be applyied on as a bare and clean paint as possible before it's applyied. Also to have the paint looking it's best before you seal it in with the coating for a long time. So pretty much the same prep with a chemical decon steps and claying and polishing to a great finish. Then it's important to get the polishing oils off which you do by useing a panel prep wipe product and prefered by the coating brand you chose to use. Then follow the directions of the coating applications and you will be fine.