Car Body Paint
Friday, April 25, 2008
Over the past decade, car manufacturers have developed different paint systems to improve durability. 96% of all new cars have a base coat/clear coat finish, which is comprised of a thin color coat covered by a clear acrylic or enamel urethane coat. This clear coat finish is only 2 mm thick. Daily wear and tear on a car's clear coat finish may leave it with swirl marks or signs of oxidation. To the eye, it means a dull and hazy looking appearance. This is sometimes referred to as "clear coat haze." Over time, a car's paint erodes due to the effects of sunlight, UV radiation, acid rain, salt, dirt, and air pollution. Wax your car every six months with a quality wax or polish. More frequent waxes are needed if your car is red, black or white because these colors are more susceptible to acid rain and UV rays.
What to do?
Frequent washing (once a week) and vehicle polishing (once every 6 months) is the best way to keep your paint in good shape. Keeping your vehicle consistently clean clears away the buildup of damaging chemicals and dirt that may attack your car's finish. In areas of the country that experience the use of road salt in winter months, frequent washing can also reduce the corrosive effects of salt that cause body rust-through.
One of the most critical times to wash your vehicle is immediately after a rainfall because of the ill effects of acid rain. Even though the water evaporates, the acid stays behind and can eat into your vehicle's finish. While you may not be able to prevent acid rain, you can prevent it from ruining your vehicle's finish by frequent washing and polishing.
If you drive on muddy roads, consider an undercarriage treatment every time you wash your car. Remove muds that sticks under the carriage of the car. That particular mud holds moisture to metal and causes rust and body rot around wheel wells and door sills.
Waxes and polishes serve three primary purposes:
1. Cleaning a car's finish
2. Improving the shine
3. Protecting the surface against the offensive effects of foreign materials.
Most waxes/polishes contain very mild cleaning agents, along with shine ingredients, lubricants and waxes. All of the ingredients work together to renew that showroom-new look.
April 25, 2008 2:08 PM
there r so many brands of cleaning shampoo and car polishers ( auto glym, meguiars,glare at hock tire,waxco etc) in the market, which one would u recommend? which car detailing centre (at tyre mart, max-michelin-sin hup huat, hock tire) would u recommend, not so expensive one beside the one u promote zymol?
April 25, 2008 4:20 PM
Meguiars and AutoGlym walaupun mahal tapi puas hati... jgn membazir mbali car care product yang murah..
April 25, 2008 7:33 PM
There's a lot of car shampoo products nowadays..Even Malaysia make some car shampoo product. I suggest u go for the Meguiars or Autoglym if u cant afford Zymol. When it comes to grooming car body paint, we cannot afford to use the cheap product as some may contain ingredients that maybe too active that it can chip the clear coats of the paint.
April 26, 2008 7:23 PM
brand "turtle" is also very good & trust me you will be amazed with the end product..
April 30, 2008 5:28 PM
I am using turtle wax car wash, meguair wax, autoglym sealant, meguair tyre gloss, amorall interior dashboard. Lets choose the best brand for each parts.
Well, Meguair gold class is one of the best wax, and autoglym have one of the best sealant....for car wash, just get one that wont strip off wax...
July 5, 2008 12:14 PM
aninaruto i definitely agree with you bro not to just buy any cheap products in the market.
Coming from various regions i have tried alot of products out there for my car, but yet to say the best so far I have realised and tested is the Meguiar's NXT Spot Free Shampoo where is does not leave streaks on the end result. Great finish and smooth like silk where the rain drops just slides off the body of the car. Works like rainex but then again you got to try it to believe it.
At the end of the day this is more preferences bro, but if you want to really care for the car it is best you go for a good deep cleansing polish with Meguiar's as it is one of the pioneers in the car care products been around for 100 + years man.
I had heaps of scratches and swirl marks on my car body and was going to re-spray it but found out that at Max Centre they managed to polish it up and bring it back to its original condition and then topped it up with its gold class wax. Awesome results was so impressed with it.
Whilst I was googling online I found this site which is an excellent forum on car care try it our guys:
http://www.meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6033
November 11, 2008 3:24 AM
Typically, the best waxes have the highest percentage content of Brazilian Carnauba Wax in it. Guruwax is my favorite which has 53% Brazilian White Carnauba Wax by volume. Looks absolutely stunning on black paint and lasts much longer than the typical OTC waxes.