I couldnt get the hood of my car smooth....till last night. i finally used meguires clay bar....wow.
There was literally brown dirt coming off onto the claybar, after i already washed the car. AMAZING

 

welcome to our world!
got pics?

if so, post em up and pm me for your badge -

 

I just used clay bar for the first time last weekend. My car was already clean so I couldn't see a difference, but I found a test that shows that it's doing something. Clay bar a small section of your car, then take a ziplock bag and put it on your hand. Rub it around an unclay bar'd part then move to the clay bar'd area, BIG DIFFERENCE.

 

agree with robodeath about the bag check...

eventually you will learn to "feel" the car -
use the backs of your fingers, and just rub a clean car gently. if it feels smooth as a new car, then its fine... if not, it can benefit from clay

 

you'll start to visually notice a difference in the finish after adding the claybar to your detailing routine.

depending on the clay you might have some slight micro marring that can be cleaned up with a mild polish. though after polishing and waxing/sealing, you'll swear your car's never looked better even when it was new.

 

i have a question about the clay bar process , let say a car haven;t done any claying in 4 years and after u clay it , are u suppose to feel all smooth over the surface (lets say the roof so there's no rock chip problems) ? if u still feel it's no smooth , does it mean that u didn;t do a good job or ?

thanks

 

Just remember that clay bar doesn't fix everything. But you should first do a small spot and compare.

 

Sometimes paint can feel rough if there is some oxidation on the surface. For the smoothest results clay bar then polish.

Visually speaking, the cars that benefit the most from clay are lighter colored cars. This is especially true with white cars. I clayed a white Volvo once that looked brown when I started. After I was done it was back to white. Then, I polished it and the paint actually looked glossy. Black cars however, don't really look any different after clay. They just feel smoother.

 

I just used clay as well for the first time this weekend, on my wife's civic, and DAAAAAAAAAAMN. what a difference. I couldnt believe the stuff I saw in the clay that you can't see on the car before. So smooooooth. Then I topped it off with some S100. Nice and shiny and smooth. I think it made the paint color look so much better.

I used the meguiars clay kit myself too. Good thing I waxed it, because its been raining off and on the last few days

 

Welcome to the wackos. I know Wanabe and MikeyC have talked about this so many times. But to the rest of us that are new. It is amazing.