Clean Cars & Mother Nature

[conrad.maranan]

So, I woke up at about 6:00AM this morning and decided to start my day by detailing my car. Wash, clay bar, polish, finish polish, sealant, wax, engine dress up, interior detail, windows, and wheels and tires - the whole nine yards.

My car loves me and I'm lovin' it back by just looking at it and going over every panel slowly with a clean microfiber towel. :cool:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=38673&stc=1

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[conrad.maranan]

And then I pull this up from www.weather.com.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=38678&stc=1

I swear...I am not driving until Wednesday. I'm taking days off of work until the rain magically disappears and the roads dry up. The rain gods have forsaken me. If it's not those kamikaze birds, it's those sadistic rain gods. :upset:

[Vapor]

Time to use your sick days....:D

Or hide ALL keys for the Honda and take your wife's 5-series :D

[sokarul]

I hate birds. Wish my car was in a garage.

[conrad.maranan]

Or hide ALL keys for the Honda and take your wife's 5-series :D
The sad thing is I did the same detail job for her car on Friday morning. She used my car to go to work and left me hers so that I can remove the minor swirls from her paint. :(

I usually don't care if it rains a day or two after I wash and wax my car. But rain after an all-out detail job that takes me 6 to 8 hours is just sad. And I only found out about the rain because I wanted to see how hot it was going to be tomorrow. I was planning to take some high-res pictures of the cars at high noon. Argh! :upset:

[Vapor]

Man, I completely empathize...I care for my car and my parents cars just almost to the same degree (I do for my car and my mom's car, not so much my dad's and I don't do multi-hour detail jobs, I break it up) and I get in such an awful mood when I spend so much time on it and I either can't enjoy it or it gets ruined. The worst though is when my dad will take his car and just make a mess of the inside or leave it in the outdoor lot at his work when it rains.

Anyway, have fun being couped up the next few days :D

And if it's any consolance....you're doing a HECK of job on D2OL!

[olfen]

move to sweden and you will never have a clean car more than 1day, it's raining, bad roads all the time

[conrad.maranan]

move to sweden and you will never have a clean car more than 1day, it's raining, bad roads all the time
That sounds like bad news. I don't mind having a dirty truck, but a dirty car is another story. I wash and wax my cars every weekend and do a full out detail job every 4 to 6 weeks. Rock chips on my front bumper and hood are my worst enemy. Rain, water splashes, and bird droppings come in at a close second.

Someone needs to invent an invisible force field for cars. :scope:

[Vapor]

I think the makers of RainX tried but failed miserably.

[conrad.maranan]

I went at it again from Wednesday night until Saturday morning - just trying to get that 100% glistening wet look for my baby shower yesterday. Washed, clayed, four layers of Four Star UPP sealant (12 hours between layers), and two layers of Poorboy's Natty's Blue pure carnauba paste wax spit-shined with freezer-chilled Poorboy's Spray & Gloss. The depth and clarity was just amazing on Saturday, especially for a car that isn't even black. The metallic flakes were just poppin' and these pictures do the work very little justice.

And then I log onto www.weather.com again and notice that we'll be having a thunderstorm on Tuesday. :lol:
:owned:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=39575&stc=1

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[zabomb4163]

my car has never been washed in its entire life (2 years) :)

[Welz]

my car has never been washed in its entire life (2 years) :)
LOL thats the way im gonna role when i can afford my own :banana:

[conrad.maranan]

my car has never been washed in its entire life (2 years) :)
LOL thats the way im gonna role when i can afford my own :banana:That's how I was with my truck because I have it in my head that trucks look sexy when they're dirty or muddy. I would wash my truck once every 4 or 5 months. When it comes to cars, though...my obsessive compulsive disorder kicks in to overdrive. :cool:

[olfen]

thats some really nice work there conrad

[fatfreepork]

rain? what city are you in?

[conrad.maranan]

I live in La Habra. You'll be getting some rain, too. At least the sun will come back out on Thursday so it's not too bad.

[bullet2urbrain]

Nice Job Conrad.M looks nice and clean... too bad the rain gods have your car marked for dirtiness....

i would love to have the time to detail my car.. but i never do.ever.. and the rewards generally dont last in cleveland weather.

[PsYkHoTiK]

I really hate it when that happens. Last sunday when I washed my car, it rained overnight and the whole of monday too...

But nice job on the car. Looks really nice.. :D

What tripod is that btw?

[conrad.maranan]

The rain gods definitely have a thing for me. On the bright side, at least my car looked good on Saturday for the baby shower. I think I took more pics of my car than of the people at the party. Hahaha. :D

The tripod is just one of those generic pieces sold on ebay. It's actually pretty decent and works well for someone who rarely uses a camera. I bought it because I have jittery hands and my Fujifilm S5100 is lacking in the stabilization department.

[trance565]

lol, what brand wax do you use? me and my brother use mc guires number 7 and number 22? i think, whenever we decide to completley detail

[PsYkHoTiK]

LOL!

Ok. Thats nice. :D It looked like a branded one to me... :p:

[[XC] leviathan18]

ive did the same job today to my car and guess what now is all gloomy and dark and it look it wants to rain... oh well i guess that is destiny :(

[zabomb4163]

why is rain bad?

[[XC] leviathan18]

after you spent several hours washing, polishing and cleaning your car ... rain is just awful cuz it gets dirty again

[PsYkHoTiK]

Especially when u have to drive it and get road film all over.... :(

[conrad.maranan]

lol, what brand wax do you use? me and my brother use mc guires number 7 and number 22? i think, whenever we decide to completley detail
The following are what I am currently using for my detail jobs:

WASH
- Meguiar's Deep Crystal Car Wash
CLAY
- Some fu-fi-foo Japanese clay from Superautobacs
POLISH
- Poorboy's SSR2.5
FINISH POLISH
- Poorboy's SSR1
POLYMER SEALANT
- Four Star Ultimate Paint Protection
CARNAUBA WAX
- Poorboy's Natty's Blue Paste Wax
QUICK DETAILERS
- Poorboy's Spray and Wipe
- Poorboy's Spray and Gloss
WHEEL/TIRE CLEANER
- Eagle One All Wheel & Tire Cleaner
TIRE DRESSING
- Meguiar's High Gloss Hot Shine Tire Spray
WINDOWS/MIRRORS
- Stoner Invisible Glass

INTERIOR PANELS (CLEANING)
- 303 Aerospace Cleaner
INTERIOR PANELS (PROTECTANT)
- 303 Aerospace Protectant

METAL TRIM
- Flitz Metal Polish
- Flitz Stainless Steel & Chrome Cleaner

RUBBER/PLASTIC PARTS AND WEATHERSTRIPPING
- 303 Aerospace Cleaner
- 303 Aerospace Protectant

ENGINE COMPARTMENT
- 303 Aerospace Cleaner
- 303 Aerospace Protectant

I'm sure there are a few items missing, but that's it for the most part. I have a nice stash of Cobra microfiber towels and waffleweaves for drying and buffing my paint's finish. I drywash the car every morning, wash and wax weekly, detail monthly, and polish out swirls and blemishes as needed. It all seems like overkill, but it's a nice way to avoid a nagging wife for a few hours. :D

I just purchased a Porter Cable 7336 last Thursday. There was a glitch on the Lowe's website and the price was -$1.00. I couldn't checkout with a negative total, so I added a bottle of degreaser that costs $2.87. The total came out to $1.87 + $0.15 sales tax. I paid with my ATM card online, printed out my receipt, walked up to the Customer Service counter on Thursday at 4:00PM, and came out with the greatest price ever on one of the finest random orbital buffers on the planet. Lowe's caught on to the error and corrected it at 5:00PM on Thursday. I know of several people that were turned down at the counter despite the fact that they had already paid. You snooze, you lose.

[MaxxxRacer]

that is insane conrad.. I would never spend the money on all of those things, muchless the time... just crazy.. lol

[conrad.maranan]

Brian - What it all boils down to is self-gratification. Everyone is entitled to some type of personal happiness whether it be in the form of assembling a tricked-out H2O loop, preparing a race engine for an old hoopty, or stitching up an old fashioned quilt as a Christmas gift for the homeless lady on the corner of Temple and Vignes.

Detailing is just one of many things that makes me happy. Others may see it as some form of OCD, but it satisfies me and that's all that matters. ;) Once your brand new Civic EX starts getting swirled up from those $10.00 car washes, you'll send me a PM. :lol:

[bullet2urbrain]

Preach brother conrad.m preach..

i love all those things...

[calcal]

doesnt doing all this waxing cause the paint to wearout in the future?

I have an 88 civic and do not see anywhere on the car where the paint is coming off. except this part of the door where its rusting because someone tried to steal it a while back.

I wash my car prob 3 times a year and all i use is water and a sponge :)

EDIT: wow how many cars do you have conrad? so far ive seen you post like 3 diff cars: hond accord, integra, mr2..lol what else you haev ?

[conrad.maranan]

I only have three cars right now: BMW 530i, Honda Accord, Acura Integra. Any other car I mention are cars I used to own.

Waxing does the complete opposite of wearing out paint. It's one of many different types of layers of protection for your vehicle's finish. The car care industry would've plopped upon introduction if products of this nature harmed or destroyed paint finishes. ;)

Anyway, the scratch-and-dent gods have finally caught up to me. I walked towards my car about an hour ago, ready to leave the office and head home. And then I noticed two 5" creases along with some accompanying scratches on the rear passenger side door. Some buttmunch destroyed what I have worked so hard to preserve! Oh, the irony of it all. :(
:mad: :brick: :bounce: :cussing: :mad: :brick: :bounce: :cussing: :mad: :brick: :bounce: :cussing:

[zabomb4163]

a little birdy told me (paint engineer for saturn) to only wash my cars with water because most cleaners remove the clear coat. but hey, whats he know he only gets paid 80k a year to study paint. :)

[bullet2urbrain]

My Saturn and Her really old paint (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=79172)



sucks about the car Conrad.. thats really sheetaay..may your orbital buff out whatever scratches there are.

[conrad.maranan]

bullet2urbrain - It's not the scratches I'm concerned with...it's the creased-up dents. :( Can you run that BOV without the vacuum hose attached to it? If so, it'll sound a lot more wicked without it. :D

zabomb4163 - Water by itself? That's like taking a shower without soap. Water + Dirty Car + Caked-on road grime = A dirty car regardless of how much water you use. Some cleaners and polishes gradually break down the clearcoat and paint. Polishing is the process of removing surface flaws such as swirl marks and light scratches. So in order to remove the defects, you're naturally going to remove a minimal amount of the paint's finish to reveal a fresh layer.

Waxes and sealants are used for protecting the paint. Unless they have added cleaners or abrasives, they're perfectly safe.

Here's a 1990 Porsche Carrera 4. For a car that's 15 years old and detailed on a regular basis, I'd say his clear coat is still in tact. ;)

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=39617&stc=1

[[XC] leviathan18]

conrad you can use rubbing compund from 3m to remove the scratchs but be careful this removes the clear coat if you do it careless i have the pic of the bottle and the exact name if you want to know pm

[conrad.maranan]

I have the Poorboy's SSR line of products to remove the scratches. Before I went to sleep last night, I also found this (http://www.beachcitiespdr.com/). I'm going to check them out when I have some free time.

[[XC] leviathan18]

ive seen that guy in overhaulin is anormal the way he repairs the dents with a stick...

[conrad.maranan]

:owned:

:lol: I requested for surveillance video to be reviewed as soon as I got into the office today. I filed a police report and will be pressing hit-and-run charges against the offender. This buttmunch will have his/her license suspended for one year and has to pay me back for the damage.

I love video surveillance. :D