Simple Tips for keeping your car looking great.

I began Final Touching paintwork on cars in 1993 so that has given me plenty of time to notice a few things about cars and their owners that perhaps I can pass on.

Tyre Dressing provides an instant image lift. Nice shiny black tyres can make all the difference to the look of a car and I’m pretty sure that is why service departments make a point of dressing our tyres. Let’s face it you can’t see your oil change but your car looks like it’s been serviced because it has shiny tyres. It’s instant and it’s effective.

Interior detailing is something you want to keep up on. A simple vacuum and a wipe down every few weeks sounds simple but you might be amazed at how few people do it, particularly busy people with children. We’ve come across all sorts of rotten and mouldy things in car interiors that destroy carpets and smell really bad, once that smell gets into your car it is very difficult to remove.

Wax, Wax, Wax... Wax provides a sacrificial layer that enhances and protects your paint; acting as a sunscreen in summer and a waterproofing layer in winter. A healthy layer of wax will help prevent dust and grit from scratching and dulling your paintwork. No matter what car you drive, it will benefit from regular waxing.


Presenting a car nicely doesn’t need to be difficult or an expensive exercise. There are plenty of ways to present a car that has been around the block a few times without it costing too much, A good Cut & Polish will remove most scratches and restore a great shine; stonechips and scratches can be effectively repaired for surprisingly little and scuffed bumper corners or shopping trolley dents can often be repaired without the need of major bodyshop repairs. It is well worth spending a little here and there along the way to keep your car looking great to avoid the shock of how much a poor finish can devalue your car later on.

Well presented cars are easier to sell and they demand higher prices. We call it the ‘Magpie effect’ because people like shiny things but there’s more to it than that. A tidy well presented vehicle without scratches and dents that has a clean tidy interior shows that there has been pride in the ownership. The owner has looked after it and we naturally assume that they have been careful about maintenance as well. First impressions really count when it comes to anything to do with cars.

Full re-sprays almost always make people think ‘Accident’ I hate to say it because it is no reflection on the many very good car painters out there but unfortunately its true. There’s something not quite right about looking at a car with 80,000Km on the clock and the whole front end is perfect. Next minute you find yourself under the hood looking for bent bits and things that don’t line up properly. There’s honesty in an all original car that is presented nicely.

“You missed a spot” If I had a dollar for every time someone jokingly told me I’ve missed a spot over the years... It never gets old so we work hard to ensure we get things right. A poorly detailed car is almost worse than a car in its raw un-kept state and people assume just from looking at it that the owner doesn’t really know what they’re up to.

Looking after your vehicle and its appearance doesn’t need to be difficult and the team at Final Touch are always happy to help out with any questions you might have. If we can’t help out ourselves we’ll happily point you in the right direction for great products or results.

Car of the Month.



Ford Focus Rs in Ultimate Green

Well... I was going to tell a story about my Ken Block experience in this car and how this little car is ridiculously fast and how it corners and handles like a dream. I was going to mention that it hits the rev limiter so quickly that .... But it wouldn’t quite have been a true story and it would have made us seem irresponsible so I’ll just say that when I look at this car I imagine driving like Ken Block, hitting the rev limiter and winding through twisting corners. How does that sound?
The Lady who owns this is a Ford Fanatic and she’s very fussy about how her wee baby looks. Finished in ‘Ultimate Green’this little beast wasn’t the easiest colour to repair stonechips on but with time and effort we managed to get a great result and with a good polish and our premium protective paint coating applied its ready to rally.  She's also enhanced the look with Lamin-X tinted headlight and taillight protective films so that the enevitable flying gravel won't cause any damage.

Car Care Tip of the month

Wax provides a sacrificial layer between your paint surface and the elements, so it should be a vital part of your car care process. Regular waxing of your car will help ensure a longer lasting and better looking paint finish and doesn’t need to be a backbreaking task. Modern waxes are designed to wipe on and off easily while still providing excellent protection and there are 3 key things to remember to ensure that they do just that:
1) Remember to apply a thin coat and spread it evenly. There is no benefit from piling on a thick coat that will take longer to dry and add no extra protection once wiped. A second coat a few days later will provide extra protection if that is you are looking for.

2) Keep the wax off areas that you don’t want to wax. Some people like to wax headlights, wheels etc... but avoiding black trim or plastics prevents that ugly white staining that is so difficult to clean later.

3) Ensure that it is properly dry before wiping, this will ensure a nice streak free finish and it will be a lot easier to wipe back. If you swipe your finger across your wax and it wipes off the paint cleanly then it is dry enough to remove.

Follow Final Touch on Facebook
Like us at www.facebook.com/FinalTouchCarCare to see what our team is doing and to take advantage of some facebook only special deals and competitions. We’d love to hear about your passion for cars and car care.

Speedshow.
Final Touch will be at Speedshow, 21-22 July at ASB Showgrounds again this year. We’ve been offered some incredible cars already to be detailed on the stand over the weekend but it’s not too late to put your car in the running. If you have a special car that would be ideal for display at Speedshow and would be happy to show it off for a weekend please don’t hesitate to let us know about it. Just quietly – If you’ve got a McLaren F1 that you’d like to offer us we’d be falling over with excitement and we’d get it looking awesome for you.

Car Care Special Deal
Meguiar's Ultimate Paste Wax – This is my personal favourite wax of all time and we know car enthusiasts love it too. It leaves gives a silky smooth finish with incredible shine, it is very durable and it repels water like you wouldn’t believe, everything you look for in a wax. Supplied with its own applicator pad and microfiber towel for your convenience I believe this is the best Wax on the market in NZ today and we have it available for $65.00 Inc GST at http://www.finaltouch.co.nz/

Recommended Services
We'd like to recommend some other companies that do great work: Nick and his team at WheelFixit do an excellent job of repairing and re-colouring alloy wheels. From minor kerb damage to more serious repairs these guys are experts. 021 624662 or www.wheelfixit.co.nz



Meguiar's Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere Test.

When your 9 year old cheekily writes "Clean Me Please" in the dirt on the back of the family wagon you know it's time to clean things up.

What better than to use the opportunity to test the NEW Meguiar's Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere car wash that I've had sitting for a week or so just begging for me to have a play and see how it goes.

Mike from Meguiars USA demonstrates it's use in the video below and he explains the product and how best to use it better than I can so I'll let you watch him for a few minutes and then I'll get on with my experience.

Unfortunately the test subject is a silver Ford Territory and because of it's colour it doesn't show the dirt as well in photo's as we'd like but it was actually pretty dirty without being so grimy that it would need to be given a thorough 2 bucket wash.  I thought it really was an ideal candidate for this sort of car care product.

 

I equipped myself with a couple of new microfibre towels to get a good idea of just how much cleaning was actually going on and in particular how much dirt residue was left behind during the buffing/drying wipe over with the second towel and I set to work.



With a fairly generous spray across sections of the front end, particulary at the front of the bonnet and on the bumper where there were quite a few bug splatters and other various 'more dirty' bits I quickly realised that the product makes quick work of the grime and that it does seem to loosen and emulsify the dirt in such a way that it softens it and allows it to absorb into the microfibre rather than get pushed along by the leading edge of the wipe cloth. This is something I'd been worried about because the last thing we need with a product like this is to create scratches that we have to remove later because we're pushing grimy particles around the paintwork..

As you can see after wiping the front end of the car ther's a lot of dirt absorbed into the cloth already.  At this point, different parts of the cloth were still quite clean and dry so I was able to work with just the one towel initially.  Wiping with one 1/4 then turning over and inside out to buff/dry.

A couple of 1/2 and 1/2 shots show the difference that it makes and the nice fresh waxed look that it leaves.

I was making what I felt was quite good time around the vehicle; Normally I'd have started at the top (least dirty area) and worked my way down the windows etc... before going around the vehicle  but this time I was so eager to see some results that"d jumped right into the front. 

I was quite impressed on the plastics,  the product seemed to penetrate deep enough to do quite a good job of cleaning the textured areas that often trap dust residues, particulary if you are used to using a detailer spray for quick wipe overs and the dry result seemed to leave a (slightly) enriched darker look to the plastics as well.   I don't want to exaggerate the look on the plastics but I did think that this would be an area where I would have been able to clearly see if it was going to let me down as a proper cleaner.

As you can see by the time I got around to the back of the car my cloth was starting to get pretty dirty, the inside folds weren't to bad though and the cloth was actually quite wet by now so I was finding that I was needing to spray less product on the panel but still getting a nice clean with plenty of lubricity during the wiping process.

It's worth noting that the instructions clearly state that it is not for use on Matte or Satin Finishes but I succummed to temptation and used it on the matte Black stripes anyway and there seemed to be no problem.  It certainly didn't damage them and it cleaned them nicely but I wouldn't recommend taking my experience and using it as the basis for cleaning down your factory Matte finished BMW M3 or anything like that with the product just in case.

Getting to the end of the clean and the cloth's are both quite dirty, I was actually surprised at how long I felt I was able to use the primary cloth before it got to a point that it felt too dirty to use and I actually managed to get the inital pass over most of the car with it while the 2nd towel was mostly used for buffing and drying the panels.  You can see from the photo that most of the dirt actually does get absorbed and that there's not a lot left on the panel to be picked up by the 2nd towel which I think really says somethng about the way that Meguiar's has developed the product.

I don't think it used a rediculous ammount of product either, the bottle says that it should do 3-4 cars, I was quite generous with the amount I sprayed on the car - partly because the guys at work say I'm scottish and I wanted to prove them wrong but also to try and guage the best ammount to use without wasting it.  The Territory is quite a big vehicle and I'm sure I could easily get 4 cleans such as this out of a bottle.  Smaller cars would be looking at more like 5-6 cleans from a bottle I reckon.

The end result was very good, I'd have to say that I feel it provided good really clean, probably better than I'd expected as it was quite effective around bugs and things that are always quite stubborn and that it did so in a great timeframe.  When you add in the fact that the car is left dry and with a finish that actually does have some of that 'fresh waxed' feel to it it's an added bonus particularly if you consider that this wash (including stopping to shoot a few photo's) took about 50 minutes from start to finish and that's including cleaning inside door jambs + dressing tyres and mudflaps.  Thats not too bad considering that to wash, dry, quick wax and then dress rubbers would normally take me an hour and a 1/2 or so to do to the same finish.

At about $37 dollars for a trigger bottle, I'd say that Meguiars Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere is a great product, it achieves a great result with a minimum of fuss or mess and I believe it would be an ideal product for someone with limited time or limited access to regular washing facilities and perhaps it's the perfect product for use when you've just rocked up to your club event but it rained enroute and you'd love to be able to give it a quick wash again before people see the dirt. Assuming that there's 4 washes to a bottle you get a much better result for your $9 that you ever will through a car wash.

Meguiars Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere has only just arrived in NZ, it's so new that it's only just starting to hit the shelves so if you would like to get your hands on some please let me know by flicking us an email to team@finaltouch.co.nz and we'll get some on it's way to you.  We'll get it up in the online store at http://www.finaltouch.co.nz/ ASAP for you as well.