I tend to claybar my car at the start of every driving season (once per year). I try to avoid doing a full polish unless it is necessary to avoid removing clearcoat if not needed. I was just wondering if claybar work removes any clearcoat ?. From reading the information on claybars I know it uses shearing action, I'm just not sure if it actually removes any clearcoat in the process?. Does anyone know if it does or not ?. Thanks for any replies on this.

 

No. Claybar is used to remove overspray (paint), contaminates, and all sorts of nasty goo ON the clear coat. You could clay your car every day if you wanted to, it won't remove clearcoat.

 

The key is using plenty of lubricant to enable the clay bar to slide over the surface. Plus using a Iron particulate remover is easy on the painted/clear coat surfaces as a follow up to clay.

 

There are different grades of clay; you'll want to use a "fine" or "mild" clay. (In other words: stay away from --it has its place (e.g., body shop) but it's not what you want or need.)

Here are a couple of good references for your consideration:



How to use Auto Detailing Clay

Detailing Clay products

N.B.:

 

Thanks for all of the replies everyone, great info.

 

I've been thinking about this; there are exceptions. E.g., if I know I'm going to use up a 100 gram clay bar on a vehicle, then I don't have to use an expensive clay lubricant--I can use car shampoo instead (using a clean bucket; clean water; fresh car shampoo; clean wash mitt)--because I don't believe it will adversely affect the clay in this short period of time.

Here's Larry Kosilla's take on this subject (watch from about 5:15 until 8:10).

And as Larry mentioned, in the cases where he uses "soap" instead of clay lubricant, he does some things to the clay bar afterward to get rid of leftover soap before he stores the clay bar for future use.