[nikitino25]

Hello, you guys may be horrified by this but I have not waxed nor fully washed my car since I bought it three years ago. Hold on, it's not as bad as it sounds; the car had an excellent wax job on it from the previous owner and since then I've only driven it in rain a couple times and it's basically always been garaged. I've only put about 10k miles on it total and I have rinsed it off with the soap/water spray gun at the car wash several times, whenever it started to show obvious dirt. I do also keep the bugs off with bug b gone or whatever it's called. Anyway, it's time to do a thorough wash and wax but my goal is maybe different from most. Basically I'm looking to strip whatever wax is still left on the car, fully clean it (I'm open to using a clay bar although i've never used one) and then re-wax the car. But, here is where my goal may be different. Basically after I've cleaned the car, I want to use whatever wax/polish/protectant combo that would protect my clearcoat/paint for the longest possible time without me having to do anything but rinse the car off occasionally. I do not care how much the car shines or really how good it looks at this point, I just want something to fully protect the paint/clearcoat and will worry about doing a nice polish/shine sometime down the road......so what kind of products would you guys suggest for this..... Again, I don't really care so much how the car looks after the wash/wax, I just want to protect the paint as much and for as long as possible so that one day I will be able to do a showroom shine on it.......just trying to preserve the original paint at this point and want to clean it as gently as possible.....vendor suggestions welcome, thanks
Also, the color of my car is Space Grey and it's not really that dirty at the moment....

[Detailed Image]

Hello,

If your main priority is to get long lasting protection on the paint, I highly suggest you go with one of the paint protection coatings instead of a wax/sealant product. Waxes or sealants typically only last several months in ideal conditions, whereas paint protection coatings can last well over a year or two years in some cases.

22ple VX1 Pro Glass Coating and Optimum Gloss-Coat are two great products that are easy to apply, provide tremendous gloss, are resistant to most car wash chemicals, and will easily outlast any wax product.

If you have not waxed your car in all these years, odds are there is probably little to no protection left on your paint, even if it is garaged. However, to ensure the old wax is completely stripped off the paint, you need to do a thorough wash with a citrus based shampoo such as the Chemical Guys Citrus Wash.

After the wash is complete, the paint must be decontaminated of any iron deposits, tar specs, and other contaminants that bonded to the paint over the years. You can do so by using chemicals like Iron X and Tar X as well as a clay bar of your choice or a decontamination pad like the NanoSkin AutoScrub Fine Foam Pad.

If you do not plan on polishing the paint at all to remove swirl marks and scratches, after all the above steps are completed, an IPA wipe-down should be done as a final step. I personally prefer to use Carpro Eraser because it's a more user friendly product than IPA, but either one should work.

[nikitino25]

Yeah this sounds like what i'm looking for, I may pm you for a little more info, thanks

[Detailed Image]

Originally Posted by nikitino25

Yeah this sounds like what i'm looking for, I may pm you for a little more info, thanks

Always glad to help! Thank you.