Well if you have it then yea, slap it on. Although the Type R you saw in the other pics was Diamond Brite'd when bought - about what, 2 years, maybe
18 months ago and as you saw that was pretty well swirled. In fact the front end really needs a respray it's that chipped and neglected. Although it did a high speed/early morning late night 140 mile a day commute for 2 months, and the same journey 3 or 4 times a week for the 4 months previous....
And just to follow on - I'm not knocking the Diamond Brite, I'm sure that if you did it, then kept the car clean and waxed it would last for ages and work a lot better than the way it was used on the Type R heh.
That's the thinking - get it sorted swirls wise, then get it Diamond Brite'd, then get a decent layer of wax over the top of that as well, and then maybe use the Autoglym glossy stuff that locks in the shine from a good wax over the top of that.
he Type > R heh.
Exactly. :-)
TBH, had I not been so keen to get into something I actually wanted rather than keep the Skoda a bit longer, I might have been a bit more pushy and made the dealer I got this from sort it all before I bought it.
No matter... it's otherwise spot on and I'm very happy with it, especially since the remap. :-)
-- JackH
Duly noted - to think I've not avoided car washes thinking 'it'll be better for it using a sponge'.
Oh, and I think it's probably more to do with a lazy feckwit first owner who didn't appear to be arsed about keeping a decent layer of polish on it rather than pure hardcore sponge action.
Cheers for all the advice anyway... most helpful. :-)
-- JackH
That's the thinking - get it sorted swirls wise, then get it Diamond Brite'd, then get a decent layer of wax over the top of that as well, and then maybe use the Autoglym glossy stuff that locks in the shine from a good wax over the top of that.
****************************************************************Worth noting here that Autoglym Super Resin Polish removes waxes (but does have a little bit of protection in it) so make sure you're using that Extra Gloss Protection stuff - although I must confess I've never actually tried that. My top layer is always wax :-) Dodo Juice light fantastic now - and I must admit, paste waxes seem to give a much deeper and longer lasting shine than liquid ones. I've heard good things about the PoorBoys range (I use their towels and cloths) -
Crikey. Don't overcomplicate things. Everything I've seen suggests that diamond brite is just a sealant and a long term wax, the same as say, Collinite. You're not going to get anything extra by putting another wax over the top of it and another over the top of that. And Extra Gloss is very white spirity - I reckon it'll lift the wax underneath.
My plan of action if I already had Diamond Brite would be to put it on, and put something else on when it's gone. No wax will last you longer than 6 months. All the dealer sold sealant kits are pretty much of the same ilk - keep washing it with the special wash and wax additive, and water will keep beading, which paint will with any decent wash and wax, or even just clean modern paint - if you get freshly painted, un scratched up paint, it'll bead water like it's perfectly waxed. It's still not the same as having a proper coat of wax to soak up the UV and chemical crap rather than letting your paint do the job.
Heh.
I'm not being anal about it... I'm just aware that it didn't leave the factory with the paint in that state, and I'd rather do the really hard work just the once then give it a more conventional polish now and again just to top up the protection, as it were.
The main thing is, I don't want to get it back in a decent state only for it to end up all swirly again in no time... and I have to say, the last owner must have been a bit of an animal with a sponge or whatever for it to end up as it has, unless of course this is a side effect of modern paints being soft (1)
Aye... but surely it stands to reason that the thicker the layer of wax / sealant you have over the lacquer, the more a sponge or whatever has to erode to put hard to polish out swirl marks in the lacquer?
Hence my, possibly flawed, logic that it might be best to get as much shit built up over the lacquer to protect it and so I don't end up with it looking the same in a few months.
Ok, noted.
(1) Having said that, the Fabia didn't have any such problems with swirls (2), nor did the Mk4 Golf I had before Xmas...
(2) But the front end was stonechipping like a good un after a few months of me having it relatively large up and down motorways and the like.
-- JackH
I suspect the last owner either used car washes a lot or washed very very carelessly and not often at all, so he was always using a dirty sponge. One thing to note is that the deep blue colours show swirls badly, so it'll always be a bit of an uphill struggle. OTOH I reckon if you wash carefully and regularly, maybe jetwashing off the worst stuff, you'll be fine.
I don't think you can build up a massively thick layer of wax. You can build up thicker and thicker layers of wax, but I doubt whether they'll be significant compared to a bit of grit on a sponge.
Have a look on fleabay and give it another weekend. Compared to fleabay and, well, most other places, Halfrauds is seriously expensive for the regular polishing stuff and at least the Ashford one doesn't even seem to stock the full Autoglym range, fercrissakes.
That's fair enough, the problem is that there are plenty of self-appointed valeters/detailers out there that seem to on commission from bodyshops.
Actually with the right bits of kit, it does take a lot less time to do the car compare to the usual stockinette and stuff.
Ah yes, I'm still planning to go pay him a visit. I assume the dyno's now fully up an running?
... or listening to comments and directions from "development managers" that suggest they'd be better off flipping burgers down at McDaft.
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