For background – I’m not a fanatic on car care. I run the car through an automatic car wash once or twice a year and polish it every two years or so – whether it needs it or not. And I’ve typically just bought what seemed good on the auto parts shelf or the infomercial.
Over 10 years ago, my wife’s Dad gave me some of the best product I have used on a car. He said it was a glaze and was better than wax. He remembers the name as "006", but says it was only sold commercially to detail shops and not to the general public. It was a tan or beige color. The product went on smoothly, never really seemed to dry, wiped off smoothly, and left a mirror finish. Took off surface dust and water spots, easily removed swirl marks and minor surface scratches – removed deeper scuffs with more effort, and beaded water for about six months. Washing first was optional – but it probably was a good idea. Preferred application method for me was two paper towels per body panel – half a towel to apply and the other side to wipe off (the towels didn’t soak up the glaze and didn’t abrade the surface finish, and got thrown away before they caked up with dried residue).
Unfortunately, we are running out of it, he’s retired and moved from that area, and a Google search was not helpful. I asked a body shop if they recommended glaze or wax or both, and they said either was fine, but use a good quality product without silicone and recommended either Mother’s or Mequiar’s of the commercially available products.
Other products I have tried over the years were TR3 resin glaze in the 80′s (liked it – but a bit too abrasive on a single color red car I had), NuFinish (good but a bit hard to apply), Turtle Wax Polishing Compound and Rubbing Compound for really deep defects, and most recently Mother’s Glaze and Sealant (okay product, but took more effort than 006 to remove scratches and much more effort to buff out – dried to a haze and tended to cake when wiping off – but I also think I applied overly thick).
I’ve come to realize that I want a sealant rather than a wax but am a bit fuzzy on whether a sealant is required along with a glaze or not …
Questions:
• Any idea what the "006" product might be, where to get more, or what an equivalent product might be? (From other posts, I’m thinking either Mequiar’s No. 7 or Color-X, but I don’t want to buy a bunch of products to find out.) I hadn’t heard of Autoglym Super Resin Polish or Collinite or PS or Klasse All In One before reading here, but Klasse AIO seems to get a lot of positive reviews. (Understood it’s hard for you to know what 006 might be from a description).
• I read the 5-step process on Mequiar’s site and the last step is sealing/protecting. I think Color-X has a sealant, but No. 7 does not and I don’t know if "006" did or not. If I were to use a glaze yearly or so without using sealant, would the paint be harmed (assuming the water still beads up)?
• Out of curiosity I know it is possible to remove scratches from clear coat paint, but I don’t really see how this works. In single stage paint, it seemed logical that the compound smoothed the surrounding color paint over the exposed primer which made sense. In clear coat, is seems like it would smooth clear paint over the primer and not really do anything.
• I’ve had issues before with wax getting on black door handles or black rubberstrip or black plastic grilles. Mother’s Back-To-Black works great on sun-fade, but not very well on this. Lacquer thinner does fairly well, but is hard to keep of the paint (and it’s near impossible to keep polish off the black plastic – any insider tips?)
• The car has gotten a few stone chips over the years. I recently bought some touch-up paint and it looks great until I polish it, then there tends to be polish in the chip area. I know the professional method is to carefully use body filler to get the surface flush prior to painting – any easier secrets?
• My son has a 1997 Civic in Cypress Green Pearl CC. The paint is in good shape for it’s age, but there are tiny areas on the lip of the fenders (next to the hood) where the clear-coat is starting to chip away (barely noticeable). However, I’ve seen other cars that age where the color coat was fine, but the clear-coat was gone from 3/4 of the roof, hood, or trunk. Any ideas how to keep the initial areas on his car from worsening or to restore a car with major deterioration – short of stripping and re-painting at a body shop?
Thanks in advance!!!
