[ren]

The last time I detailed my car was 5 years ago when I bought it. I have minor swirls on the paint. I'm planning on detailing again, and I came up with the following list based on what I read on the forum. Please comment/correct me if you see anything wrong.

Car: 2007 E92 Alpine White
Paint Condition: 30k miles, kept indoors since bought, a few chips and minor swirls

Inventory:

• PC7424
• LC 6”Pads: Purple, Yellow, White, Orange, Green, Blue
• Zaino Z-PC, Z-2, ZFX, Z-6, Z-7, Z-8, Claybar
• Menzerna IP (will order)
• Misc stuff (pads, towels...)

Detailing Plan:

1. Wash with liquid Dawn
2. Clay using Z-7 & Water mixture as quick detailer
3. Wash & Dry
4. Menzerna IP with LC orange pad
5. Z-PC with LC white pad
6. Z-2 & ZFX followed by Z-6 (3 times)
7. Z-8

[jbas93]

I hope you don't mean dawn soap for washing dishes! Don't do that lol

[ren]

Originally Posted by jbas93

I hope you don't mean dawn soap for washing dishes! Don't do that lol

That is to remove any sealant or wax that I may have on the car, recommended to do before claying. If you know any better, please let me know.

[jbas93]

Because it's called dish soap for a reason lol. It will eventually ruin your paint and or trim. I use 3M car shampoo. I order it online pretty cheap. But if you have an autozone or store that sells car supplies near you i recommend anything from Meguirs brand. Their Gold Class car shampoo is good.
I detail cars in the summer time. Mostly high end cars such as Bentleys, lamborghinis, ferraris, maseratis. I would not recommend dish soap.

[ren]

Originally Posted by jbas93

Because it's called dish soap for a reason lol. It will eventually ruin your paint and or trim. I use 3M car shampoo. I order it online pretty cheap. But if you have an autozone or store that sells car supplies near you i recommend anything from Meguirs brand. Their Gold Class car shampoo is good.
I detail cars in the summer time. Mostly high end cars such as Bentleys, lamborghinis, ferraris, maseratis. I would not recommend dish soap.

Thanks for your advice, but you're not providing any facts. Do you know a car that was ruined because they used dish soap once before detailing? I'm not talking about washing with it all the time, just once.

Zaino recommends using it, and I have also read about it on Autopia. Check this out: http://www.lazaino.com/application.html

[jbas93]

My Detailing process is this:

-Wash wheels, tires wheel wells first. I use 3M wheel & tire cleaner for them. Then I wash the entire exterior in sections depending on the size of the car. Try not to wash in direct sunlight. Keep wetting the car. You don't want to be washing one side and have the other side that you did drying with the soap still on it. That creates water spots.

-Clay using Meguirs Brand clay. (or any other high end brand) You can use the water still on the car as lubrication for clay or use a detailer spray. I use both sometimes. Make sure car is dry.

-Polish using 6" orbital buffer. Also use 3M car polish.

-Wax with 3M car wax. (or Meguirs Brand Carnauba wax, any carnauba wax is good)

Then I do the interior.

[dbjb]

Washing with Dawn every time... Not good. Before using Claybar... fine. I too use Zaino and followed their recommendation. I've experienced great results. I did so on a dark colored car. On my AW, it's not as dramatic of a difference.

[jbas93]

I have never heard of that lol dish soap usually has abrasives in it that can ruin your car's paint/clear coat. I personally would never use that on ANY car for any reason. It wasn't meant for cars. Maybe look into it more? Don't mean to be a know-it-all person just trying to help out!

[jbas93]

If it works for you I guess go with it

[dbjb]

Originally Posted by jbas93

If it works for you I guess go with it

I know it sounds weird. They recommend the standard blue version without additives.

[yakev724]

I have limited knowledge and am relatively new to detailing but here's what I'd do:

Clay
SIP on Orange
PO106 on White
PO106 on Black
Seal/Wax

I just finished up my first detail, in polishing I did:

Power Gloss on Wool
Power Gloss on Yellow
SIP on Orange
PO203 on White
PO85RD on Black

and results are perfect (it also took forever), but my car had pretty severe scratches/chips (113k) and is jet black (considerably softer than AW). As a result, I needed the first 2 steps to take out deep imperfections and the last step to jewel the softer paint, neither of which I believe you need.

I highly recommend using 6.5" pads and I used Dodo Juice 'Born Slippy' Clay Lube and it worked great. I ordered from Detailed Image during their 15% off sale, they have those every once in a while.

Here's a Menzerna chart that could help you out:

[Bobble]

Originally Posted by jbas93

I have never heard of that lol dish soap usually has abrasives in it that can ruin your car's paint/clear coat. I personally would never use that on ANY car for any reason. It wasn't meant for cars. Maybe look into it more? Don't mean to be a know-it-all person just trying to help out!

Abrasives? It's pretty standard to use as stripping wash like Dawn before polishing or sealing(lots of high end detailers doing it). We are talking about once or twice a year. The issue with dish soaps used regularly is the drying effect it has on rubber seals and such. It will be fine for a one time use, but you could use a higher dilution level of a car wash as well. FYI if I'm claying I am not to concerned with stripping the old wax/sealant as the clay will do it just fine. Please do use a lube and not water unless you like increasing the maring from your clay.

Also the statement any carnauba wax is good, seriously. Flashback to the 80's.

To the OP I would include a wipedown either correct dilution of IPA or something like Car Pro eraser after the Menz polish and before the Zaino for best bonding. Not a Zaino fan so I would check with Sal on that but pretty standard way to remove any oils after polishing and before sealing and Menz has plenty of oils in their polishes.

[Dr. G]

Originally Posted by jbas93

I have never heard of that lol dish soap usually has abrasives in it that can ruin your car's paint/clear coat. I personally would never use that on ANY car for any reason. It wasn't meant for cars. Maybe look into it more? Don't mean to be a know-it-all person just trying to help out!

Dawn wash is common practice. I would recommend mixing the dawn with some real car wash soap though since the Dawn soap doesn't provide much lubricity and has some slightly different characteristics from a car wash soap... not a big deal though if you are going to do a full on correction. Or just get some CG citrus wash and use that as your stripper.

Polish combo Yakev recommends is pretty good if you wanna go that route, not sure if P085 will have a huge benefit over 106 in how it finishes down on alpine white, but then again I've never dealt with alpine white.

Noticed you mentioned Purple Wool pad... I'm guessing in case you need extra correction power? I don't think the wool pads generate enough heat on the PCXP to be worthwhile, I would get a Surbuf Pad instead.

[ren]

Originally Posted by dsbj

Washing with Dawn every time... Not good. Before using Claybar... fine. I too use Zaino and followed their recommendation. I've experienced great results. I did so on a dark colored car. On my AW, it's not as dramatic of a difference.

Thanks for the input. I agree that AW doesn't show it as much as the darker colors.

Originally Posted by yakev724

I have limited knowledge and am relatively new to detailing but here's what I'd do:

Clay
SIP on Orange
PO106 on White
PO106 on Black
Seal/Wax

I just finished up my first detail, in polishing I did:

Power Gloss on Wool
Power Gloss on Yellow
SIP on Orange
PO203 on White
PO85RD on Black

and results are perfect (it also took forever), but my car had pretty severe scratches/chips (113k) and is jet black (considerably softer than AW). As a result, I needed the first 2 steps to take out deep imperfections and the last step to jewel the softer paint, neither of which I believe you need.

I highly recommend using 6.5" pads and I used Dodo Juice 'Born Slippy' Clay Lube and it worked great. I ordered from Detailed Image during their 15% off sale, they have those every once in a while.

Here's a Menzerna chart that could help you out:

Thanks for the information and the chart. My car only has some minor swirls, so I think power gloss would be unnecessary. If I didn't have the Zaino stuff in hand, I would consider getting the Menzerna finishes in addition to the IP. But I want to finish what I have first.

Originally Posted by Bobble

Abrasives? It's pretty standard to use as stripping wash like Dawn before polishing or sealing(lots of high end detailers doing it). We are talking about once or twice a year. The issue with dish soaps used regularly is the drying effect it has on rubber seals and such. It will be fine for a one time use, but you could use a higher dilution level of a car wash as well. FYI if I'm claying I am not to concerned with stripping the old wax/sealant as the clay will do it just fine. Please do use a lube and not water unless you like increasing the maring from your clay.

Also the statement any carnauba wax is good, seriously. Flashback to the 80's.

To the OP I would include a wipedown either correct dilution of IPA or something like Car Pro eraser after the Menz polish and before the Zaino for best bonding. Not a Zaino fan so I would check with Sal on that but pretty standard way to remove any oils after polishing and before sealing and Menz has plenty of oils in their polishes.

Thanks for the tip. I will use the Z-7 diluted with water as the lubricant for claying. I will ask Sal if he recommends a wipedown after Menzerna.

Originally Posted by Dr. G

Dawn wash is common practice. I would recommend mixing the dawn with some real car wash soap though since the Dawn soap doesn't provide much lubricity and has some slightly different characteristics from a car wash soap... not a big deal though if you are going to do a full on correction. Or just get some CG citrus wash and use that as your stripper.

Polish combo Yakev recommends is pretty good if you wanna go that route, not sure if P085 will have a huge benefit over 106 in how it finishes down on alpine white, but then again I've never dealt with alpine white.

Noticed you mentioned Purple Wool pad... I'm guessing in case you need extra correction power? I don't think the wool pads generate enough heat on the PCXP to be worthwhile, I would get a Surbuf Pad instead.

Thanks for the input, I will mix some Z-7 with the dawn.

[Kid Red]

My understanding with Dawn from Zaino was the dawn was important because it removed the wax from the car leaving a clean pallet. However, you only use the dawn when you want to strip the wax. It's not a weekly wash use. It's a 2-3 times a year process depending on the life of the wax. And that was potentially only to get the non-Zaino wax off the car because you can layer Zaino on top of old Zaino.

[ren]

After reading more about using Menzerna and Zaino together, I decided to change my process and use Zaino only as the sealant. I'm a noob when it comes to detailing, and I don't want to end up with a disaster like some people did when they used Z-PC after Menzerna.

So I ordered P085RD to use instead of the Z-PC. I will start with that and see if it gets rid of my minor swirls. If it doesn't, then I can apply the IP followed by P085RD.

Once I get rid of the swirls, I will either wash the car with Dawn or do a diluted alcohol wipe to get rid of any Menzerna oils, and apply the Zaino Z-2/Z-6/Z8 layers as I had originally planned.

I will update this thread with before/after photos. Thanks again for your inputs.