Auto Obsessed here today we're going to show you
some of the best practices on preparing the paint surface we want to remove contaminants possibly
or waxes and sealants and prepare the paint for potentially polishing or putting a nice last
step product on such as wax sealants or nano coatings we have a number of products to achieve
this our first step in this process is to wash the vehicle we want to get off any dirt grime
anything that's sitting on top of the surface to prevent scratching in our later stages we can
also use a couple products to help remove the wax and sealant in the wash stages Chemical
Guys makes one called Citrus Wash & Gloss, Migilore makes one we can also use a product
from Griot’s Garage that can be used after the wash stage as a spray-on product to remove waxes
and sealants, CarPro makes a few products to help remove some of the embedded contaminants such as
Iron X for iron that's embedded into the paint, Tar X for tar in the surface of the vehicle and
a combination of both Trix. W e also have several clays, clays can be used in combination with the
chemicals or on their own we've got a clay from Sonus, Chemical Guys, Griot’s Garage, Swissvax.
We also carry a few synthetic clays Nano-Skin, Chemical Guys and Altima. We've washed and
dried the car to remove as much surface contaminants as we could during the wash stage
to review these best practices visit our YouTube channel Autoobsessed on how to wash the car best
practices. So after evaluating the vehicle after the wash and dry we notice that the vehicle
still has lots of contaminants on the paint on a close inspection you'll see orange spots
which are iron deposits that are embedded into the clear coat and we have black spots which
are probably tar. So what we need to do now is take a further look at that use some chemicals,
clay process to remove these and make the paint perfectly smooth and clean. We're going to start
by removing the tar spots on this vehicle these are generally the black dots there left behind
after the wash stage. We're going to use a tar removal product for this choose the tar removal
product that's best suited for your vehicle and always follow the manufacturers recommended
instructions. We've let the product dwell on the vehicle for a few moments you can pretty
much instantly see the tar being dissolved by the product and dripping down the paint we're
just going to let it sit for a couple minutes as part of the manufacturer instructions and then
we'll rinse it off. We successfully removed the tar from this vehicle we've rinsed off the
product and now we're going to go and we're going to remove the iron particles that are still
embedded in the clear coat. We're just going to spray the product onto the vehicle and let it
dwell, here we can see the iron removal product reacting with the iron it's turning the iron
particles purple as it's dissolving the iron. We removed the contaminants from the car and
rinsed it and now we can see an immediate improvement in this stage of the detailing
process. Use clay to shear off the remaining contaminants left on the paint surface so we're
going to use an ultra fine clay for this example the reason we use clay is they're still going
to be contaminants left on the surface even after all the chemical stages we've gone through
even after the wash. To see which areas of the vehicle have the contaminate if the surface is
wet you can glide your hand across the surface and just gently feel the imperfections kind of
like bumps the gloves will amplify it if you put a slight a very thin plastic bag over your hand
or amplify and feel what areas you need to clay. So the way the clay works the easiest way for
me to describe way clay works is shaving so we would use a shaving cream to lubricate the skin
so when we slide the blade across the skin we don't scratch we don't cut very similar to how
we clay a vehicle, we spray a lubricant on the vehicle we flatten the clay out we gently glide
it across where there's a barrier of lubricant between the clay and we just glide it across and
anything that's sticking above the paint surface will be sheared off to start the clay process
we want to use ample amount of clay lubricant we're just going to spray that on the area we're
going to work the best practices before you start claying just inspect the panel you're looking for
scratches any swirls you just want to ensure that you're not incurring any more damage then what's
already there so we usually do an inspection we've done that already we've applied the lubricant
on there we're going to take the clay bar we're going to rip off some of the clay we don't need
to use the whole bar for this so we'll put that away in a clean spot for later and we just play
with it a little bit we can roll it and we just kind of want to make it you into more of a pancake
something flat so we can run it across the surface much easier and pick up as much as we can so once
again claying you know we're just going to pick up anything that's still left behind you want to make
sure that it's well lubricated so we're not doing any scratching and you don't have to apply much
pressure at all when you glide the clay across the surface it doesn't really matter which direction
you do it in up and down side to side and you can generally feel you'll be able to feel when you
come across something or if the room is quiet enough you'll actually be able to hear a click,
click, click, and then you'll hear it disappear so I'm just running the clay up and down just until
I don't feel any more contaminants on the surface now we're going to inspect the clay make sure
everything's okay just some best practices now if we were to accidentally drop the clay
discard the clay we don't want to risk picking up any bits of sand or any debris and carrying
that across the car once a clay starts getting really dirty you want to fold that over and use
a clean part of the clay there's no reason why you need to do the whole vehicle in clay unless
the whole vehicle required it so again you're going to inspect and test each area normally on
a vehicle you're going to get areas from behind the front wheels about up to the door handles
through the back of the vehicle and usually the entire back the trunk the whole bumper around
the tailpipes some cars depending on where they are the roof might require it but once again each
vehicle is going to be different and you're going to want to do those checks beforehand this clay
picked up a fair amount of contaminants that we couldn't see on the paint surface so periodically
through each section check the clay ensure that it still has a clean section if not folded over
get a whole new clean section and then continue on this process throughout the entire vehicle
there are a number of clean options available whether you choose from a traditional clay or
synthetic clay both of which start out with a fine and go into a heavy grade choose the
clay that's most appropriate for your paints condition we recommend you start out with
an ultrafine clay and then if that isn't pulling the contaminants then work your way
up to a heavy grade another best practice we suggest you inspect the panel before you clay
then clay the panel and inspect it once again this just ensures that you're not incurring any
further damage whether you choose a traditional clay or synthetic clay both of which use a clay
lubricant so select the appropriate lubricant this concludes our decontamination process behind
us this vehicle has been decontaminated and the paint is perfectly smooth it's now ready for
our last step product whether that's a wax, a sealant or a nano-coating or it's the
paints properly prepared for polishing. These products and many other premium detailing
products can be found online at autoobsessed.com