who details their car?

cleaner wax and polish are not the same. HOwever as corollasbest said, it may have some or very little polishing compound to it. Any time you see the word "cleaner" in a product, it will some some type of abrasive ingredient inside which will clean the surface while you apply whatever you are applying. It is the lazy way. You will still get good results but not great. A polish will do one of two things. The cheaper ones will usually fill in the small swirl marks so the swirls disappear and then the oils in the polish will then buff and polish the surface to give you a mirror like shine. The proper polish or polish compound will usually cut into the car's surface eliminating the swirls rather than covering it and then polishing up the surface.

If you buy a polish that just covers up the imperfections and then use a cleaner wax, as I said before, there are abrasive ingredients inside a cleaner wax so even after the polish that you did, the cleaner wax may remove some of the polish that filled the swirls in causing you to see the swirls again after the wax. That can be avoided when using pure wax such as pure carnuba wax. but again, that doesn't mean you eliminated the swirls, just covered it and put a protection coating over it so it will maintain the look.

I hope that answers your question.

I personally do not like to use cleaner waxes. I usually go for more the pure wax, polishes if possible. Once a year I will clay bar the car with either mothers or meguiars (both the same to me) however I may switch to meguiars only since their 2009 product has clay only you can buy and that usually is what goes bad on me first... Then i'll use dish washer soap to lighly wash and rinse the car to get rid of all the wax. Then I'll use Meguiars M80 or M82 to remove any swirls and imperfections. If its really bad, M83 might be used. <--(polishes with different levels of cut) Then I'll finish with M21 or NXT tech 2.0 wax and do a few coats of that.

When done properly, your car shines like crazy and lasts decently too. In a garage probably 3-4 months, outside about 2. after finishing that, I will later in the months, just wash and wax and use a pure polish (no abrasive ingredients) so shine the car when I feel i need extra shine. Now my car glows and has a better shine than most cars around me even if my car hasn't been washed a while so basically it still glows with dust and crap on it.. I often get from my friends "did you just wash your car?" question while we are walking up to the car and they are amazed when they see that my car sometimes has more dust covered on it than their cars.

Your car has a lot of swirls. black cars are the easiest to see imperfections because of the contrast it gives but if you detail your car properly, you get the most satisfaction of out it. I helped wash my friend's black magnum and after we finished, all we could say was wow.. it was a huge night and day difference.

thats what i get for having 11 year old paint:-D shes gettin painted within the year so im not to worried about it

i think you can save your paint with proper detail unless you are planning on getting rid of dents and stuff and then repainting.

i used collinite 476s. I didn't like it. they claim it lasts up to a year but didn't last me for more than 3 months plus removing it is tough when it comes time to detail the car.

Meguiar's #21 Synthetic Wax is the best IMO. If applied correctly, it lasts about 5-6 months, at least for me.

I live in The sunny southern california where its hot and sunny every day and my car is outside, not garaged therefore it lasts about 2-3 months max. but 2 months without losing the shine and easy to maintain so I am happy. Its a big step from the mothers pure carnuba wax i was using before which lasted me a little over a month.

So I started my car today, I only had time to do the hood, roof, and top of the trunk. But these were the worst places because when it rains, that rain just sits there and made it look horrible.

Here's before and after pics of my test section when I started and at each stage. I used Meguiars clay bar, then 3M scratch remover, Meguiars cleaner wax, and finally Meguiars paste wax. In the directions of the scratch remover it refers to it as a rubbing compound, so I'm not really sure what it is.

After clay bar


After scratch remover (rubbing compound)


After wax


Before and After




Let me know what you guys think

looks great! It looks like you removed a lot of the oxidation as well.

Rubbing compound is just a more aggressive version of polishing compound. its like if polish compound was similar to a 5000grit paper, then rubbing compound is like a 2000 grit paper.. if that makes sense..

Same.

Yeah. I did it all by hand also. I have a polisher, but its not dual action and I'm afraid I'll burn right through the paint