Yes it is. Just that from a cost standpoint not very good especially when I use between half to 1 bottle per car depending on severity of the car. Now I'm just finishing off my remaining Quik Detailer as I ordered a bottle of Last Touch.

I've always used Meguiars claybars, personally used the white claybar that came with Quik Detailer set, and during shop days used the Meguiars professional claybar. The professional one is more expensive, but can easily cut to 3-4 pieces for ease of use.

Personally I think whether using claybar or claycloth, most important is to wipe dry after each run and feel surface with plastic bag over hand to know the cleanliness after claying. If still have bumps, just go through it again.

As bro slk mentioned about the clay lubricant, so wont elaborate further. However, if u never owned a claybar kit before, then can buy the Meguiars Claying Kit available in most Ace Hardware outlets. It already comes with 1 bottle of Meguiars Quik Detailer and 2 claybars (each bar can cut into 2 for more uses), so no need headache on what claybar and what lubricant to use.

Just to share a technique I use to maximize Quik Detailer with minimal wastage, when spraying it on body surface squeeze the trigger while moving left to right or up to down. Dont spray on one spot or stagnant position. This will give more coverage of lubricant to car surface. If done right, 1 bottle Quik Detailer can cover 2 typical sedan cars for claying.

Reference for how the kit looks like:
https://www.amazon.com/Meguiars-Smooth-Surf...t/dp/B00063X7KG

For washing your car, you should use a car-specific wash because the strength and PH level of the soap would be more suitable than general all-purpose cleaners.

The Meguiars Brilliant Solutions New Car Kit u mentioned is a good start, but will need to add a rim brush or sponge (separate from car wash mitt), a pail, and a few more microfiber towels. What's more important would be technique and method structure. Here's my share basic of car wash technique:

1) Prep a pail with some car wash soap and water, and have a rim brush and sponge ready.
2) Spray rims with water, then start scrubbing rims with soap water, brush and sponge. then scrub also wheel arch areas. After each rim has been scrubbed, rinse away all residue.
3) Pour away remaining soap and wash pail, then prepare a new pail of car wash soap water.
4) Spray car with water. Once entire car is wet, use a car wash mitt and work from the top of the car (the roof/bumbung). The method should be roof -> windows -> upper body -> lower body.
5) Once car has been totally scrubbed, rinse car thoroughly to remove all soap residue.
6) Start drying car. If you only have 1 drying towel from the Meguiars Kit, then wipe dry based on following order: roof -> windows -> upper body -> lower body -> all door jambs (celah pintu) -> engine area -> boot area -> rims.
7) By the time u complete the drying based on that order, the towel would be dirty, so avoid from using it to wipe interior. Use a separate cloth (wet or dry) to wipe interior.

For cleaning car interior of general dust, any decent microfiber towel should do fine, just damp it and wipe. More important is to protect the plastic areas such as dashboard and door side panels from discoloration and cracking by applying Interior Protection products every half year or so. Meguiars Natural Shine Protectant is a good place to start.

Hope this helps, and enjoy the hobby!

The brush can be found in many places that sells car care products, such as Ace Hardware or AEON or AEON BIG. Google search for "car wheel brush" and u will see reference pictures of what I am referring to. The brush should be of that general shape and size, and also buy a small to medium size wash sponge to further help with rims and wheel arch cleaning.

For the exterior windows, personally I dont find a need to use specialised chemicals to clean it because the soap and wash mitt will clean it just as good and just wipe clean with microfiber towel.

For interior windows, a general wipe using 1 damp microfiber cloth immediately followed by another wipe with 1 dry microfiber cloth should also be just as good.

Glass-specific microfiber towels only comes into play if the existing microfiber towel u have drags and leaves alot of fine lint when u are dry-wiping windows. For that purpose, u can purchase that specific towel.

Agree with slk on the use of towel and washing method.

To add to that, if you are getting alot of wax residue to buff out, that means u could be applying your wax too thick. Try apply thinner coat instead.

Also, it would be good to have more than 1 buffing towel so that the same towel doesnt get overloaded with wax residue.

Try tar remover first. Polish only if tar remover fails.


Whatever wax to use should be applied as thinly as possible. Thicker wax application causes 2 major issues:

1) Buffing off alot of residue becomes very very time consuming task and cloth becomes overloaded with residue quickly requiring you to constantly flip or change cloth.
2) If your car is very dark or black colour, almost guarantee you will see uneven wax layers, requiring u to continue buffing until it is even, also very painful task.

In my personal opinion and experience, applying thicker wax doesnt mean it lasts longer than thin wax. Maybe you can experiment with 2 thin layers and see which lasts longer.

3 things I tried with my wife car when got infested with baby roaches:

1) Spray Febreeze all over car carpets
2) Spray Mortein insect spray and close all doors
3) Put pandan leaves under all floor mats and boot

So far, never see any roaches come back. Worth to try.

Your first pic looks like either clear coat degraded and flaking off (polish cannot resolve), or calcium material harden by parking in carpark basement and water leak from ceiling hit onto car (need to use chemical to break the calcium material before polishing).

Your second pic scratches looks like too deep, maybe cannot remove with polish or compound anymore. One spot at the bottom section definitely looks like it has paint scratched off dy.

Your third pic water spots can be removed, but just polishing alone wont be enough, usually needs to be compounded.

Maybe u wanna get second detailer opinion.

For your issue 1, I could recommend wet sanding with 1500 grit follow by 2500 grit sandpaper, then compounding and polishing. However, I have to say first that there is no guarantee this would completely remove the marks as just from your photo alone I cannot 100% say what is the actual issue with your paint.

As mot88 said, compounding basically is a more aggressive form of polish. Compounding is meant to remove or reduce your paint defects such as moderate scratches, water spots, etc. which usually cant be removed by polishing. Shops may or may not tell u whether they compound your car or not because it is a detailing technical term, so instead they will tell u how many layers they polish.

As with any polishing job, you should always follow the standard procedure, best described in this link http://www.autogeek.net/detailingtips.html.

Layers of polish means how many rounds they polish your car. Usually if no mention of polishing layers, means usually just 1 layer/round.

It depends on what clearcoat u sprayed on the refinished surface. Soft clearcoats are harder to reach uber gloss shine if u just use rotary polisher alone. Personally I would suggest that u can try adding a DA polisher to your arsenal, and the working system would be compound with rotary and polish/finish with DA.

If you want to take it a step further into the extreme to remove orange peel, u can even try to wet-sand your car surface before compounding. But this should be best tried on a test bonnet first to familiarize with the technique and experimentation.

As slk mentioned, u can pay a visit to Osren to find some good stuff that can suit your needs. Their specialists there (and even the boss' son Henry) can also give u guidance on how to get a better finishing result from your detailing work.

To add to that, my personal experience is to have a spray bottle of water or vinegar ready. Get those spray bottle that can adjust the spray from mist to shoot straight line. Then anytime the cat come and sleep on your car, u take the spray and shoot straight line at the cat. After few times they stop coming.

Another method that works but harder to aim is 2-finger rubber band lastik. Fold small piece of paper to create a tough U-shape, then pull back on thumb-and-finger rubberband and shoot at the cat. Harder to aim unless u practice and master it, but cats also run when kena hit suddenly.

Hope some of these tips help.

Some home remedies worth trying:
1) Put a piece of charcoal in the boot, and park car out in the sun for few days.
2) Put pandan leaves in boot
3) Spray Febreeze

Generally no, cuz wax cures fairly quick, just that if it rained before u managed to buff off the residue then it will be messier to buff off. U end up wiping dry again before buffing off the residue, so double work.

Not necessary, claying is good enough to remove old wax. Paint cleaner may help brighten back the car colour and shine.

Wash weekly and wax when necessary (usually monthly). Dont drive behind big cars and lorries when high speed to avoid stone chips.

i) No to polish, white cars very hard to see scratches anyway. Yes to wax.

ii) Can try Meguiars for a start, go for Ultimate Wax instead of Gold Class if u want longer lasting.

iii) Depends on what u want to achieve. Gold Class Shampoo is mild and Gold Class Wax is Carnauba type wax as far as I know, great for weekend drivers and show cars, but not practical for daily driven cars.

As I mentioned, polish is rarely required for new cars, unless your car is 2nd hand. Coating/Sealant/Wax is recommended, else most white cars will end up turning yellow over time.

Depends on the durability of the wax that u use. The general guide for wax durability is how well the water is beading on your car during rain or car wash. Some last 2 weeks, some last 2 months.

Claying will remove old wax.

I used Meguiars Hyper Wash during my old car detailing biz days, it is quite good, just that the dilution level from the instructions not very accurate (too weak). Abit of experimentation required to tune the dilution ratio to your desired requirement, but otherwise very economical solution.

From my understanding, typical wash and wax shampoos arent real wax per se, so claying with such shampoos should be okay. Generally also most car shampoos are compatible for claying purposes also, as it provides a slick surface for the claybar to move. Just important point to note is the shampoo u use for claying after wash should be new mix, not leftover from your wash.

If u would like to try a more specialized approach to claying, then after finish washing and drying the car, can use Quik Detailer as recommended by slk, or even Last Touch with your claying.

Think regardless of situation 2 bucket method is probably the safest wash method currently known. There are some grime and dirt that foam and pressure washer may have missed, especially under the side doors and bumpers. Better safe than sorry.

Flood rinse as shown by slk is meant to help ease the burden of drying the car. Often when u final rinse with spray water it creates alot of droplets to wipe dry, hence requiring to often squeeze out water from your drying cloth before continue. With flood rinsing, water drags water out of the surface, making less leftover water after final rinse. This method allows me personally to use a medium size drying towel to dry the entire car exterior without the need to waste time and energy squeezing the towel.

If u have never used a polisher machine on your car before, then a rotary polisher like the Bosch or Hitachi u mentioned is a risky purchase. U may have a high chance of burning your paint, and u may end up not solving your spider web issue also. Possibly the reason why the car wash did a shoddy polish job is because they are also using rotary polishers but lack the experience to know how to do the fine finishing correctly.

I agree with slk, DA polisher is a much better option. Personally from my old detailing shop days, we used to do the first layer polish with rotary, then subsequent polishes with DA to get a hologram and spider web free finishing.

I have PMed u a polisher that I have for sale, see if u are interested.