My experience on black cars as a former shop detailer, DA polisher with the softest pad u can get with polish. If based on Meguiars color standards of red=cut, yellow=polish, black=finish, go with black and your polish cream. When wiping down after polish, go easy and soft. Hope that helps.

6 layers of wax can be rather overkill. 2 layers usually more than enough, more important is to apply evenly and buff off evenly. use a small torchlight to check results.

This post has been edited by blurcase: Nov 2 2016, 01:49 AM

The myth about polishing cars: cannot polish too often else paint will gone.

Truth: Actually depends on clearcoat thickness. Factory paint clearcoats are generally thick enough to withstand in many polishing rounds before it hits the colour coat, especially if ur objective is only to give it a general buff and shine. If u are polishing by hand or DA polisher, even more so u have far less chance of doing enough clearcoat stripping to reach your colour coat.

Hope this reduces your polishing fear.

If you are sending to a shop, then it will be up to the shop on what they use for polish and wax. Unfortunately u are sending them for a service, so it is their call on what products they use for their service.

To know what u are generally getting from the shop for their polish and wax service, u could go and wash there and see if they got any polish and wax jobs going on. While your car is washing, watch their polish job in progress. This should help give u more (or less) confidence in what they do. U should be also be able to peep at the products they use.

In terms of wax, my personal go to is Meguiars Ultimate Paste Wax. However, the main principle with any wax u want to use, whether liquid or paste, is to apply as thinly as possible. Applying thick coats often do nothing except waste your wax and make it harder for you to buff off in some instances. Applying a second coat (also as thinly as possible) is a better option compared to a thick coat.

Agreed. Some have horrible pad conditions, some use 1 pad polish whole car without washing, some use just too little polish and zing past each area one time only. I even saw one holding down DA polisher until the pad stop spinning, machine overheat and stop working.

To be fair I dont blame them. The local detailing industry is about low price and fast delivery, so any place that ask to leave the car for 2-3 days u probably wouldnt go for.

Actually my old shop we used to do that, but biz wasnt good cuz poor location and heavy price war, and capital run out dy, so closed down dy. Ppl always go fast and cheap, then end up come our shop to repair the swirls and other issues, hahaha...

For a typical detailing (assuming 2 persons in the shop doing), here are some estimates of time required for each step:

1. Wash, dry, vacuum - 1 hour
2. Clay - 1-2 hours
3. Masking - 1 hour
4. Compounding - 4 hours
5. Polishing - 4 hours
6. Waxing (2 layers) - 1-2 hours

Depending on the severity of paint defects, sometimes compounding along is 2 rounds, that's already 8 hours. Those using rotary and want to achieve swirl and haze free finish may require to polish with polish pad 1 round, finish pad 1 round. This is especially for black cars, since I've experienced before polish okay but wiping bring swirls back (cloth problem). So generally total including some break/rest time in between would come up to 2-3 days.

Btw I'm no sifu la, just that got do detailing biz hands-on before, so know the in and out of it, so just sharing experience like everyone else lor.

My suspicion is the dealer masked the imperfections with a thick coat of wax. That's why as u wash and strip away the wax, the imperfections appear. If your swirl lines are circular, then its polishing fault, if your lines are generally straight, then its washing fault.

Also a strong possibility is your clearcoat is VERY soft, most likely local clearcoat. Soft clearcoats scratch and swirl very easily, and generally recommended to do coating if u dont want to respray. To know for sure, since u just polished and waxed again, continue your regular routine again and see if it comes back.

For your windshield, not too sure, but do u park this car outside often under the sun often? Older car windshield gets baked water spots faster generally. See if u can get someone to polish your windshield one round, then monitor the situation from there.

When I was running my shop previously, my biz partner has a white Myvi that has also turned yellow from wear and tear. After polishing he applied coating for his car and it managed to maintain the whiteness of the car for a much longer period of time. So, if you prefer to keep your white car white for a longer period of time without constantly repolishing, I would suggest applying coating instead.

Sorry, I'm not very good with sealants, had a bad experience with sealants as they are very hard to buff when dry. I would generally go back to wax, or if I have coating available, do coating myself.

Ah I see, no worries, I threw away my sealants dy. Now just have coating and wax, coating for new cars that not yet do anything, wax for older cars that driven daily.

Btw, be careful if want to order detailing stuff from US. If not mistaken any shipment worth more than RM500 will get taxed, and detailing products generally are taxed at 20%-30%. I kena before even polishing pads get taxed.

Generally anything u wanna buy from overseas to ship to Malaysia, calculate the price and mark up by 30%, if it is still worth to get because no one sells here or its a price u are comfortable with, then go ahead.

Ah I see, noted, thanks for the additional info.


What sort of Meguiars gallon products u looking for? Maybe u could start a groupbuy to share the load? As I know alot of the Meguiars liquid chemicals (other than compounding/polishing liquids) can dilute by ratio.


What brand of water spot remover did u use?

If your car is coated, then the detailer polished the area, the coating is firstly gone in that area, so rightfully they need to reapply the coating in that area.

Secondly, how deep do u think is the scratch? has it gone through that u can see the base primer colour (usually grey)? You can try to assess the depth of the scratch by using your fingernail and lightly "scratch" across the scratch. If it feels very deep that u may need to touchup, otherwise u can try to compound it a few rounds by hand. U can use a microfiber towel and apply a dash of compound then rub on it.

Again, please remember that after u have done coating, any polishing/compounding will most likely remove the coating. So it should be reapplied.

Hmm, don't think touch up would do much cuz u be just touching up on top of the coating. As the coating wears, the touch up will disappear and the scratch will come back. Perhaps it be best to bring back to detailer to redo that section, else wait a year or two after the coating has worn of to re-detail the car again.

The only polisher I know that runs on batteries is Rupes Nano iBrid, but its RM3300, currently no stock from authorized distributor, and it only supports 1"-2" pads.

Personally I would recommend that u still try run a power cord from somewhere, because corded polisher machines will always be better runtime and works faster.

Maybe the windscreen needs polishing. Does your wiper stutter when turned on? Try wear a plastic bag on ur hand and feel the surface, does it feel rough?

Cheaper solution is to change wiper first, if that doesnt work then polish windscreen.

I have been using Meguiars synthetic wax since the NEXT days, to now the Ultimate Wax. I would say single coat would generally last about a month in our typical climate, I have managed to stretch 2 coats to 2.5 months durability before water runs flat with no more beading. Carnauba waxes like Gold Class is generally only good if its a weekend car or show car, because carnauba is known to be shinier than synthetic.

Not sure if u guys have done comparison, but clay bar is generally more effective in removing above surface contaminants than clay cloth from my experience. Clay cloth is easier to work with but if your car's contaminants is very severe, then u will be doubling your time and effort to remove the contaminants.

The cons of using clay bar is it can be sensitive to what lubricant u use, some soaps can destroy your clay bar very quickly, and clay bar if drop on dirty surface (like floor or road) and it picks up stuff from there, then its as good as throw away dy.

U can test your claying results by wearing a thin plastic bag on your hand then rub the clayed surface vs the non-clayed surface to notice the difference. The best clayed surfaces will have no bumps feel whatsoever.

That's one of the reasons I was sharing info also. Previously I tested Meguiars professional claybar against soap water, and it changes the quality of the claybar over time.

More recently I tested Meguiars consumer claybar with Cartec All-Purpose Cleaner by Rupes Malaysia distributor (thats what they recommend for claying) and it started disintegrating very quickly with just claying 1 section 2ft x 2ft.

Claybars can be expensive, and slower to use due to constant re-folding and flattening after every section, but can clay your entire car many times and achieves a cleaner surface.

Agreed. APC is generally quite strong. However, that was what was recommended by the local Rupes distributor, I tried it once on my Meguiars claybar and it started to disintegrate, so immediately stopped using. I prefer to use Quik Detailer or Last Touch depending on what I have available at the time.


No worries, I was just sharing experience based on my car detailing shop days. We used both claybars and clay cloths on the same car panels before, and found often the claybars cleans above surface contaminants faster with less effort than clay cloth, but clay cloth advantage is also it can cover greater surface areas before requiring to go for a quick rinse before continue using whereas claybar normally should turn over new surface after every section.

I spoke to my detailing suppliers recently about getting clay cloths, but some of them also not taking new stock on clay cloths because it is less effective than clay bars (feedback from their other detailer clients).