Wax on, wax off...
Discussion
I have great admiration for a properly clean and well looked after car, but while I like my car to look good, I’ve much more interesting stuff to do in my life than pamper my old daily driver. I’ve used the local auto car wash and wishy-washy guys each weekend for the last few years but I’d like to do something more as long as it’s relatively painless. As I’m being mithered as to what I want for Christmas, I’m wondering about a car polishing machine but I’m not sure about this whole ‘detailing’ thing.
I don’t want to spend hours with a claybar (whatever one of those may be), three different grades of polish, sealers and then wax every two days for the remaining lifespan of my car, I’m simply wondering if I can successfully brighten up the appearance with a 4 or 5 hour attack with a machine every six months or so. (I also don’t want to burn the paint so as a newbie is there something safe?)
If I use a polish on my 2008 XF, will it mean that after a good dose of wax the paint will simply be thoroughly cleaned and restored back to original shininess for the next 6 months or is it the case that the wax will be washed off when I throw it through the local automatic car wash for its weekly cleanse thus exposing all the tiny scratches? If it’s the latter, obviously I’ll leave well alone but I’m just looking for a bit of direction as to what products and price may do the job I’m looking for, if any.
I don’t want to spend hours with a claybar (whatever one of those may be), three different grades of polish, sealers and then wax every two days for the remaining lifespan of my car, I’m simply wondering if I can successfully brighten up the appearance with a 4 or 5 hour attack with a machine every six months or so. (I also don’t want to burn the paint so as a newbie is there something safe?)
If I use a polish on my 2008 XF, will it mean that after a good dose of wax the paint will simply be thoroughly cleaned and restored back to original shininess for the next 6 months or is it the case that the wax will be washed off when I throw it through the local automatic car wash for its weekly cleanse thus exposing all the tiny scratches? If it’s the latter, obviously I’ll leave well alone but I’m just looking for a bit of direction as to what products and price may do the job I’m looking for, if any.
Thanks for the replies chaps but as far as 'learning better washing techniques' goes, my current one of 'let the foreign chaps at the carwash do it at weekend' is ideal in my eyes. I know it's sacrilegious to some (which is the reason I posted in GG rather than B&D) but all I was really after was an idea of whether removing the dull/dead paint with polish would be ok or would it do more harm than good. Ie, if I were to polish it today, after 4 weeks of carwash abuse would it look better or worse than it would have anyway?
As far as machines go, I'd need the most numpty-proof one available because I'd hate to end up with a car with lines of swirls and as you can tell, I'm a total novice! Finally, what model machine, pads, polish and wax should I be asking Santa for (if at all) and roughly how much will they cost him please?
Thanks very much for your patience - I do appreciate there are folk who probably think I'm a bit half-hearted about this, but really I only want a slight improvement for my few hours once every few months.
As far as machines go, I'd need the most numpty-proof one available because I'd hate to end up with a car with lines of swirls and as you can tell, I'm a total novice! Finally, what model machine, pads, polish and wax should I be asking Santa for (if at all) and roughly how much will they cost him please?
Thanks very much for your patience - I do appreciate there are folk who probably think I'm a bit half-hearted about this, but really I only want a slight improvement for my few hours once every few months.
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