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Initial Impressions: Autoglym High Definition Wax

This wax costs RM453 here in Malaysia, a freaking expensive wax that lies in the price range of entry level waxes from boutique brands such as Swissvax and Zymol. Thankfully, managed to get it at a cheaper price, thanks to the help of mankarat, a forummer on Autoworld, who recently came back from the states. But seriously, RM450??! My dad would say, “You crazy?? I could eat 3 meals a day for a month!!”. But he doesn’t know that 😛

Before:

After machine polish and HD wax:

The wax also does not behave like waxes in the cheaper price range(M16,M26,Pink Wax).
Read about my initial impressions on HD wax here! —>

Since giving my mum’s car the full detail, I have to wash the car myself, and at times look very neglected due to my chronic procrastination. Thought this mini-detail would make it up to her for not doing anything for Mother’s day.

The car has collected a fair amount of dust.

With water spotting on the bonnet as it is exposed to rain:

Under all the dust, dirt and grime however, you could see the paint is still pretty much swirl free, except for some light ticks scattered randomly over the paintwork.

And that is with washing with a Lake Country Big Blue washing sponge and drying with a synthetic chamois.

The front bonnet is polished with Meguiar’s #205 Ultra Finishing Polish on a Meguiar’s Polishing Pad followed by a Lake Country Black Finishing Pad via rotary.
I was polishing under the hot sun(on black paintwork!), it stayed lubricated but had some areas where the polish baked onto the paint. Dried polish residue was easily removed with Isopropyl Alcohol diluted 1:1.

Ingrained dirt removed after polishing:

Although there was enough cut to remove the waterspots, it wasn’t aggressive enough to remove some deeper scratches. I won’t bother with those because maintaining a daily driver to be in perfect condition is just unpractical and will drive you mad sooner than you think!

The paint looks LSP ready from the sun shot above, but from a different angle, you could still see holograms.

So I followed up with Lime Prime on a Lake Country White CCS pad via ROB, which was also used on the rest of the car to clean and glaze the paintwork.

Now, may I present to you, its highness, its majesty, High Definition Wax!

This new pot had some excess oil on top, it will look matte after one use.

I didn’t use the supplied applicator as I wanted to see how it feels like when applied with the Meguiar’s foam applicator which I often use to apply paste waxes.

The applicator is put under running tap water(or use distilled water for the true OCD) and squeezed out repeatedly to get the every pores of the foam moist and damp.

Scooping out a small amount on to the pad and apply onto paintwork.

The two pictures above shows that it looks very oily and greasy but feels quite the opposite during application. Instead, it feels quite sticky and tacky when I’m trying to spread it over the paint. At times, my fingers start to get tired and have to use the palm of my hand. This is especially so when the applicator is less damp. So after waxing half the car, I would dampen my applicator again.

I was breaking the rule of not applying under a shade on a cool surface.

Under direct sunlight:

Now this is where my Meguiar’s logic is challenged. Meguiar’s teaches us on using the swipe test to judge whether a wax is ready to be buffed off or not.

If I applied any Meguiar’s wax on a black bonnet under direct sunlight, it would have probably flashed off and dried in under a minute, or even after a few seconds!

The HD Wax however, stays oily for more than ten minutes on very hot paint.

I had to pull out my finger immediately after capturing the photo below:

Despite the hot temperature, the HD wax still stayed oily and the directions stated to leave it on for only 10 to 15 minutes. I then contacted my friend Jimmy from Golden Wax – Shine My Car detailing for advice as he is a frequent user of HD Wax. He says that it is oily during the removal of HD Wax and it is common and normal.

So I trusted him and walah! No streaks or patches. Thanks Jimmy!

Although I would also say that it could be paintwork dependent as the Lime Prime I used earlier did not produce and streaks or patches. On the times I’ve used it on my own car which is also black, it will tend to streak quite heavily. Will have to try HD wax on my own car to see.

So I proceeded and applied HD Wax over the whole car and buffed off after 10 minutes.

Removal wasn’t the easiest. It was easy to break the wax film as it doesn’t completely dry, but for the same reason, it is hard to pick up all of the wax residue. Even when you think you have picked it all up, look at it again under a light source and you’ll probably see it requires more buffing.

Enjoy the pictures!

Before:

After M205 and HD Wax:

My final thoughts:
Every time you use something new or expensive(or something hyped), there is always this placebo effect that tells your eyes the results are actually better than it really is. I always try to keep this placebo effect in mind when doing a review, and it applies to this review as well, which isn’t easy with a price tag of RM453(USD141).

Having said that, the paint looks dripping wet and reflections are deep and sharp. This could be attributable to M205 or Lime Prime, I do not know, what I do know is, it doesn’t look bad! If you live in the U.S and have a Walmart near you selling this for USD35, grab it!

It rained 4 hours after application and this would kill any tight beading as waxes have not fully cured. The HD wax beads did appear less round on some areas but managed to stay tight throughout the whole panel that has been exposed.

Will give you guys a durability update when the time comes.

Thanks for looking! Any comments will be appreciated, both good and bad.

I probably won’t be posting until July as I have one last final paper to prepare for and also gathering all the required resources to do a coating test(G’Z*x,G|T***niq,Aq**rtz,Pompo***zi,Op*i-Coat).

p.s. Again, HUGE thanks to mankarat for helping a few of us acquire the HD Wax at a bargain price. *bow*

Till then, cheerios! ^^V

Kenneth Tang a.k.a Fishbonezken

Wheel Protectants: Waxes, Sealants or Coatings?

Good day fellas! Howdy howdy ho…yeeehaaaw!

So, it’s a known fact that we hobbyist detailers loooove waxing our paintwork. Some love the satisfaction of looking at the shiny paint after the hard work. Others find that massaging the paint with a coat of buttery wax is as sensational as rubbing a coat of soft butter over their partner. Okay maybe not the latter, but you get the idea!

With the paintwork on the body getting all the loving, what about the wheels? It’s a well known fact that wheels tend to be jealous attention-seekers. They wipe their face with brake dust just to get you noticed and have you clean them. Sometimes, this jealousy can be so bad that brake dust will just build up on your wheels so fast that it might be too difficult to wash off if you delay your wash routine.

Which is where wheel protectants come into the picture. There are many types of wheel waxes on the market, just have a look on Autogeek. The problem is, many of these wheel waxes in addition to making the wheels easier to clean, claim to *repel* brake dust. The only wheel wax I have is Poorboys Wheel Sealant, and it claims to repel brake dust on the directions, but I haven’t found it to do so.

So I continued the hunt for a better wheel protectant. You may have recalled I used Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat, and from my test, it has outlasted Poorboys Wheel Sealant. However, it wasn’t very durable either, as it was completely stripped off with only one clean with a degreaser.

Then I realised my application method could be wrong after watching this video by Carmate.

From the video above, it looks like the Carmate SIV Wheel Coat will dry to a clear finish without being buffed off. So I tried to do that and did a comparison with Finish Kare 1000P.

The wheels were pretty clean to start with.

Hosed down the wheel when it is cool to touch, and cleaned with Carmate PS60 Brake Dust Cleaner.

After cleaning and drying the wheel. Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat was applied to one half while the other half received Jeff’s Werkstatt Prime:Acrylic and two coats of FK 1000P.

Ingrained dirt removed by JW Prime

Contents of the box for Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat.

Changing the used foam for a fresh one.

Clear liquid.

Applied it as per directions.

I also applied some on to the paint just to see what it would be like. Thanks for the suggestion Mobile Blogger!

Goes on wet

Dries off rainbow-ish?

I then took a spray bottle with water and sprayed the previously used foam.

The water was literally bouncing off the porous foam!

I left it on for 2 days but did not see it dry to a clear finish.

The area where I applied it on the paint also looked the same.

So I just buffed it off and took some beading shots.

Let’s time travel 24 days ahead.

Both sides were not beading well anymore.

So I guess no matter what we use, it just isn’t worth the effort applying a protectant on the wheels of a daily driver. It will offer protection no doubt, but probably only for a week or two. If the car isn’t driven frequently, then protection will definitely last much longer, and maybe the effort can be justified.

But wait!

It isn’t over…

I was lucky to have some high-end coating applied to another half of my wheel. The performance of the product is just…insane.

One half was applied with G’Zox Wheel Coat while the other with Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat.

Fast forward 44 days.

The wheel before cleaning.

You can already notice the difference in beading between both sides.

I then washed it with some Osren Bubble and Wax shampoo.

There was also a different feel when washing the wheel. The side coated with Carmate C19 SIV Wheel Coat had more friction to it. The side coated with G’Zox however, felt super smooth, the bristles of the brush just glides over the wheel spoke, feels as if I am scrubbing glass itself.

After washing.

It is still super hydrophobic after the wash and water literally bounces off the wheel as I spray it with water.

The side with Carmate is basically flat and dead.

Water behaviour on the wheel was the same as what you see in the Carmate video above.

This is seriously impressive. Too bad these products are not available for DIY use and can only be professionally applied. With the wheel coating being so good, you can just imagine what their paint protectants will be like. I can see why silgt from Absolute Gloss raves about it on his blog and Autoworld forum.

Anyway, this post is not to endorse G’Zox but it does sounds like it eh. I am an advocate for DIY detailing and am dissatisfied that these high performance products are not available to us end users. That’s business I guess.

That’s all and thanks for looking! Comments are always appreciated, both good and bad. Who knows, a tub of Dodo Juice Supernatural wax might appear on your desk if you comment below!

Toyota Harrier in Pearl White: Full Detail

Hey guys! I had the privilege to detail this almost new Toyota Harrier. Just want to say that this is going to be a short write-up as I didn’t spend too much time taking progress pictures of this car, it’s big!

Also, the car being only 4-months old, I did feel stressed prior to detailing the car as it’s just way more difficult to bring an improvement to a new vehicle’s appearance compared to a few years old daily driver.

Some before and after photos.

Read about the whole process after the jump!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Here’s the car upon arrival. Surrounding areas of the bonnet has been taped up to demonstrate the basics of paint correction and protection to the owner.

Before correction

After correction

Tyre dressing sling-off in the wheel wells

In usual fashion, I started with the wheels.

• Tires and wheel wells cleaned with Meguiar’s Super Degreaser
• Wheel wells dressed with Meguiar’s Hyper-Dressing
• Wheel face and barrel cleaned with Meguiar’s Wheel Brightener
• Old wheel weight residue and tar removed with Osren Tar Remover
• Wheel face polished with Meguiar’s #205 Ultra-Finishing Polish on a Lake Country Uni-ball
• Wheel face deep cleansed with Jeff’s Werkstatt Prime Acrylic
• Wheel face protected with FK1000P Hi-temp paste sealant
• Wheel barrel protected with Enviroshield

Osren Tar Remover at work

Ingrained dirt loosened and removed from polishing

The engine bay had a light cleaning with some Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner and dressed with Meguiar’s Hyper-Dressing.

The washing stage of the car consisted of:

• Washed with a mixture of shampoo and degreaser(Osren bubble and wax + Osren Multi clean)
• Paintwork smoothened with Osren Magic Clay cloth
• Tar removal on lower panels of paint work

With the car washed, I turned my attention to the glass sunroof, which was full with water spots. The horizontal surfaces of the car also had some form of white coloured over spray.

Process for the glass sunroof:
• Watermark removed with acid
• Overspray removed with Osren Magic Clay Cloth by hand and Soft99 Glass Z compound via ROB(and Lake Country CCS Orange).
• Two coats of Rain-X applied for strong water repellency

Tomcat Watermark Remover

Before

After watermark removal, prior to overspray removal

50/50

The glass compound dries up quite fast and has to be constantly ‘re-activated’ with plain water

The dried compound is removed with Meguiar’s Glass Cleaner

After

Up-close

Note to self, always wear gloves when working with strong acid!!

Door pillars were corrected using:
• Meguiar’s #105 Ultra-Cut Compound on a 4″ Lake Country Orange CCS pad via rotary
• Meguiar’s #205 Ultra-Finishing Polish on a 4″ Lake Country White CCS pad via rotary

Black paint transfer from the single stage paintwork.

Tight areas and door handle wells hand polished with M105.

Before

After

Process for paintwork was:

• Compound with Meguiar’s #105 Ultra Cut Compound on a Lake Country Purple Foamed Wool
• Polish with Meguiar’s #205 Ultra Finishing Polish on a Lake Country White Kompressor Pad
• Finishing and jewelling with Meguair’s #205 on a Lake Country Flat Black pad.
• Deep cleansed and base sealant with Jeff’s Werkstatt Prime Acrylic
• Sealed with Jeff’s Werkstatt Acrylic Jett Trigger
• Final wax with Meguiar’s #16 for longer durability and protection.

It was really hard to capture the defects in the paint because of the light colour and high metallic flake content.

Generally the paint had light swirling as well as some random isolated deep scratches(RIDS) which necessitates the step of compounding with purple foamed wool.

Before

Before

After correction and protection photos below,

Again, every centimeter of the paintwork wasn’t perfect under the LED lighting, but I would say I managed to achieve complete correction on 85%-90% of the car.

Headlamps polished with M105/M205 combo and protected with Meguiar’s PlastX

Other things done but no pictures were:

• Leather cleaned with Meguar’s Step 1 Aloe Cleaner, conditioned with Meguiar’s Gold Class Rich Leather Cleaner/Conditioner
• Glass cleaned with Meguiar’s Detailer line Glass Cleaner
• Interior plastic and vinyl wiped down with Meguiar’s Quik Interior Detailer.
• Exterior trim dressed with Meguiar’s Ultimate Protectant

Thanks for looking! Apologies to the owner for the lack of pictures this time around, will get better ones next time.

Comments and critiques always welcome!

^^V

Mercedes E240 – Headlamp Restoration and Paintwork Enhancement

Good day folks!

Just recently detailed a Mercedes E240 that was in for two days. Wish I had more time as there was many things could be done to improve the state of the car. This car has never polished for three years and always washed at petrol station car washes. So there was a lot of grime buildup at the corners of the wheel.

The headlamps were also severely oxidized as there was cracking and blistering in the plastic, it was restored with machine and hand sanding, followed by machine compounding and polishing. Paintwork was also given a ‘quick’ polishing with the M105/M205 combo.

Although the car was clean to start with, it was in a pretty bad condition. The paintwork has water spots, moderate swirling and this gave it a hazy look to the whole car. This is how the car looks before doing anything.

So I began by cleaning the wheels, wheel wells and tires first. I spent a little too much time here and the results were also less than perfect, wish I had a polishing tool to get the wheel totally clean.

Tires were cleaned with Westley’s Bleche White. Wheels cleaned with Carmate PS60 Brake Dust Cleaner. Cotton buds were used to get in the little small holes.

With the wheels out of the way, it was time to clean the bodywork. The car is foamed with a mixture of Osren Nano Wash(200ml) and Osren Multi Clean(150ml) diluted in a one litre bottle. As the foam was dwelling, I went around the car with some Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner and a brush to clean tight areas such as window rubber trims, door mouldings, and panel gaps.

I then washed the car with a very light mixture of Chemical Guy’s Citrus Wash and Gloss. Paintwork smoothened with Osren Magic Clay Cloth.

I then had a quick Chinese lunch, glutinous rice with chicken!

With the whole car fully clean, I turned my attention to restoring the headlamps first. I’ve never done this before but after reading some work examples and product descriptions of the net, you’ll get the general idea.

The right side is after sanding, compounding and polishing.

Tools and products used:

Bosch GEX270-AE
Makita 9227C
Foam interface
Bosch 400 grit Random Orbital sanding discs
Generic sandpapers(600,800,1000,1200,1500,2000 grit)
Mirka 2000 grit sanding discs.
Meguiar’s sanding backing pad.
Lake Country 3.5″ Purple Foamed Wool
Lake Country 4″ Orange CCS pad
Lake Country 4″ White CCS pad
Meguiar’s #105 Ultra Cut Compound
Meguiar’s #205 Ultra Finishing Polish
A bottle of clean water and another bottle with diluted Presta Lubri-Sudzz.

Here’s the condition of the headlamps before doing anything.

I then looked at under a magnifier.

I tried to capture what I saw with the camera, sorry if it’s really blur, but you can see that the plastic has tiny cracks and blisters all over the surface.

So the objective is to remove the top layer of blistering and to restore the clarity to the plastic.

I started with sanding it down with a Bosch 400 grit sanding disc.

After every pass, I flush the headlamps with water and squeegee the lamps with a Meguiar’s sanding backing pad to check my progress.

I sanded until I cannot feel the cracks or blisters on the plastic. The headlamps will have a uniform frosted glass look.

This is what it looks like up close and under the magnifier.

Also, don’t forget to wear some eye protection as it can get a little messy.

Since I didn’t have finer sanding discs, I resorted to hand sanding. Starting from 600 grit and working my way through finer grits, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 and 2000.

After hand sanding with 2000 grit.

The last sanding stage is done with Mirka 2000 sanding disc, I cut them out to fit on to my foam interface. Thanks to dschia for the tip!! This step is to try to sand away all hand sanding marks.

And you can see the haziness start to clear up after sanding with the Mirka disc.

I really love the disc and can see how gentle they can be when used for paintwork. The 2000 grit disc was also still not strong enough to quickly remove the hand sanding marks from the headlamps. So many passes were needed.

After that, I followed up with some M105 on purple foam wool and orange CCS pad. Then M205 with a white CCS pad for greater clarity. The lamps are protected with some Meguiar’s PlastX, applied on like a wax instead of rubbing it in like a polish.

Buffed off and ta-da!!!

Up close,

Under the magnifier,

On the edge of the lamps, it wasn’t perfect as I didn’t feel comfortable sanding with a large disc near the painted surface, even though they were masked.

Before,

After,

With the headlamps done, I turned to the paintwork.

The process for the boot lid was:

M105/Lake Country 4ply twisted wool/1500 rpm
M105/Lake Country White Kompressor pad/900-1500 rpm
M205/Lake Country flat black pad/900 rpm

Before,

After,

50/50,

The rest of the paintwork received:

M105/Lake Country White Kompressor pad/900-1500 rpm
M205/Lake Country flat black pad/900 rpm

Before,

After,

Before,

After,

One thing bad about the Kompressor pads is that when they are freshly loaded with polish, the ‘flaps’ on the pad will have a greater tendency to leave polish in the panel gaps.

I was behind time at this point so didn’t take much pictures of the correction process. It wasn’t a full correction work but I tried to get rid of as many defects as possible. After polishing, the car was foamed with Presta Lubri-Sudzz to help dissolve polish residue in the cracks and then pressure washed away.

For the interior, leather seats were cleaned with Meguiar’s Step 1 Aloe Leather Cleaner diluted with water and scrubbed with a nail brush. Plastic and vinyl wiped down with Meguiars Quik Interior Detailer, glass cleaned with Meguiar’s Detailer line glass cleaner.

50/50

Dirt from the seats.

Paintwork was protected with the Werkstatt twins.

Dirt pulled out from the paint and surrounding rubber trim during the Prime:Acrylic process.

Tires dressed with Osren Tire Shine. Wheel wells with Meguiar’s Hyper Dressing and mudguards with Autoglym Bumper Care.

Enjoy the pictures!

Many things could still be done, such as removing watermarks from the glass and polishing the wheels as they were not totally clean during the washing process. More time on the paintwork could also be beneficial.

Anyway, for the time given, I was happy with the results!

Thanks for looking!

Oh just a special mention of a few friends that also blog about their work if you haven’t visited their blogs before in my list of links below.

My friend from Singapore does paintwork correction work and achieves great results…in a petrol station! Many people have the perception that petrol station car washes or polishing services are generally rubbish, but not Golden Wax – Shine My Car detailing. Some detailers have nice polishing studios to polish their cars in but he has to work in a less than desirable condition and environment, but still produce great results! Check out his blog at http://smcgoldenwax.blogspot.com/

Known as the super Malaysian Duo on the Meguiar’s Online Forum, both KC and Seech detail on a part time basis.

KC is known for his super human polishing speed, detailing 4 cars in a day and his hand can wax a car faster than an orbital buffer! He only started detailing eight months ago but has detailed over a hundred cars, including Porsches and Ferraris!
Check out his work on his blog at http://thedetailers.blogspot.com/

Seech is known for his Porsche 911 Turbo Special Martini edition detail, where he sanded down the paint to reveal its true luster. Talk about courage! The detail was also featured in Meguiar’s Online Newsletter. You just have to read that thread. Visit his detailing blog at http://prodetailing.blogspot.com/