I thought I'd get you all's experience before I jump to the detailing forum. The paint on the car is extremely dull and looks as if the clearcoat is becoming compromised in many places. There is even dark brown spotting of surface rust on primarily on the roof but in other places as well. The trunk lid is particularly dull. No shine to it at all. What can I do to bring back the lustre? Can the paint be brought back to life?

I do have some Mothers Clay I got on Ebay coming in the next couple of days.
Is this a good start after washing or am I getting ahead of myself here???

Thanks Fellas!!!

And no I don't have a porter cable random orbital yet....

3M rubbing compound. Clay wont do anything if the clear is starting to flake. At least the compound will blend the areas in where the clear is flaking. Pics?

I guess I left the inaccurate impression that the clearcoat was flaking. The flaking is not happening at all. It's just that the trunk lid alone looks so dull that it just has no shine to it whatsoever. Even the roof that is speckled with surface rust shows the presence of clearcoat. So that being said. Would I still be wasting effort with the clay bar?

pics!!

hey man
my car looked terrible (it was repainted and the repaint is cracking). anyways, i used that 3M rubbing compound blitzed is talking about (its a reddish clay color). Then i used duragloss polish/cleaner after that. The car looked way better than it did. So i did one coat of the rubbing compound, 2 coats of duragloss then applied some meguiars polish after that. I probably didnt have to do the meguiars polish, didnt change it much, but i figured it wouldnt hurt. Good luck and post some pics!

I posted a thread a few weeks ago with some before/after pics in it.

Yes, at this point clay is useless.

Rub it out...

If you use the 3M Medium Duty compound (or any for that matter), I would go with the white Finnessit II after it. Works great and gets out any fine swirl marks left from the cutting compound.

I agree, rubbing compound is first thing to do, be careful how much you cut the paint as it can remove it fast with a power polisher.

Clay is used to remove imbeded particles in the clear coat once the car is clean and glossy.

ken

Use the clay first. Then Compound it. Clay will scratch the paint therefor using it before the compound is a good idea.


The clay will take any rail dust, tree sap, etc off. You can just go ahead and buff it, but using some clay will help and make your life a little easier. If you didn't have a bar coming in the mail I wouldn't tell you to go buy any unless you had some major issues with stuff on your paint. Anytime I have to do a lot of polishing or buffing on a car I always clay bar it. The end result is always better. Sometimes more than others. (I detail for a living.)