Ricky Bobby

You know what works really well? Taking one or two cheapo throwaway MF towels, after you've already cleaned the tires and wheels and when the tires are dry, spraying APC on the dry tire, and wiping the gunk off with your throwaway MF rag. You'd be amazed at what you'll wipe off a dry tire that's been already cleaned. Toss the MF when done as it will be trashed (which is why I say use a cheapo). I do this about two to three times a year just to get my tire down to "bare bones" again.

has the finish been baked on? some shops cure the finish in house so its ready for wax within 30 days.

Claybar, along with some medium polish on an orange pad will cause no harm to the windshield, glass is harder than clearcoat so you won't scratch it.

I find the cheapos have their place cleaning glass (low nap), wiping tires down, wheels, door jambs, and engine bays. Plenty of uses for them. Save the better ones for paint.

Was it a cloudy or partly cloudy day? Thats prob why you don't see the fine scratches induced by the auto wash, but trust assured they are there. They probably sprayed your car with one of those scratch hiding foams at the end, rest assured, you'll see the scratches on a bright sunny day. It's never that dire to take a shortcut and use the auto wash, I'm telling you. I'd rather go to Costco and drop $100 for some cheap chinese electric power washer and just spray the **** out of my cars every time they have ridiculous filth then take to an auto wash.

I would let that be a lesson, you don't NEED to get the car washed that bad, to take it through an auto wash. No self serve coin ops in the local vicinity to just spray the heavy crud off? My vehicles never go through an auto wash no matter how dirty they are, bc of the pics you showed.

Swirls would be on the paint. For what its worth, if you go through a FULL CORRECTION on your car, and then after that seal it with a quality sealant lasting 6 months or more like I do, a year later, you would still want to do a light claybar session, then probably a final polishing step, and re-seal the paint again. Even with the best wash/dry technique, etc, you will still induce minor scratches and swirls over a years time, just from touching the paint. But at that point if you have gone through a full compounding correction, you should be able to get by with maintenance claying and polishing to get rid of the fine stuff yearly.

Claying is like exfoliating for your paint, most important step before polishing or sealing but often gets rushed or overlooked. Take your time, worst thing that happens is not enough lube and you have some light marring which will come out with a light polish anyway. The DUMBEST THING you can do is drop it and say "looks fine" and reuse on your paint. If you drop, throw it out, no questions asked.

I use the "other brand" dilutions when using Rinseless/Waterless as they are similar products. 8 oz per gallon (1:16) to make Waterless Wash/Quick Detailer 2 oz per gallon for clay lube (although I just use the above solution for claying if needed) Add 1 oz of Rinseless to your wash bucket to soften the water and help the dirt encapsulate better Rinseless Washing: 1 oz per 2 gallons Very versatile product (Rinseless Wash) as its really 3 or 4 products in one.

QFT. For my vehicles that get clayed twice a year anyway, after a really good wash, I mix a half bucket of fresh soap, soap up each panel again and clay the crap out of it. I use my "Claybar alternative" fine grade mitt and follow up with fine grade clay, then give everything a rinse down, and Detail Spray as a drying aid and then I'm ready to polish. I use Rinseless diluted at Waterless Wash dilution 1:16 as clay lube if I was claying the cars "dry" and not using the soap method I mentioned above. Detail Spray at $45/gallon is way too much to use a half bottle each time you are claying, and especially when claying glass since you tend to get a TON of contaminants on glass. I even use my cheap aerosol glass cleaner for claying glass, my good Adam's Glass Cleaner is never used as clay lube when decontaminating glass, way too expensive.

If Leather and Interior Cleaner doesnt work, I'd use a 1:1 ratio of water to APC.

I use distilled when mixing solution for pre-soak in a spray bottle, you can use regular tap water if you wanted to, if your water isn't too bad. but for 99cents a gallon distilled works for me.

The paint correcting (orange) polish should remove most of your scratches you can visibly see, the finishing polish (white) should remove the fine swirls and minor scratches and smooth the surface down, LSP ready. These things have a working time you know, its not like wax on wax off haha. A few passes and sometimes a couple minutes of working time per section are needed for large defects. remember, keep your arm speed slow, most turn up the polisher to max and move it too fast.

My F-I-L "just had to" go to Costco and get a Simpson made in Cheena special for power washing the house this year, I'm not complaining as the $250 wasn't out of my pocket and my house got power washed as well, but I'll be very surprised if we can get it running well enough to power wash both houses again this year, definitely an axial pump which is probably one of the ones designed to last 20 hours LOL. I was going to plunk down the grand on a quality unit and have it for 20 years but I'll wait until his "freebie" kicks the bucket and get a real quality unit for power washing the house.

Love the "pic of your collection" idea, I might have to break out my totes and take pics of mine haha! What are the gray towels in the top left, super dryers from DD? Don't want to get off topic so you can pm me.

for an IP wipe down you can probably do a 30-40% dilution

Just make sure you give it a clay bar first. Factory new baked finishes will need a clay bar after riding on boats, trains and spending time at the port before delivery to your local scratchership, I mean dealership. Don't forget the awesome prep work they will do on delivery the the quick glazing session. If I were you I'd clay it, use some Revive polish first to clean it up as I'm CERTAIN there are minor scratches or swirls on that new finish. then use some Liquid Paint sealant to protect it.

I wish paste waxes were like liquid and i could buy a sample off you LOL

AWESOME FAQ Dylan. Kinda the method I've been preaching on here for the past week or so, since I posted up about which Adam's wax would be nicest on top of a Liquid Sealant. Needless to say, Americana came out beautiful as a topper on mine, I'll be ordering the Mini size in my next order

Great American company, located about 45 mins from me. Phil @ DD turned me on to them since they are local to him. my FIL has the handheld vac, great for vaccuuming the car. I currently have a different handheld vac, but if/when it goes on me and is time to get rid of, I'm getting the Jumbo Vac N Blo, half the price of the Master Blaster, but you not only get blow drying of your vehicle capability, you also can use it to vaccum your whole interior too! Comes with wheels so you can pull it around the car. Its only 4 hp compared to the Master Blaster's 8 hp, but it being dual functions is a good value to me.

So 69 towels for you sir, and 3 wash pads, very nice! I will update my post as I go, but since you started with mitts: -1 Jumbo Pad, 1 Standard Pad, 1 Merino Wool mitt 16x16 medium nap towels (including cheapies): 44 16x16 extra plush: 16 Drying Towels: 5

Dealerships are run like political establishments. All they care about is the next car sale, meeting their numbers, beating the dealership the next town over in sales, etc. When a friendly voice like Dylan or Ashley's reaches out to the local dealers on their list that don't carry Adam's products, they first get the receptionist, who has to transfer them to the parts dept, who rarely answers their phones and then Dylan/Ashley/whoever leaves a message reaching out. Parts dept thinks its another marketing/sales call and probably could care less as they are understaffed and underpaid most of the time anyway. At least that's my experience with dealerships for the most part, you almost have to do live demos showcasing product to get them to carry something.

I thought this would be a good idea, just to see how Crazy we all are, because although we know we own a lot of microfibers, how often do we actually count them! Now, for ease of simplicity, I will break it down by size and specialty, I think if we break it down by each type (single soft, double soft, waterless towel, glass towel, great white) it will have a million categories, but I'll make an example: 16x16 All purpose/medium nap towels or glass towels = # (utility towels, blue borderless, silver supreme, and any other medium nap towels would go in this category, yes you can even count your "cheapo towels") 16x16 Plush nap towels = # (think single soft, double soft, etc) 16x24 towels = # (these aren't as popular of a size but I think some might own a few) Any Larger size will be categorized as Drying Towels = # If this thread takes off, I'll go home tonight and break out my totes and start counting towels

If you work in construction, your truck is new and hasn't been deconditioned yet, I would get the Paint Correcting Polish, Paint Finishing polish combo with the foam pads, a Clay bar kit, and Liquid Paint sealant, and go to town. The MF pads tend to cut more than foam pads, which is why I recommended them to you. If you watch his writeups, even Phil at Detailers Domain uses a compounding step on his new car preps, even cars "fresh off the trailer" tend to have swirls and scratches from careless preps, the automatic car washes they use to clean their cars, dirty towels to dry, etc. Working in your field, you have a ton of stuff I'm sture embedded in the paint, so start with a good wash and Clay Bar session, get that paint smooth as glass, don't worry about swirls/scratches yet! Then use the orange correcting polish with foam pad, the nice thing about it is that the work time isn't too long, so if you work a 2x2 area with a couple passes, you may wipe the residue away and find that your swirls/scratches are removed, if they aren't keep working it down. When corrected, then you can go straight to white pad and polish to smooth and bring out the gloss. That might only need a pass or two as well. Then put a nice coat of the new Liquid Paint Sealant (or aerosol quick sealant if you prefer) and you will have protected your finish for the next 6 months.

Good to know about Quick Sealant, definitely an amazing product. I wouldn't layer sealants (Quick Sealant than Liquid Paint Sealant example), but if you wanted to "topper wax" like I do, lay down a coat of Quick Sealant than Americana/Patriot/Buttery all in the same couple hours time frame! And I hear you Chewy, sometimes I feel like waxes/sealants should be sold in smaller 8 oz containers, because in a couple years, there's always something new and exciting to try, but we all want to use the products on our shelf first