Armour Fend... to polish or not to polish...?

[rickyb]

Hello all, I am newbie to the world of detailing and was wondering if anyone had any advice, do’s and don’ts for when applying clay bar, polish & wax to a car that has Armour Fend.

I have always used wax on the car but get a nasty powder deposit at the edge of the Armour Fend when buffing. Never polished the car (well properly) so not even sure what affect it will have on the Fended bit (or if you should even attempt to polish it at all).

Thanks guys!

[belleair302]

Armourfend is not quite the magic solution many people believe. To get a car looking its best the preparation work is as important as the waxing. Polishing only needs to happen a couple of times a year, waxing should happen every 8 or so weeks.

Wash the car, using grit guards, two buckets (one filled with water, one with a decent shampoo, dry the car with a waffle weave towel and some quick detailer, clay the car, wash again, polish, seal, wax and awqay you go.

Re the Armourfend, go upto the edge, apply some 3M masking tape over the edges and just apply some wax around where the film ends, The film itself just needs to be washed and dried.

[evolutionvalet]

Hi,

Do not use anything other than a decent car shampoo and quality wax.You should wax the film the same time you do the paintwork. To prevent white dust, switch to a carnauba based wax rather than Autoglym (?) That is all really. Do not introduce any polishes or cutting compounds to the film surface. Other than that, it really is just leave it alone.
TBH - the main problem we find with film fitted elsewhere is that the paintwork wasnt prep'ed correctly before having the film applied. If the paintwork has swirls and scratches then they will show under the film and always be there until the film is removed.

We always clay the area first then machine polish swirl marks out prior to applying Paintshield.

If you find you have some minor scratches on the film itself you can try applying some cleaning alcohol to the surface.

Hope this helps

Edited by evolutionvalet on Tuesday 5th February 17:13

[TonyHetherington]

Interesting stuff thanks chaps.

[rickyb]

Thanks guys very helpful stuff! The only major bit of film is on the nose (it’s a Tuscan) , so will keep your advice in mind when cleaning the areas with film and treat the rest of the car as per all the other useful cleaning information on the forum... Cheers!