Cleaning a silver car....

[Louisa911]

Anybody else here find cleaning a silver car rather unsatisfying when observing the end results?

By cleaning, I mean hosing down, shampooing with two buckets, hose again, clay bar, polish, waxing, all with Meguiars products. Don't get me wrong... It looks clean, very clean, and shiny, but if a freshly waxed silver car drove past you in the street, it wouldnt exactly stand out as much as a deep glossy black one would. Silver is obviously one difficult colour to get the shininess to pop out at you, but is there anything in particular you can do to get an even better result?

[balders118]

I have a silver car which I don't clean verty often for just that reason.. It doesnt make a great deal of difference. Especially compared to my old (black) car, which used to get cleaned often.

The bonus is that silver doesn't really show the dirt as bad as many other colours.

[Zippee]

I know exactly what you mean. I spent a whole day doing mine a couple of weeks ago, wash, clay, re-wash, polish and wax and it looked clean but not mirrored like you'd get with black or blue or red etc.

On the plus side though it really does hide the dirt well....

[redstu]

I agree entirely with both of the above posts. I've got 2 silver cars and both show little improvement when washed and polished but they don't seem to need it too much!

[Urban Sports]

I have a black car and a silver one, the black one needs cleaning every week, the silver one gets done once every couple of months!!

[Louisa911]

I agree with the above too, definately a bonus when it comes to long periods of time without washing- but personally I love the satisfaction of having a superbly polished, wet-look car finish, and silver cars just don't do that! They seem to stay looking flat. Might try more layers of NXT next time....

[OnTheOverrun]

IMHO it's the waxing bit that doesn't really help with silver. I tried all sorts of waxes and eventually settled on colinite 845 - definitely gives the best results I've ever seen on silver.

[bazking69]

What the end satisfaction of a clean silver lacks is more than made up for me by the fact that even when it is dirty it still looks respectable.

[Munkeyfeet]

I echo all of the above - its doesnt look great but also it never looks bad even when its been months since a good clean!

Black though shows it all up! My wife's scirroca is black with glittery bits - in 9 months I had cleaned it every other week (same as the OP's routine), on one occasion I let the Polish contingent wash it (seemed busy and they have permanent covers etc) and now when I give it a proper clean I can see all the scratches and swirls! Gutting! Time to get the machine polisher out!

Silver is wasy! But tres boring - White is the new silver