how can i make my car shiny

[Hayden]

hi i have a white car. Th paint is in good nick but its not that shiny… Is there anyway i can get it to look good? i know about cut and polish and all that but could someone explain how to properly do it

Topic

[Erin]

Here is my ritual. You will need –
1 bottle of Nu finish car polish.
Glass Plus glass cleaner.
Large sponge for washing car.
Palmolive (or Dawn) liquid dish soap.
Mineral Spirits (optional)
Brawny brand paper towels (they really are stronger).
6 (or more) microfiber polishing cloths. (maybe 3 to dry, 3 to polish)
Polishing pad.
Couple pairs of rubber gloves (optional)
Armor-all tire shine.
Armor-all dash polish.
Boom box (no need to work in silence or run down the car battery)

Let’s go to town.

Spray down the car thoroughly to rid big and loose dirt.

Give it an honest cleaning, by sponge. Don;t forget to get UNDER the car around the edges and the wheel wells. BTW, Automatic car wash will not cut it. I use Palmolive dish soap. An added benefit is your hands will be soft and beautiful after (who wouldnt want that?) Scrub the wheels, tires, and wheel wells LAST. That is where the worst dirt is.

If there is road tar or stuff that won’t come off anywhere, try some mineral spirits on a paper towel to remove it (I never had problems doing that, do so at your own risk).
Dry the car a few times using a few different towels. You do not want spots.

If you have a way to blow water out of the cracks, do that. That water WILL seep out when trying to polish. Water loves to hide under the door trim.

Clean the outside of the windows using Glass Plus and Brawny paper towels. It works better than anything and is way cheaper. Be careful using it on tinting, it may damage it.

Now time to polish. My choice is Nu Finish. Comes in orange and black bottle, real boring looking. Put on rubber gloves (car polish is not good for your skin)
Apply the polish a section at a time (sparingly) and let it dry to a haze. Hard to see on a white car so after the last section is polished, take a break for maybe 30 minutes. BTW try to avoid the rubber and/or plastic trim around windows. Polish does not come off them easy. Maybe even avoid polish within 1/2 an inch of them.

Wipe of the polish in the same order of sections you applied. Like say you started applying on the trunk lid, start removing there. After removing, get a different cloth and buff lightly. Use a different section of the towel often when doing initial removal.

Last Steps –
Using a tire polish applicator or rag you do not mind ruining, apply tire shine. Move the car maybe a few inches and repeat.
Using the armor-all dash polish, go ahead and shine up the wheel wells and any plastic trim at the bottom of the car. For some reason, dash shiner works better on plastic than tire shine. YMMV.

The reason you want to polish the tires, wheel wells, and plastic trim LAST is because that stuff is basically oil. If you do those first, that oil on your gloves could transfer to your polishing rags and to the metal of your car. Plus since the undersides are so gross, you don’t want to pick up small gravel and be polishing your paint with it. Kind of for the same reason you would scrub your face with a washrag BEFORE scrubbing your ummm, well anyways.

Count on this entire job taking up about three hours. And as soon as you leave the garage, some bird will probably be waiting to relieve itself on your clean car.
And for THAT, join me in my next installment when I explain how to hit small moving targets with an AR-15.

[Walt jr]

I do a bunch of details to supplement my tool acquisition disorder (TAD) one of the first things I like to do with white cars is get the paint stripped of old wax etc, as mentioned Dawn works good for this. After getting the car clean I usually clay it using the soap as a lubricant, then blow dry it with a leaf blower (don’t laugh it is fast) next, I like to pull it in a dark garage and use a flashlight to look at the paint so I can see the literally thousands of tiny scratches that are in most cars, next I like to use 3000 grit paper on any bad scratches(be very careful) I follow up by working one panel at a time with very light compound and the buffer on low, next I wash the car with car soap and dry it using paint sealer and a new micro fiber cloth, I follow this up with a coat of paste wax. Once a car has been polished in this fashion it will have a great shine that will last for some time. Most new scratches are the result of washing and drying wrong, I wash with a mitt in one hand and the hose in the other, lots of water before during and after gets the small particles off the car and keeps the tiny swirl marks from coming back, I also only dry with air or a micro fiber cloth soaked in spray wax, lubrication of the surface is very important, especially on dark colors. I cringe when I see what new car dealers and car wash places do to the paint on people’s vehicles…but then again it is good for business.

[Lorrin Barth]

There always has to be somebody around to throw a wet towel on things. So, here goes.

The main function of paint on vehicles is not to look shiny but to keep the steel from rusting. The more polishing and buffing you do the less paint you have. Eventually, or sooner, you will be down to the metal. Then you need to have the vehicle painted which is expensive.

[dropin_biking]

@ Summer_Night – That Nu Finish car polish is junk. I’ve used it, it’s nowhere near abrasive enough to cut down and remove scratches and swirls.

@ Walt Jr – Very good advice. 3000 Grit will work to remove heavier scratches in the clear coat. If 3000 grit won’t, it’s very likely the scratch is through the clearcoat. One thing I will point out is that it isn’t good to apply a sealer or any products over a compounded surface. Compounds are an aggressive cut and don’t leave a full gloss finish. That is why a Polish is always followed up. You would get better results with a polish on a polish pad with your tool of choice, to follow up the compounding. THAN a good wax/sealer to bring out shine and protect

@barneyb Valid point. Paint is actually entirely cosmetic, that’s why you pay money for fancier colours, and have so many options. Vehicles and body parts are chemically dipped in sealer at the factory, that is where they are sealed. Colour, and clear is merely for looks and UV protection for the sealer. An average factory paint finish will be between 100-150 microns. 60% (or more) of that being clearcoat. A full HEAVY HEAVY compounding with an aggressive 8″ rotary buffer MAY knock off 20 microns. So in reality, yes you could eventually be down to bare metal, however that is highly unlikely. I’ve only personally seen issues with clearcoat durability if it has been sanded too thin before being polished. VERY easy to sand through clear, quite hard to buff through it.

My personal recommendation would be an aggressive compounding with a 3M stage 1 EX, or Meguiars heavy cut compound, and a compounding pad. White is a very forgiving colour, so any final polish would do, even the cheap stuff, just make sure to work it in with a polishing pad. Good carnauba wax always helps bring out more depth, and that wet look.

[Gene]

Best advice I can suggest is to go to you tube and look up Junkman2000. This dude, who has his own channel, is the ETCG of making yer ride shinny. He’s gunna show you in NUMEROUS videos how to wash your car, clay the car to get imbedded dirt off and then remove (polishing)the swirls and minor scratches from the clear coat in order to get a fine shine.

Dude doesn’t pull any punches, gives you the straight dope at a level even a beginner can follow. He shows you how to do it on an “every day” car, not on some already highly polished million dollar dream car. To do it right, it is an investment of time.

Oh and AJ is pretty cool about responding to questions posted in response to his videos or to messages.

Dude is down in Lexington, so not too far away from Eric.

[dropin_biking]

This is a 3000 grit machine sanding, and a 3 stage polish on factory Honda paint.

[URL=http://s75.photobucket.com/user/dropin_biking/media/IMG_20140924_163433_zpsb4c7a652.jpg.html][IMG]http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i286/dropin_biking/IMG_20140924_163433_zpsb4c7a652.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s75.photobucket.com/user/dropin_biking/media/IMG_20140924_163416_zps4a9f3670.jpg.html][IMG]http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i286/dropin_biking/IMG_20140924_163416_zps4a9f3670.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s75.photobucket.com/user/dropin_biking/media/IMG_20140924_163330_zpsd593255d.jpg.html][IMG]http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i286/dropin_biking/IMG_20140924_163330_zpsd593255d.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

This is a full 1500/2000/3000 grit machine sand, and a 3 stage polish on an aftermarket finish. Almost zero orange peel left for a factory look.

[URL=http://s75.photobucket.com/user/dropin_biking/media/IMG_20140716_192057_zpsef45a24c.jpg.html][IMG]http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i286/dropin_biking/IMG_20140716_192057_zpsef45a24c.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s75.photobucket.com/user/dropin_biking/media/IMG_20140716_192025_zpsc49e026c.jpg.html][IMG]http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i286/dropin_biking/IMG_20140716_192025_zpsc49e026c.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

It’s amazing what time and effort can do to a vehicles finish.

[Andy White]

[quote=”Hayden” post=114275]hi i have a white car. Th paint is in good nick but its not that shiny… Is there anyway i can get it to look good? i know about cut and polish and all that but could someone explain how to properly do it[/quote]

First you need to get yourself a DA polisher, you could do it by hand but it will take forever. You need to get some compound and polish, depending on how hard the paint it, I would suggest starting with the Rupes UHS pad and polish combo.

Then you need to wash your car and use a clay bar to remove embedded contaminants. Then you need to polish until the paint is in the condition you want. Then you need to protect the paint, the best choice would be a paint coating, second best is a paint sealant and the least preferable is a wax.

If all this sounds like a lot of work, which it is if it done correctly, you know what detailers charge so much to do it.

This is a car I did, which took several days, and I’m a professional detailer

[Author]

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