Floppy

Ill soon be getting my car back from the body shop with a fresh coat of paint and with it being black I want to ensure I keep the paint in the best condition possible.

The things I know I want are:

Snow foam lance/bottle and pressure washer
A machine polisher and kit to remove cleaning products rather than apply as I'll do that bit by hand.

The things I think I need are:

Glaze
Sealant
Polish
Wax

I was thinking along the lines of starting with some Poorboys Black Hole Glaze, then EXP, then some decent polish and carnauba wax.

Can anyone recommend some good products for me other than poor boys and in particular for the foam lance and machine polisher, preferably ones that won't break the bank!

TIA

hazzaman

You won't have any issues with the paint being fresh.

If you want to protect the paint I would recommend looking at some of the quartz based products such as Gtechniq C1. These chemically bond to the paint and provide a hard surface to protect against swirls and holograms. They'll also last 10 times longer than a wax. Not cheap but it gives the best protection.

Poorboys products are great. Black Hole is awesome but a bit wasted on fresh paint as it's full of fillers designed to hide swirl marks. If you wanted to stick to the traditional glaze and wax then I would look at something like Meguiars #7 show glaze topped with a decent wax. Chemical guys Pete’s 53 or 50/50 are my favourites.

I am actually about to get round to doing mine next week (always detailing everyone else’s cars and not mine!) and I'm going to use Gtechniq C1+ followed by Gtechniq EXO which should give 3 years of protection. Will take some pictures along the way and get them up on here. Mine's black too.

I use a DAS 6 PRO Polisher and Meguiars and SFX pads.
Check out Autobrite for foam lances - check out Nilfisk for pressure washers on amazon.

lovegroova

+1 for the G-techniq stuff.

I had Tangoman do it on my car post respray and it still beads up nicely despite the fact I've not waxed the car since he did it 20 months ago.

With some proper care, it'll keep the car looking fantastic I think.

unclefester

I'd leave it the hell alone for a few weeks first and let the paint properly harden before you do anything to it other than a light jetwash ONLY to keep it clean.

Laserlady

+ 1 for Unclefester's advice

after

+1 for G-techniq

hazzaman

Clearcoat will be as hard as it's ever going to be if it's been baked correctly. 2k is a different animal though if you've gone for a single stage paint or a smart repair.

unclefester

I'm old .... old habits die hard ...... I was always told to leave paint alone until it had time to cure off

The best thing you can do to it is leave it alone and do as little as possible to keep it nice as that's the way you keep marks and scuffs off it in the first place. However if you want nice quality paint, don't buy a Honda S2000

Andybill

or when its resprayed use a non honda paint and enjoy both of best worlds !

unclefester

It's not the paint so much as the application of it - you'd think they'd employed the chap who did the carbon panels on the F40 it's so thin in places.

hazzaman

My berlina S measures pretty much 110 microns all over. Average across most cars is 180-200 but I have seen < 100 before. My gague will only measure total coating thickness. The ultrasonic ones that can measure the individual layers are ££££.