Hi Skoda owners.

My name is Danny and I am the Graphic designer and webmaster for Clean Image.

Don't worry, I'm not here to sell you anything... Somebody here linked to one of my articles about rail dust, and I followed the link back here.

I have to admit I have a soft spot for the new Skodas, we valet them for essex police who use a few of them as unmarked traffic cars. But I don't own one myself, (If I did, I would want one with hidden flashing blue lights).

Anyways, I have been surfing the site for a couple of days as it's always interesting to check out the needs of our potental customers so that we can improve our services.

I just had to sign up because I wanted to chirp in on a couple of threads about car care. There are still a lot of myths and old wives tales regarding waxes and sealants which I hope I can stomp on.

I hope I can offer some useful advice and tricks of the trade.

...and I promise, I won't try to sell you anything!!!

Hi Dan. How about this one then - some guy at a body shop told me that car paint is slightly porus, hence why it needs to be waxed and why when washed with washing up liquid it gets knackered...??

Welcome on board!

Hi Dan,and welcome. Suspect you will be kept busy answering questions in here. I'm in the S.M.A.R.T. sector of the motor trade,but avoid the paint side of it. Wish I did the dents though...too many doing it now.

What do you use for restoring faded plastic as a matter of interest

Hi Dan' date='and welcome. Suspect you will be kept busy answering questions in here. I'm in the S.M.A.R.T.A.R.S.E sector of the motor trade,but avoid the paint side of it. Wish I did the dents though...too many doing it now.

What do you use for restoring faded plastic as a matter of interest [/quote']

T'was a serious question Andy...honest.Good to get wide and varied answers to problems,even if some do appear to be a bit.....well.....erm...unusual.

Don;t want to start a row!

Hi Dan. How about this one then - some guy at a body shop told me that car paint is slightly porus, hence why it needs to be waxed and why when washed with washing up liquid it gets knackered...??

100% true.

In fact, I spend all day yesterday looking on the inter-web for photos of paintwork taken with a microscope... but I couldn't find any. If I had, I would be able to show you that is as rough as sandpaper and full of holes like a sponge. I'll keep looking as you have brought up the subject!

I'm told, that if you don't wax, the average sized car will absorb about 1 pint of water when it rains. when you think that rain water is full of all sorts of pollution and harmful chemicals, then it's really a good idea to either wax your car, or paint seal it. These are water repellant and sealants, to a degree are chemical resistant.

Washing up liquid is a degreaser and will damage the wax already on the car. it's better to use a product designed for the task.

I gotta go, I'll answer the question about faded plastic when I get from work home.

Washing up liquid is a degreaser and will damage the wax already on the car. it's better to use a product designed for the task.

Also believe it has a large amount of salt in it which acts as a catalyst in the rusting process so when you finally wear through the wax and the car absorbs it, the metal underneath will rust quicker.

Chris

Ah, I dodn't know that!

If true, then yes. Salt makes water a better conducter. And the oxidization process has something to do with Oxygen stealing electrons from Iron. So it speeds up the rusting process by many times. (can you tell I failed chemistry?)

T'was a serious question Andy...honest.Good to get wide and varied answers to problems' date='even if some do appear to be a bit.....well.....erm...unusual.

Don;t want to start a row![/quote']

CJ,

I think you may have missed the slight modification that Andy made to your quote

Thanks for clearing that one up Dan, better keep it well polished then.

No need to bother on my Smart though - its powder coated...

Welcome Dan. It was me that linked to your site. I had a problem with specks of rust, and your page on industrial fallout served very well to outline it. I'm sure we can keep you very busy with car care questions

Cheers

Ventmore

Thanks for clearing that one up Dan' date=' better keep it well polished then.

No need to bother on my Smart though - its powder coated...[/quote']

Powder coated eh?

Hmmm.

Before I got involved with this valeting business, I was a draughtsman and designer and as such, made sure I knew the materials I was working with very well. These materials included GRP and Powder Coated Aluminium.

If your Smart is anything like the materials I used to work with, I would slap a coat of wax on it just to be sure.

Think of it this way... there is a war going on!

Your vehicle is under constant attack from the elements. This is why cars were painted in the first place, to protect the metal work.

The paintwork may protect the metal work, but what protects the paintwork? (or powder coat?).

As I said, your vehicle is under constant attack and there are going to be casualties! You can't be in a war and not recieve some damage (as the Yanks are finding out). Don't kid yourself that there is a substance on this earth that can stand up to the elements, especially when the elements these days involve acid rain, road salts, and pollution such as industrial fallout. Eventually this attack is going to cause cracks in your defences.

...A good coat of wax acts like cannon fodder. UV radiation and acid rain will eat it's way through your wax, but it will wont get neat your paintwork if you re-apply on a regular basis (sending in reinforcements, to continue the analogy.)

Welcome Dan. It was me that linked to your site. I had a problem with specks of rust' date=' and your page on industrial fallout served very well to outline it. I'm sure we can keep you very busy with car care questions

Cheers

Ventmore[/quote']

Thanks Ventmore,

I hope you found the article informative. I had plenty of help with that article from two automotive chemists, Bud in America and Willy in Sweden. I really should give them credit.

I am about to update the web site which will include several more articles and lots of photos, so check back in a week or so.

Hi Dan' date='and welcome. Suspect you will be kept busy answering questions in here. I'm in the S.M.A.R.T. sector of the motor trade,but avoid the paint side of it. Wish I did the dents though...too many doing it now.

What do you use for restoring faded plastic as a matter of interest [/quote']

My favoured product is a big tub of elbow grease, a brillo pad or a stiff brush!

It doesn't always work, but a lot of plastic trim is... well, kinda wet. A lot of times you find that a chalky, waxy stuff comes to the surface. Sometimes it's the other way around and it does kinda dry and powdery. A lot of times you can scrub them off.

The second method is a hot air gun. this isn't for the faint hearted, but if you get it right, you can melt the surface and this makes it glossy - this does the trick.

It's not as hard as it sounds. You know that you can run your fingers through a candle flame and not get burnt, but try it with your arm and it will burn all the hairs off. It's pretty much the same principle. The hot air burns off all the loose flakey bits. Just don't get it wrong or you will be in big trouble.

As for products, its one of the few areas where we haven't got a magic answer. Anything you use will wash off and sometimes make the problem worse. It can streak, or worse still, make the water bead up where it acts like a magnifying glass. It then can burn rings and leave you with a lepoard skin bumpers.

But if we have to use it, we use Bumper Gel from W.A.C., although, we haven't tried any of these new retail products as we just avoid putting stuff on plastic.

CJ' date='

I think you may have missed the slight modification that Andy made to your quote [/quote']

Yea,missed that Jane. Constant battle going on between us

Danny,I learnt the heat gun trick off the Autoglym rep.Tried it on corsa wheel arch covers..constantly bleaching,apparently due to being manufactured from re -cycled plastic.Found it to be a very difficult art to master,so I simply mask off and recolour in a specifically formulated shade of dark grey.Totally transform the appearance...and it lasts. Cheaper than new covers too

smooth peanut butter Tried it yet CJ?

smooth peanut butter Tried it yet CJ?

Dyknow,I was wonderin how long it would take before those words appeared

NO!!

Give it a go, you may be surprised.

Dyknow' date='I was wonderin how long it would take before those words appeared

NO!![/quote']

C,mon Colin..answer the question..

Hope nobody minds me being a smartarse as a newbie (Fabia vRS came today) !

I was recommended to use baby shampoo to wash the car as it has a very similar formulation (at about 1/15th the price) as top-end car shampoos - apparently. I use it all the time now and it certainly doesn't strip the wax.

Every 6 months I strip all the wax off the car with P21S paint enhancer (and do all the waxoyl business at the same time), and wax every other wash with P21S carnauba wax. My car looks like it's on fire, it glows so much!

I'm fairly happy with this routine, but any other tips from the professionals would be very much appreciated.

Give it a go, you may be surprised.

I've just tried it today, and I can tell you it works very well. I was a bit sceptical about it, but it got rid of the polish the garage so lovingly plastered on my trims , and with no elbow grease in site...

Ventmore

Peanut butter!

Yeah have heard it works, but only because it is oily and acts much like adding silicone oils... which is something we avoid because it washes off and goes streaky.

Did you know that us valeters use stuff like toothpaste and white vinegar for certain cleaning jobs. We keep them in a cupboard at the end of the building along with stuff like Salad Cream and Tomato sauce which we use for lunch.

When we tell people "Yeah, Salad Cream is amazing on faded paintwork", you would be suprised how many people believe us. Maybe this is how these things start?

We usually trick trainees into cleaning alloy wheels with Mayonnaise, it's an initiation thing!

Peanut butter!

It works.

It's a tip passed to us by Mark (Wax Wizard) who could have easily sold us some expensive Swissol PVC cleaner, but chose to tell us to use peanut butter instead

Yea' date='missed that Jane. Constant battle going on between us

Danny,I learnt the heat gun trick off the Autoglym rep.Tried it on corsa wheel arch covers..constantly bleaching,apparently due to being manufactured from re -cycled plastic.Found it to be a very difficult art to master,so I simply mask off and recolour in a specifically formulated shade of dark grey.Totally transform the appearance...and it lasts. Cheaper than new covers too [/quote']

Oh no! Not the dreaded Corsa!

I know what you mean now, the wheel arches fade at a faster rate than the bumpers leaving the car all different colours.

When you say re-colour, do you mean the re-colour and re-texture smart repair kits? the ones you get in a big suitcase?

If so, for some reason we never though of doing that. We have sent one or two down to the body shop for spraying matt grey, but never thought of using the paints in our kit.