Bodywork TLC - what are others doing?

[vinceg]

I have my new 993 "" C2S ocean - in the garage, and now 2 weeks into relationship.

Early days, but, still very much in love - so keen to please her. One aspect I have not sorted as yet is what I will commit to re clean/polish/detailing routine. I appreciate this is yet another of those "˜which religion is best' 993 questions but will ask anyway!

I am happy to commit to reasonable hours and expense to her ongoing beauty treatment but basically she is for driving and I do not wish to spend every weekend caressing and spending full maintenance budget on obscure Amazonian wax treatment so I need a compromise between great look and relatively ease of maintenance and expense. So given that profile would be grateful for any views/advice of full bodywork maintenance routine i.e. what products and what application schedule/routine others use and are happy with.

Vg

 

[968er]

If you go to the concours section there are some very useful guides.

From what you have said I take it that you will have seen all of the postings for the over priced and overhyped products of Zymol which are not worth the money as there are plenty of quality products out there that are as good if not better and at a fraction of the price.

The amount of time that you want to spend washing/waxing the car is purely a personal thing however, I have found that if you put a lot of work in the initially the amount of time that you have to spend keeping the car looking good diminishes, although this whole thing does become quite addictive. I am sure that you have read many threads which state that preparation is all and without spending the time on preparation any subsequent polishing and waxing will never yield the desired results.

There are two ways to get your car in tiptop condition, the first is to pay a professional to do the initial detail and the second is to spend a couple of days of your time trying to get the same result. I decided that I would pay somebody to come and detail the car which meant that it would be a lot easier from the to maintain it in the same condition and also because I did not want to spend a lot of my time trying to get a finish that I'd seen on other cars.

After that it is quite easy to keep the car looking good and all that I do in a maintenance regime is to wash the car once a week and a wax every two or three months. Usually after six months I will wash with a household detergent to strip all the wax off and start again. One an annual basis you should consider giving the car awash with the household detergent; clay the entire car; use a relevant polish based on abrasiveness depending how badly your car is micro scratched; apply the likes of Carlack 68 or Klasse products and then finally topped off with a quality hard carnauba wax.

 

[C V Read]

Mine's Ocean also and the it seems quite sensitive to different products. Personally I thought the Zymol was the best but it takes forever to do the whole process (wash, cleaner, wax @over 18c, etc) and when I've tried to do it quickly it doesn't look that good - visible paint swirls etc. Tried claying it once which was ok but again its a pretty dull way to spend time!

 

[Chris Parry]

I've tried Zymol and the Titanium wax gives a fantastic finish provided you get the preparation right - i.e. the paint's got to look good prior to applying the wax (it won't conceal swirl marks and general grime).

Recently somebody recommended Meguiars Scratch-X (Halfords - around 8 quid for a tube) to prepare the paintwork before applying the wax - and boy what a difference.

My car is midnight blue therefore it shows every imperfection - The paintwork had started to look dull and lifeless, and swirl marks were exagerrated. I applied the Scratch-X and the paintwork was rejuvenated.

(I should say that the Zymol HD-Cleanse is supposed to do the same thing, but for me it was far less effective).

That's my recommendation - A good wash, dry off, Scratch-X, then wax! []

Chris