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        General >> Give/Need advice to/from others >> cleaning my car
        
(Message started by: fordnut on May 22^nd, 2007, 2:19pm)

Title: cleaning my car
Post by fordnut on May 22^nd, 2007, 2:19pm

when i got my car a few weeks ago everything was in good order apart from the paintwork which apart from a scratch here and there looked ok but just needed a hell of a clean.So i washed it a few times now always in the shade using a wash and wax then driying with a leather then polishing it with Mer but every time the car hits sunlight you can see swirl marks all over the car..Dont matter how much hard graft i put in the marks always seem to be there.All the other cars i have owned were all light colours ie silver- bronze-wihite but this scorpio is the dark Aubergine and is a pain to keep clean at the best of times.
The car looks great when washed apart from these swirl marks...i used differant car wax - polish- even tried turtlewax colour restorer still no good..will original t-cut do the job ? PLEASE ANY ADVICE is welcome.... :-[

Title: Re: cleaning my car
Post by Grumpyg1t on May 22^nd, 2007, 3:06pm

Never use Mer it's rubbish !! so much so it should be spelt with a 'D' on the end.

Title: Re: cleaning my car
Post by Spannerdemon on May 22^nd, 2007, 3:36pm

Perhaps you just need to accept that the car is what....10 years old....and so a few swirl marks are inevitable.

You can spend a lot of money on a respray, and I MEAN a lot of money, probably the thick end of £1500, but I have never found ANY polish that will completely eliminate all the swirl marks. Autoglym stuff is very good, but I would personally not go the T cut route if it looks pretty good now.

I know that some members have recently been using "clay bars".

You can read the post HERE (http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=OT;action=display;num=1175468866)

I'm unsure of how it deals with swirl marks, so I'm sure you'll get some good advice from those who have used the bars if you ask them about it.

Hope this helps you anyway. :)

Title: Re: cleaning my car
Post by Daven on May 22^nd, 2007, 9:07pm

Meguiars also do some stuff for swirls I'm sure - have a look at their site!

Dave

Title: Re: cleaning my car
Post by TiberiuS on May 22^nd, 2007, 9:53pm

Hi. I wouldn't touch T-Cut, it's not the best thing to use - could make it worse IMO. This problem was the bane of my like when I had my Scorpio (dark blue), I think if you look at most dark cars in strong sunlight you'll see the dreaded marks. I think what makes it worse is that most polishes and waxes dry as powder and as the paint gets old and matted you have to rub quite hard to get the residue off. My Scorpio was filthy when I bought it and badly scuffed where it had been through car washes I guess, took a lot of elbow grease with good old rubbing compound (the greasy abrasive stuff in the tin) and Autoglym to get it looking good, but in the end it did look nice, if not mint. You could go the extreme and colour sand it but it's an extreme amount of work for just one panel, let alone a whole car.

You wouldn't ever need a respray unless the paint was very, very broken, after all, swirls are only marks in the lacquer. Clay bar sounds like a good idea, I ordered one but never got it so can't say how much it would do. But it's likely to do a better job than T-Cut, removing all the crap and giving the paint a smooth finish for a good polish, polish will take better and look better on clean paintwork. Autoglym is great but again it dries to powder, the best polish I've used is Jofs and this with a clay bar and some elbow grease might make a big difference to your car.

If you get a clay bar on eBay, just don't buy it from hos_direct, you'll see why from the dozens of neutral and negative feedbacks they have ;).

Hope this helps.

Regards, Bruce.

Title: Re: cleaning my car
Post by RichardMS on May 23^rd, 2007, 10:11pm

Claying won't remove swirls, Also just using polish won't either, You need to wax after polishing and only use good quality micro-fibre cloths.
I use Meguirs, Go to thier website, they have some good instructional videos for viewing.

Title: Re: cleaning my car
Post by Ultima2300 on May 24^th, 2007, 8:14pm

I've been using T-Cut coloured cut & wax on mine and thus far been quite pleased with the results.

White being a b****r to keep shiny, I've discovered. ::)

Geoff