DJSang

Yeah, I've used Zymol Japon for the past few years, and loved it. I posted about it a long time ago. The shine and durability was way greater than the Meguiar's gold glass liquid I was using. I recently got rid of the Zymol though. I was trying to clean the paint with the HD Cleanse, but I think it's too old, and it was a pita to remove. Plus the Japon didn't look so fresh since there was a ring of green aorund the bowl.

Instead I'm using Meguiar's NXT. I had a few samples sittting around, so I bit the bullet, and put a coat on last night. So far, it's pretty good. My prep work consisted of just Mothers clay bar. No cleaner nor polish. Only thing I was hesitant about was how long the shine lasts. We'll see...

Ubetit

[QUOTE=MikeyC,Sep 21 2005, 11:43 PM] Of course my car has no swirls or scratches, because I bought it new.

MikeyC

Ubetit, I don't really feel you're picking on me. Dealer prep can definitely put swirls on your car. Also, it's pretty unrealistic for one to think that their car would never have swirls or scratches. However, my car is only about a year old and I am unaware of any swirls or scratches in my paint. I definitely have a couple of rock chips though. A couple of my wheels even have chinks in them from pot holes. I gave up years ago striving to have a perfect car. However, I do my best to avoid things which may cause swirls like car washes, products with abrasives, cheap rags, etc. The HD-cleanse seems to take care of any minor swirling that may occur and the Zymol wax seems to fill what remains. I look very closely at my paint each time I wash my car and I can honestly say I cannot see any swirls or scratches. Also, my Audi TT when I traded it in after about 5 years had no noticeable swirls, but it did have a scrape in the rear quarter panel where someone hit me when the car was parked.

VIC4UF

Is Sonus Shine Kit considered abrasive?

animeS2K

The Perfect Shine Kit is abrasive, yes - mildly so, but to remove swirls and scratches (or simply reduce them to the point of being less noticable) you have to remove SOME clearcoat - either polishing down the clear to the bottom of the swirls and scratches or rounding the edges of swirls and scratches so they're less obvious.

The kit comes with 2 levels of polish - both with silicate abrasives that break down - and pads on a rotary or PC or the applicator that comes with the kit also are of an abrasive nature, but nowhere near the point of wetsanding (which also has to be followed up with polishing to remove the scratches left by wetsanding).

Even clay is an abrasive (yes, it contains abrasives, otherwise it wouldn't work!), but again, a very mild abrasive that is unlikely to remove any significant amount of clearcoat when used properly.

MikeyC

Always use the least abrasive product possible to accomplish what you want. For example, don't go out and use rubbing compound on some light swirls. You never want to remove more of the clear coat than necessary because if you remove your clear coat entirely your paint will be f-ed. Zymol HD-Cleanse is good for removing the lightest of swirls and oxidized paint. It cleans chemically instead of mechanically (abrasives). It basically just removes dead paint. This will work for light swirls which are the result of regular use of the car and the by product of proper care. However, this product is not good for abused paint like that which has gone through a car wash's bushes 100 times.