To my way of thinking the condition of a car is a very good reflection on the mindset of the owner. The two parts of the car that are the greatest indicators of this are the interior and the rims.

Although this post is about rims I’ll diverge here for a moment to talk about the condition of a car’s interior. Many a time, when I have been interviewing a prospective employee I’ll finish the interview by walking them to their car. What I am interested in is the condition in which it is maintained. It doesn’t have to be spotless but if the interior is filled with fast food wrappers, paper, dirt, junk and so on it reflects in my mind that the owner has little respect for their property. Chances are, that respect will also not be forth coming when it comes to employment. Of course, this little observation is only part of evaluation of any employment candidate, but believe me, it is a very good indicator into the mindset of the individual in my experience.

Apart from the condition of the interior of a car to me the next most telling aspect of owner’s mindset is the condition of their rims. Many times while in traffic I find my gaze straying to inspecting the rims on the car next to me. I can’t tell you the number of times I simply cringe at what I see on all sorts of cars.

Many such rims have never ever been anywhere detergent, a sponge, wash mit or a brush. This immediately says to me that owner doesn’t care about their purchase. Sure, everyone is not a car enthusiast, but cars aren’t cheap, so keeping them in reason nick is a good idea? No? One would think that it helps with the trade-in or resale value? No?

The other problem with not regularly cleaning your rims is that the stuff that ends up on them is far harder to remove than normal road grim. This is because it is typically material from the brake pads and disc that is super hot when it initially attaches but when it cools down becomes very hard to shift. You should think of it much like allowing plaque to build up on your teeth.

If this build up continues, much like plaque, you get layers and layers of rock hard material that becomes virtually impossible to shift. Again, like plaque, you can’t see the damage that this is doing to your rims as it is being constantly caked on.

Long story short here, clean your rims regularly to remove all this this build up regularly. Of course you should always start with rinsing your rims down with water to remove any contaminates that you can. Of course, water alone is not going to shift much but it does provide lubrication for the next step which is using detergent.

Detergent is designed to loosen the contaminants from the surface and then the liquid in the mix floats those contaminants away. You can use a typical sponge or a stiff bristled brush to clean your rims but beware, you run the risk of scratching the surface if you use either.

I believe a better option is to use a lambs wool mit like you should on the rest of the car, however I would suggest that you should use a different one to any you clean your paintwork with. Why? Remember, brake pads and discs are made out of metal and small pieces end up on the rims, then in your lambs wool mit you clean it with. It can be very hard to full remove all these types of particles from your wash mit and even if they only scratch minutely, it will show up on the paintwork which is not what you want. So, if you can use totally different cleaning utensils (including buckets) when it comes to cleaning your rims, you should. I also like using a mit on the rims as it better allows you to get into all those nooks and crannies around the rim.

Another quick side note here. I once saw a Ferrari 458 (price around AU$500,000) at one of those cafe car washes. You know the places where you take your car, leave it to be washed by someone else while you have a cappuccino? Anyway, I saw the attendants cleaning the paintwork of the 458, then start cleaning the rims and then with the same sponge and bucket return to cleaning the paintwork. Noooooo…… Again, another very good reason not to take your pride and joy to a cafe car wash unless you want it covered with scratches and swirl marks!

So now you have washed your rims and they are clean? Yes? For most people, yes, the rims are clean. However for captain OCD here, there is more that can be done. if you want to go another step further you can purchase some Ferrous cleaner like so;

which I obtained from Car Car Products. This stuff is a lot more aggressive than your standard detergent because it will dissolve iron fallout from your rims. So be careful using it as it contains generally strong chemicals to remove all that nasty brake dust.

So here’s my nice clean rim after just detergent. However, if you spray the Ferrous cleaner on it and let it dwell, after a few minutes you rims will begin to look like:

Those purple streaks are the Ferrous cleaner reacting with iron deposits on the rim and dissolving them.

What I then do just prior to rinsing, is to agitate the whole area using a brush to ensure good coverage.

So even though my rims are pretty clean anyway, you can see that using the Ferrous cleaner pulls off even more contaminants.

If you wanted to go another step further in cleaning your rims then you would use a clay bar to pull any more contaminants out. If you wanted to be really thorough (and had plenty of time) you’d actually take the wheel off and clean both sides as well as the callipers.

Having done all this then your rims should be gleaming but the problem is now they are going to get embedded contaminants again really quickly. Why? Because you have stripped off all the protection from the rims and taken it back to its base. What you need to do as a find step is apply some protectant to the rims to resist the build up of baked on grim.

For this job, I turn again to Permanon which you simply dilute in water and spray onto the surface you want to protect. Permanon has a much higher melting point than brake dust so that means it won’t allow any super hot particles to now bond to your rims.

Once the rims have been give a liberal coating of Permanon I wipe them down with a micro fibre towel and provide a nice finish. This is one thing I love about Permanon, it is so easy to easy ANYWHERE!

So there you have it. Lots and lots of words about doing something simple like cleaning your rims, but as I said before, I truly believe that the cleanliness of your rims is a real reflection on your respect for the investment you have made in your vehicle. At the very least simply WASH then. If you are an extreme OCD hobbyist detailer like me, you’ll want to invest in some Ferrous cleaner, clay bar and remove the wheels completely from the car to clean them.

Unfortunately, after all this hard work the rims are what gets dirty the quickest but if you have taken my advice above, then at least the next time you clean then it will be much quicker and easier.

After being a good little boy for the year I decided that a Christmas present was in order. i therefore purchased a Random Orbital polisher to attempt paint correction and polishing of my cars.

I figured the best way to get started was to purchase a kit that included all the basics. I went with the:

Car Care Products RO polisher DAS6-Pro kit plus

The only question when you purchase this kit is what sort of pads you want? Figuring that Merzerna polish was included I went with the Merzerna pads.

As you can see from the above image, the package includes a polisher, 3 x polishes (500, 2,500, 4,000), a number of polishing and cutting pads as well as 2 x backing plates. Everything you need to take your detailing to the next level.

Before polishing my daily drive, which I am practicing on before I get ANYWHERE near the F355, I washed the car and clay barred the area that I planned to polish to ensure it was as clean as possible.

Now after watching plenty of detailing videos I knew that my first attempt should be using the least aggressive option. I therefore went for a polishing pad and the 2,500 polish. I knew this wasn’t probably going to take out any defects in the paintwork but it would give me experience using the machine. As expected it took out some minor defects and gave the surface a nice polish but I needed to go a little more aggressive.

My nest step was to move to a foam cutting pad with the 2,500 polish. I did this on my bonnet and saw that it removed all the swirl marks and light scratches that I had put into the paint work over the years by using incorrect washing methods. However, it still left some water stains, which meant It would need to even more aggressive.

Rather than re-doing the bonnet I decided to try a more aggressive cut on a rather large scratch I’d had for a long time on my passengers fender as you can see in the above image (just above the wheel).

This time I used a micro fibre cutting pad (a little bit more aggressive than a foam cutting pad) and the 2,500 polish. Once I had completed the area with the 2,500 I reworked the area with the 4,000 to remove any fine scratches I may have put into the paintwork using the 2,500.

As you can see from the above photo I was able to completely remove the scratch. If you look very closely in the light you can see where the scratch was, but to the naked eye it is pretty much invisible. It is pretty impressive the result you get when done correctly. The panel now had no scratches or swirl marks at all!

Of course, once you have completed polishing you need to seal the area to protect it. For this I used Permanon.

Thus, my test polishes have been successful. I am happy with the combination of the micro fibre cutting pad and the 2,500 polish to tackle deeper imperfection. My next challenge is going to be the roof (which will difficult to access with a polisher) since it contains similar water stains that I failed to remove from the bonnet on my test runs. Also being a large flat area I’ll get a better idea if my combination of pad and polish (followed up by a finishing polish) really work as well as I think.

The results soon.

About 4 months ago I applied both Nanolex and Permanon to the bonnet of my day to day road car. I recorded a video of the water shedding ability and then posted about it here.

https://blog.lovethe355.com/2014/07/nanolex-vs-permanon.html

In essence, at initial application, Nanolex had a greater water shedding ability.

At the point of application that is all well and good but what about over time? It has now been over 4 months since I did the initial application. Since then the car has been driven every day through rain and shine, washed regularly but with nothing else done to the bonnet.

The above video shows the water shedding capabilities of both products after this time period. What the video perhaps doesn’t show well is the fact that both sides of the bonnet now (unsurprisingly) don’t shed water as well and in fact shed it at about the same rate.

If you compare that to the original video above you can see the difference 4 months of wear and tear produce.

My conclusion is that after an extended period of time both Nanolex and Permanon end up at the same location when it comes to protection. Nanolex is certainly produces a much more noticeable result initially but in the long run tends to same result.

Given that similarity I have to say that my preference is still for Permanon as it is much easier and quicker to apply than Nanolex. You also don’t need to let it ‘set’ like you do Nanolex. The Nanolex treatment requires application of a cleaner and the gel which takes longer and requires more ‘stuff’. All you do with Permanon is dilute some of the concentrate with water and spray it on. You can also use Permanon on any external surface on the car, where Nanolex is limited to the paintwork.

Typically, after washing and rinsing the car I spray it with Permanon and then use a micro fibre towel to dry the surface while also applying the Permanon. Once the surface is buffed dry you are good to go. Nanolex requires the surface to be dry first and then the treatment applied, then needs to be left for 30 minutes or so. Although it produces great results, this simply takes longer and over the long run doesn’t seem to provide any major benefits over Permanon.

So there you have it. In my testing after 4 months of normal usage both Nanolex and Permanon produce the same results when it comes to protection. However, my preference is for Permanon because it is an easier and quick product to apply while effectively doing the same job,

My previous post on Permanon vs Nanloex showed the sheeting capabilities of both sealants but flooding the surface is a bit of an extreme test. The above is the results of some light rain on the same panel.

As you can hopefully see, there is a not an apparent difference between the two coatings as there was in the previous test.

Like I said previously, the next test is to clean the surface with the Nanolex cleaner BUT THEN use Permanon and see if that results in any differences. I doubt it but I’ll let you know what I find.

So back to my car detailing research.

A while back a professional detailer put me onto using Permanon and it has proved to be fantastic! I really like how you simply mix it with water, spray in on and them wipe it off to leave a brilliant shine.

However, I wondered how different a product like Nanolex was? Well, here’s a very interesting video comparison I did on the same panel, washed and clayed prior to using each product. On the left hand side of the panel I used Nanolex and on the right Permanon. Here’s what happening when you hose it down:

The last post I wrote focused on kicking off of my adventure into detailing and a few things that I have learned to do, and more so what not to do. I recently attended a Saturday morning detailing course at Car Care Products in Sydney which was really good. For $40 they spend a whole morning running through aspects of detailing. If you are at all interested in doing detailing correctly then I’d recommend this course to you.
Most of what they covered in the course I did have some awareness of but it was good to actually get hands on with doing some pain correcting and polishing using a machine polisher. That’s given me confidence to go and invest in one soon.
However, what you firstly learn is that the best way to wash a car is not to touch it, because no matter how careful you are, touching a car with anything can scratch it. So the first option is to use something known as ‘snow foam’ to coat the car and them let it dissolve the grim just like in this video:

The idea is to coat the car in foam, then leave it on for 10 – 15 minutes and then rinse off. Thus, if you have good paint protection on the car already you’ll have a clean car without touching it.
Of course, it would rare that you’ll get off all the grim using this method but it certainly makes a great pre-wash. However, the downside is that you need to purchase a bit of equipment to do this.
Now, the first bit of equipment you’ll need is a pressure washer. It would seem to me after my limited research that something like the Karcher K 2.180 would do the job.

It is small, cheap (about $130) and doesn’t have too much power. You need to be careful using too much pressure on paintwork as it can damage it. I need to some more research on the best pressure washer for a car but the good thing is that there are plenty around and they aren’t too expensive.
Next you’ll need a foam lance.

You basically fit to the end of you pressure washer and partially fill the bottle with detergent. The lance allows you to adjust the foam spray and coat the car as shown in the video.
Now an Autobrite Snow Foam Lance from Car Car Products is about $120. You need to make sure you get the right one for your pressure washer.
The final thing you’ll need is the snow foam itself that you’ll coat the car with. Unfortunately, like most actually cleaning products there is huge variety to choose from, however a typical one is Mint Snow Foam for about $15.
Unfortunately, I don’t really have a location on which I could use a pressure washer on the F355 so I think I’ll have to give this option a miss for the time being. I might still look at getting one down the track to see whether it does make things easier and to get some experience but for now I’ll have to give the snow foam step a miss in my situation.
However, this dive into cleaning products raises a good question. How can I measure how well a product works? How do I know the more expensive ‘name’ brand cleaner is doing a better job than a cheaper alternative? If it is better, how can I tell how much better? It would be really nice to have some scientific measure that I could apply when testing these products to give some true indication of how well they actually do their job.
This question about measuring how well products clean a car is going to come up more and more as I progress through all the different detailing stages. As such, I’m trying to work out some way of achieving this and lending some sort of measure again which products can be compared. If you have any ideas on how I can measure this I’d love to hear.
So, there you have it. First stage in cleaning your is to give it a pre-wash using snow foam.

If you are an enthusiast you probably like to keep your car clean. If you are like me then perhaps you also have a compulsion to have it ‘perfectly’ detailed. That I see more as a journey than a destination (how very Zen eh?) but it is certainly a path that leads to a lot of discovery.
After getting the F355 I decided that I really wanted to understand what the detailing best practices where. I knew I couldn’t go to the extremes but hopefully I could improve. Shockingly, what I have learned so far is that for all these years I have been doing even the basics of just washing my car all wrong!
What I’ll start to incorporate into this blog is the road to enlightenment that I am undertaking when it comes to correct car detailing. I am going to start this journey with an empty slate and take nothing for granted. Any results that I achieve I want them to be both understandable and reproducible.
So let’s start this process with what what I know NOT to do.
1. Washing your car with dishwashing liquid. I did learn this a while back but it is worth re-iterating to be thorough. Dish washing liquid is designed to strip grease and food matter from plates, it is therefore quick an aggressive cleaner, especially when it comes to oils and fats. This means that it will generally strip away any waxes or sealants you have on your paintwork. It will certainly clean the paintwork but it will leave it exposed to the elements without any protection which is not good. So don’t use dishwashing liquid.
2. Use a sponge. Say what? I hear you say but the problem with sponges of today is that they are rock hard. If you have ever found a natural sea sponge you’ll know the difference. You don’t want anything hard trying to remove dirt because it doesn’t, it simply grinds that dirt into the paintwork marking it. You want to use a lamb’s wool or microfibre mit instead.
3. Use a single bucket. You need to use two buckets. One bucket you fill with your cleaner the other you fill just with water. Your wash mit (not a sponge) goes into the cleaner bucket and you then use it on the car. Before you dip your wash mit back into the cleaner you dip it into the water bucket. This rinses off all the dirt that you just collected with the wash material. If you don’t do this the dirt goes back into the cleaner bucket to be potentially picked up by the mit and then ground into the paintwork. Thus, into the cleaner bucket should only go a mit that has been rinsed to remove any dirt.
4. Wash the car directly without rinsing. This will remove any loose dirt and provide lubricant for the surface. It will also give you a better idea of how protected the surface is. If the water beads and runs off the paintwork then generally there is good protection. If the water clings to the surface and fails to drain away then the paintwork needs protection.
5. Wash the wheels before washing the paintwork. Most wheels contain a significant amount of brake dust and other material. If you do your wheels before or while you are doing your paintwork (and you are using a single bucket) then that material ends up on the paintwork and ends up scratching it. If you want to do the wheels first, either use a third bucket or completely rinse out any buckets you use before moving onto the paintwork. To me it makes more sense to do the wheels after the paintwork to avoid getting anything from them into the paintwork.
6. Wash in direct sunlight. Washing a car takes a while to get around all panels and if you are washing in direct sunlight chances are these panel will dry out before you get to them. That may mean you are then rubbing a hard sponge with dirt all through it directly onto the paintwork without any lubrication. You need to ensure that all panels stay cool and wet when washing as this also avoids water marks.

Doing the above items, especially in combination, allows your paintwork to be cleaned but upon closer inspect you see that it is covered in ‘swirls’ like shown above. These become quite pronounced in day light. These are minute scratches in the paintwork that can typically only be removed using some form of pain ‘correction’.
When I inspected my daily drive I noticed that it was indeed covered in swirl marks from incorrect washing procedures over the years. It was now time to start rectifying the wrongs and I’ll start covering off what I now do and the results of my research as well as the questions I am still researching as I continue along this detailing journey.
Stay tuned for a deep dive into the world of car detailing.