Erm, since u have done coatig before, maybe u wanna go back to your coating shop for maintenance? Usually they should provide.

Also, considering we dont know what time of coating it is, personally I wouldnt be able to tell if u can layer wax on top of your coating even though in theory u should be able to. Only the shop u did coating with can advise on that.

Hmm, from experience, there isnt much u can do with burns. u could try abit of wetsanding, then compound and polish, but I dont think it will completely remove it because burnt paint is technically paint and clearcoat melted. Just my 2 sen.

For black cars, swirls are the easiest to see and usually the toughest to fully remove. It is not because of the paint quality or anything, it is just that the contrast between your clearcoat and black colour will always make swirls, scratches and even stone chips stand out. Black car's only advantage generally is that it doesnt look as dirty so quickly.

In the opposite side, a white car u will find very hard to see any swirls and fine scratches, but will look dirty very easily and sometimes even turn yellow-ish or off-white colour.

It is almost definite that u will need to go for a polish (and maybe step up to compound before polish). Unfortunately waxing alone wont do much good, because at best u are masking the defect and merely filling up the swirl lines with wax, which once u wash a few rounds, the wax will all go away and swirls come back again.

Just to explain abit more, polishing/compounding is used to shave a super fine layer off your paint. Waxing/Sealant/Coating are merely to add a layer of protection on top of your paint. Swirls are super-fine scratches on your paint that needs to be shaven off.

If u are comparing between, wax, sealant and coating, then yes coating will last longer than the other 2. however, there are 2 potential issues with coating. First one which is most frequent is water spots. This seems to be prevalent in many coatings and based on numerous people that I had discussed with before. Second one is possibility of applying other things on top of coating. This is a question mark that based on many coating manufacturers, they will say should not apply anything else on top of coating in fear it would affect the coating durability.

However, whether coating can cover swirls remains to be tested. In a few cases where I have seen coating applied on less than perfect finished surface, the swirls will still be visible.

I have used the Autospa touchup paints before. I personally think it is quite good, only thing is their brush is unreliable. I personally prefer to buy a typical art paintbrush as it gives better results.

Oh yes, it requires frequent shaking and stirring while in use, otherwise sometimes the colour comes out abit uneven.


Erm, think best is subjective. Polish creams tend to work well on some clearcoat types, and not so well on other clearcoat types. So far I think the most commonly accepted polish for home DIY enthusiasts is Meguiars Ultimate Polish, but feel free to explore.

Unfortunately, I dont think coating will cover your swirls. Whether u intend to DIY coat your car or send it to a detailing shop, I would still suggest that a complete compound/polish should still be done beforehand.

erm, missing clearcoat? maybe u should go back to manufacturer to get it resprayed.

looks like ppl open door hit your car. happens quite often when others dont bother jaga other ppl car when opening door. but i think u compound/polish can remove some of it off.

Actually this can happen anywhere to anyone. I always think of other cars' distance from my car when parking, and try to make sure I dont be a jackass and park too close on either side, else I would rather find another parking. I even put the rubber strip on the edges so that when I open my door, if hit other cars also wont dent or scratch. However, I guess not everyone thinks the same, and sometimes we do get jackasses that just open car too hard, or they could be very big sized and need to squeeze themselves into their car with narrow door space, hence end up our cars get dinged.

Please dont flame me, I am not prejudice against big sized or fat ppl, but just an observation of reality what can happen and I have seen happened before in shared or open car park spaces.

If u want to find out if your neighbour is the culprit, then u just need to see the edges of his car door. If aligned properly, it should match your dents/scratches. Unfortunately even if u do suspect him to be at fault, doubt there is much u can do, maybe just leave him a note asking him to be more polite when opening car door and not ding your car.

Personally, I think claying is important, and even more important is claying technique. Wrong claying technique can cause even more scratches than removing contaminants. The most important thing is to frequently fold and reopen claybar if u are using claybar, or rinse your clay cloth regularly if u are using clay cloth. Also, lubrication of surface prior to claying is a must, whether u use water or any form of clay lube. As douglas_tong mentioned, to test if your car need claying, feel with bare hand or wear plastic bag on your hand and feel.

Wax durability is dependent on whether your car faces sun and rain all the time, and how regularly u wash. Typical waxes can last between 2 weeks to 2 months.

Claying is the step taken after washing the car to remove contaminants that are embedded into the car paint that washing cannot remove. In essence, these contaminants are often less or even not visible to the naked eye, but can be felt by your bare hand or wearing a plastic bag over your hand and rubbing on the car surface. This step is very important to do prior to compounding/polishing, as u dont want these contaminants to be picked up by the polishing pad and continue to scar your paint surface.

Whether to use rubbing compound or polish before waxing is entirely dependent on how severe is your paint issues. if u have very fine holograms, maybe just polishing will do. If u have deeper scratches and swirls, probably u require compounding. To test is always to use the least aggressive method first.

Do try to read up some articles, find some youtube videos and watch, there are plenty of videos explaining step by step detailing process.


Try the following:

1) reduce machine speed when polish
2) increase arm speed
3) avoid pressing machine/pad onto paint surface
4) spray a mist of water

There is a possibility its not much to do with your creams or pads, but more of technique. Try searching youtube for polishing soft paint and u might find some good tips.

Not sure what is the correct terminology, but I call it persistent rain stains. These commonly occur due to rain on idle car for prolonged period of time and not removed immediately.

An easy way to remove them after washing is to apply some wax and then buffing off for quick fix. However, the best solution I find is to wash and clay the car entirely, then wax the entire car to give it a consistent look. Hope that helps.

Erm, from experience there isnt really a product that is better than the other. All detailing products have pros and cons depending on perspective. Also equally if not more important is their detailing techniques and attention to detail, if they are not detail enough or their technique is poor, they could still not create great results no matter what products they use.

Wax is a protection layer product that is applied on the car to protect the car paint. Often ppl call it a sacrificial layer, because sun/rain hits wax layer and it degrades, and even regular washing eventually can wash off your wax also. That is why regular topup of your wax on the car is important.

If talking about regular maintenance, there are many factors, but the most common regime I can think of is:

1) Wash your car 1 time every 1-2 weeks
2) Wax your car every 1-3 months
3) Polish your car every 1-1.5 years
4) Compound only when there are many deep surface defects that polish cannot remove
5) Claying is recommended before u wax, and definitely required before u compound/polish.

Just my 2 sen, hope this helps.

Agreed, definitely depends on the individual. For me I like doing complete car detailing instead of spot corrections, so I tend to accumulate defects until one point that i spend rock solid 3-4 days detailing everything back to perfection. Hehe...

Erm, drill minimum RPM can be quite high, too high for detailing use, personally I wont recommend.

https://www.facebook.com/sgcbautocaremalaysia/

Can consider contacting these guys and see what they offer also.

Consider trying a windscreen polish cream if u have the time. Generally polishes that contains cerium oxide should work quite well and safe for glass. That is the info I got from Buff Daddy sifu Kevin Brown.

Currently I am using Pinnacle Water Spots Remover that I ordered from US long time ago. There should be other similar products available locally.

http://cquartz.com.my/product/ceriglass-kit-150ml/

If u cant find anything from Aeon/ACE, then this is one I found online. They are local distributor of Carpro stuff.

To be fair, cleaning car by yourself at home can take much longer than sending it for a wash. The key difference is the amount of hands doing work at the same time.

From my experience of cleaning my car for so long, once u start getting used to it, and also start enjoying cleaning your car instead of thinking of it as a chore, then the time movement becomes a little less relevant. I usually take 30mins to thoroughly clean my wheels alone. 20 more mins to rinse and soap and rinse the rest of the car, then 30 mins to wipe dry inside out (including simple wiping dry of engine bay area). For interior I just take another 10mins to wipe clean dust and random dirt.

I use the Sword Shape Wheel brush to clean the inner part of my rims. I think the biggest advantage of it is u can bend the top quarter of the brush 90 degrees so that u can clean abit of behind part of your rim spokes. The disadvantage of this wheel brush is when u brushing in and out the inner rim area, your soap tend to splash out as u pull out. Also, because its a brush design, it holds very little soap each time u dunk it into your bucket and take out to brush the rim.

I was tempted to try the wheel woolies, but after more thoughts about its design and usability, I didnt buy. The main advantage I think is its probably gentler on the wheels (but I use brush type so long never scratched the wheels anyway). The bigger disadvantage is it would be generally thicker than brush, and some areas of the wheels it may not be able to get to.

Maybe I'm biased since I have only used the brush but not the woolie, but I would say go for the brush. U can get it from SGCB Malaysia also if want local distribution.

From my experience using Meguiars Wheel Brigthener (acid based) and Cartec Wheel Cleaner (alkaline based), I find that there is no wheel cleaner that can really clean without some form of scrubbing. While upon spraying these wheel cleaner it immediately reacts and loosens much of the brake dust and other contaminants, however after hosing with a power washer, one finger swipe on the rims and u will still see a very fine layer of dirt or brake dust still there.

I come to conclusion that when it comes to wheel cleaning, not everyone wants to spend alot of time doing it or bending/kneeling down in the rims for so long. So perhaps these specialized wheel cleaners give them a quick fix.

My regime for wheel cleaning these days:

1) Spray Cartec wheel cleaner (diluted 1:1) on cool and dry rims and wheel arch, leave for 5 mins
2) rinse, use regular car wash soap, wash mitt, brush, scrub rims/spokes/inner rims and wheel arch
3) rinse, use SuperClean Tough Task on tyre wall, scrub and rinse again.

Results are very clean rims, but slow process. So I usually sit on a very short bangku/stool while doing each rim.

Just my 2 sen.

How is APC working for u? Effective?

Very nice! Great shine!

I've just started detailing my own car today also. Prepping it for CNY. Since I had some new products that I have yet to try, decided to try them out for this session.

2 Items I have tested so far, Carpro IronX and Carpro TarX. Just to give a short review:

Carpro IronX:

1) Sprayed it on a dry car, the smell of this chemical is probably worse than public toilet. The smell is quite strong, but good thing the smell doesnt spread or last very long.
2) Started to see some streaks of purple, left it for a while then rinsed off.
3) Total amount used abit more than half of the 500ml bottle.
4) Found that despite some purple did streak out, it isnt as severe as how we see in videos. Maybe because we as car enthusiast take better care of our cars, so the purple streaking was limited.
5) Did it help to make claying easier or quicker? Absolutely not. Used plastic bag test on body panel and minimal difference in terms of roughness.
6) Would I continue to buy this product and use? Probably not. My idea of getting this product was to make my life claying the car easier and faster, and proven wrong today. I dont find other significant use for this that claying cant do.

Carpro TarX:

1) Sprayed mostly on the lower half of the car, especially closer to wheel arches. This product smell way better, actually similar to Osrent Tar Remover smell (possibly same chemical components).
2) Started to see tar spots melting, left it for a while, then sprayed second round.
3) As this product is abit oily, proceeded to rinse, then use some regular car soap to wash all the areas that got sprayed, and rinse again.
4) Unfortunately numerous tar spots still stuck there, other than creating the streaks, TarX did not totally remove it.
5) Did it help make claying easier? A little bit. TarX probably loosened the tar spots enough so that claybar can pick it up easier. However, lower area claying needs plenty of care, must always fold and re-knead the claybar and open new surface frequently, else the tar residue stuck on the claybar can scratch paint.
6) Would I continue to buy this product and use? Probably not, I think Osren Tar Remover is abit more aggresive against tar compared to TarX.


Next up to clay entire car, using Meguiars Aggressive claybar and Last Touch diluted 1:1. So far did 1/4 of the car and tired already, continue tomorrow.

Nope, when I clay the car, I dont do anything else until complete.

I understand the concern u have, but clay is meant to remove contaminants that washing cannot remove. If the car is idle for few days while u are claying and it is in a shaded area and covered from sun and rain, I personally dont think there would be any new contaminants that cannot be wiped off. Most of the time I will dust off each section before claying when my claying process extends beyond 1 day.

U can actually experiment by:

1) test an area of your car by wearing a plastic bag on your hand and feel the area for bumps and roughness
2) claying the area of your car
3) leave it for 24/48 hours in shaded and covered area
4) damp wipe clean the area after few days then wear a plastic bag on your hand and feel the area to see if got new contaminants that stuck

I have Carpro Reload, but havent tried using yet. Depending on how long I anticipate to take to compound/polish my car, if I can make it in time for CNY I will probably do coating, but if not enough time I may just use Carpro Reload to protect it for now.

From what I understand Reload functions similar to spray wax, but more durable, and application abit different. Perhaps try checking some youtube videos on the application to understand better.


Lol, thanks. Feels good to be back, after many months of playing with cryptocurrencies and ignoring my car, hehe...

Yes, the smell is awful. Thankfully the spray mist not very strong, and once it hits the car, the smell tend to fade very quickly.

I am starting to agree with u on IronX. Initially I thought IronX can ease my claying process at least, but it definitely doesnt, as today I spent another 2-3 hours claying my car only to reach 75% completion.

Hmm, not that I noticed. TarX seem to be the same colour before and after spray. In fact, its tar removing power is much lower than Osren Tar Remover, because I see very short and limited bleeding of the tar spots even after leaving it for some time. End up claybar today pickup most of the tar residue and some still maintain stubborn. I recall using Osren Tar Remover, the bleeding of tar spots is like crazy, and almost as easy to power wash it off and settle.

Tomorrow continue my claying until 100%, then plan next attack plan.

Good to know, just saw their youtube video on Tarminator demo, definitely very impressive. Can I know where u bought your can?

I was trying out clay cloth once upon a time, but found that in terms of claying effectiveness per round cannot beat a quality claybar. Sometimes on extremely bad car conditions, I end up doing 2-3 times more work with clay cloth. However, I am thinking of trying out clay pads next since I have a Rupes LHR21MkII. Just havent found the time to research and purchase one.