I’ve printed out and read through Brandon1’s detailing guide and now I have a couple of questions for my particular scenario. First some background on my Tundra. It is a 2001 SR5 4wd, Imperial Jade Mica (green). I’m fortunate that I can always garage it while at home. Another plus is that we have soft water right from the faucet.
The paint is almost 7 years old now. Overall it’s in pretty good condition, I still get compliments. I wash it probably every two to three weeks and wax it about 3 times per year. I go 4 wheelin’ on a pretty regular basis as well, so there is some pinstriping from the brush along the trails. No real deep scratches, fortunately. I do have a Porter Cable 7424 with a variety of pads for applying wax and so forth along with ½ dozen or so micro fiber towels. Most recently I have been using Meguires NXT wax as it goes on so easily and comes off just as good. I’ve only used a clay bar once using a pad for my P.C that holds the clay bar in a hollow spot in the pad. I think I bought it from Griot’s garage a couple of years ago.
I would like to freshen her paint up a bit. I was thinking about using 3M’s Perfect it II rubbing compound fine cut. A buddy at work used it recently and let me borrow the bottle to do a test. Man, it sure smoothed out the test area that I did by hand! Obviously, for doing the whole truck I would use my P.C unit. My thinking is that I would need something along these lines to start the process vs just a clay bar to give me a nice smooth “base”, then go to a polish, then a wax. I’ve tried Meguires Scratch X and honestly I wasn’t all that impressed. Perhaps I need something a little more “aggressive”? That’s why I was thinking 3M. After this initial prep, then should I go to Duragloss #101, then #105?
How about removal of the product(s), by hand with a micro fiber towel or buffing pad on the P.C? By the way, what is the recommended way to clean all the dirty micro fiber towels and pads?
I know there are a ton of products out there, I would prefer to buy something over the counter and this time around I think I would like to try the Duragloss products since I can buy them over the counter.
Thank you all for your feedback and suggestions! Trying to keep the ol’ gal looking good for a long time to come.
PS: Great write-up Brandon1.
I printed it out and gave it to a couple of my buddies.