Whelan - Need Clarification

[VivaVibe]

Questions about doing a thorough cleaning and waxing of my Vibe.1) Does the cladding on a monotone get the same treatment as the metal surfaces? Or treated the same as a two-tone cladding?2) How do you handle the black area around the windows on the side? Can it be cleaned and waxed the same? Seems like using the paint cleaner and polish might remove too much.3) What about the plastic of head lights and tail lights? Would they benefit from polish and wax? The emblems?4) Is there a difference between Cleaning Polish, Cleaner Wax, Glaze? It seems some are using them interchangably.

[tribalman]

when i wash and wax i wax the monotone parts also. and wheelan. what's a good product that can be used to clean the insides of the windows? just a regular windex or window cleaner?

[Whelan]

Hiya,1) Same treatment as far as washing, yes. Same treatment as far as clay barring, don't need to clay bar cladding. Same treatment as application of the cleaner compared to a wax, yes. Wash it like it's paint, and apply the conditioner, polish, dressing like it was a wax. Working it into the surface so the oils absorb into the plastic. Otherwise all you are doing is wiping stuff across real quick and a day later or after a quick shower, it fades.2) I assume your talking about either the black plastic or rubber mouldings. Either way, I still use the Meguiar's #40 Vinyl and Cladding Polish. When detailing a car I use blue painter's tape on to cover all plastic, headlights, taillights, etc. Wax is designed for the paint, not for clear plastics, vinyls, rubbers, etc. So keeping them separate during detail helps a lot. Companies like Meguiar's don't just make specific products for no reason. They have a plastic polish for clear plastics, a vinyl cleaner for vinyl, and so on.3) Headlights and taillights will and do get hazy, scratched, and pitted. The pitting is hard to cleanup unless you go to using a 1000-2000 grit wetsanding then the plastic polish. But this is for extreme cases and not recommended without prior experience. If you need this done, get a spare set of lamps or pickup one from a junkyard and play first. I used two products on my lenses. The first one for detailing is the Meguiar's PlastX which is phenomenal at getting the lenses clean and clear. Using either a orbital polisher on a high speed with a foam pad, or a foam hand applicator pad. It may take 2-3 applications to really break the product down and get the optimal results, but it's by far the best on the market today. Secondly when washing the car, I use a product called Plexus to keep them clean and free of grime. I use a Microfiber towel to apply the product. It sprays on out of a can and you polish it into the lamp till it is gone. It works good between details and is used by the Air Force and Navy on their jet canopies 4) There is a huge difference. Cleaning polish or simply polish is just that, a polish. It is meant to remove swirls, clean the paint to make it fresh and vibrant, and remove fine scratches. Two products specific to polishing are the Meguiar's #80 and Meguiar's #83. Both are fantastic at what they do, the #83 is a stronger harder product that takes a lot more effort to apply and typically needs a machine to work with properly. But it gets out some pretty nasty scratches and deep swirls. The #80 brings the paint to a nice luster and give a deep wet look to the paint, it smooths out your clearcoating and removes finer swirls than #83 does. Comparison picture below was taken witht he same lighting of the same area. Before #83:After #83:Glaze is like a sealer glaze and depending on the company you get your products from, it can mean different things. A glaze for some goes on before the wax to give the car that deep wet shine look. Others go on top of the wax coat, not to make it shinier or smoother, but to protect the wax so it lasts longer. Take Meguiar's 3 Step Consumer product line. They offer Step 1: Paint Cleaner, Step 2: Paint Polish, Step 3: Wax either carnuba based Gold Class, or the syntehtic NXT Gen Tech Wax. If you wanted to add a sealer to that process, you would really only need to do so with the Gold Class product as it is carnuba based. The NXT Tech Wax is synthetic and has a sealer in it that allows the wax to last longer. GC wax is good for lighter color cars, while the NXT is highly recommended for finishes that are darker and have metallic flec as it really makes it pop!Back to the sealers. If you have ever bought a new car, they offer you some kind of paint protection for anywhere from $300-$500. I am not talking about those 3M clear bras, this is like a Simoniz System 5 or similar. That is essentially just a sealer. No matter what they call it, alls it is is a Teflon based wax top coat that gives your paint better UV and acid rain protection. It only needs to be applied very sparingly and it is nowhere near worth the price. Just go online and get a bottle yourself for a fraction of the cost.Also note I may have referred to some products with # codes. Meguiar's uses coding in all their products and the Professional Line that I use typically only goes by the #. Take NXT Generation Tech Wax, it is actually known by many as #26.Anyways, I hope this helped out some, happy detailing. I should be starting another one for my car soon since it is in depserate need.