Auto Glym: Aqua Wax

birdsd01

birdsd01

A2OC Donor
Just bought this stuff from Halfords and thought I would post with my first impressions.
It is a spray-on wax that you can use when the car is wet. First wash and rinse the car as normal, then spray on the wax, rub it in with the microfibre cloth supplied and buff off once the water droplets have dissappeared.
I have no link to Autoglym, but use most of their other products. This is by far the best "quick and easy" wax I have ever come across. In the time it would normally take to dry the car (chamois or microfibre) you have essentially waxed it aswell. The finish is mirror like and works equally well with the black plastic on the sills and bumpers. It isn't a replacement for a good polish and hard shell wax, but for a quick winter top up it works a treat. I am honestly very impressed by the ease of use and quality of finish. It was £12.99, and includes 2 microfibre cloths. I think the bottle will do about 20 applications.

Highly recommended,

Dave
 
Good

Hey Dave

I've just used this today, my first detailing, and wanted to go for something easy, really impressed with the results and my A2 looks amazing now...

Just wondering how does this react to the rain, does it still give you that repellent effect that a normal wax gives.

Total newbie, so excuse the ignorance...;)

Thanks
 
Hi peterevans,

Aquawax is a good "quick wax" to top up the protection you already have on the paint. Water will bead for about 2-3 weeks, and it does look very shiny. If you are new to detailing I recommend a look at "detailingwoorld.co.uk". But this is could cost you a lot of money!!! it has for me!! To start with I would recommed other autoglym product, as they are good value and are easy to use. Start with the bodywork conditioning shampoo (using a microfibre mitt not a sponge). Then use Super resin polish, which will clean, polish, wax and cover up small swirl marks in one go. This all in one will give good protection against salt in the winter. If you really want a nice long lasting finish then add a layer of Extra gloss protection. This will last 3 months or so. If you like the results then read "detailing world" and buy a few other recommended products. I now have a garage full of them!

Cheers,

David
 
clay bar

clay bar -ing a car works really well you do get the mirror finish and you will be surprised at how much crud and materiel comes onto the bar when you wipe it along your paintwork.
I didnt use any fluid with mine but on a repeat of used car roadshow the other night a man did but didnt say what it was etc
does nayone know what fluid you should use to accompnay claybarring?
Paul
 
I use Bilt Hamber clay bar as it only needs water for lubricant (saving you some hard earned!) Ref. cleaner fluid and waxes, I really like Swissvax. Its not cheap but the finish on our black paintwork is lovely :D
 
There are so many products available, but my current six monthly deep clean is-

Paint work;
AG body work conditioning shampoo
Meguirs clay kit using Poorboys QD+ as lubricant
Clearkote Pink moose glaze cleaner
AG Super resin polish
Collinite 476 wax

Wheels;
Wonder wheels (a bit agressive, but only used twice a year),a nd then waxed with collinite 476. Tyres get AG tyre dressing.

Glass;
AG Glass polish inside and out

Interior;
A wipe with a damp microfibre cloth, and a light coating of AG rubber and something protector (sorry can't remember the name!)
Steering wheel will come up lovely with Meguirs Gold Class Leather cleaner and conditioner.

This take a few hours, but the results are stunning. Last time I did it the guy at the petrol station said he liked my new car!! And it was 6 years old at the time !!!!

I would recommend starting simple, and then adding a product a month or so until you have good selection. Ebay is great for finding the unusual US made cleaners / polishes. After a while it may becomes an obsession :eek: But all that hand polishing must count as exercise:D:D

Cheers,

David
 
birdsd01 said:
Interior;
A wipe with a damp microfibre cloth, and a light coating of AG rubber and something protector (sorry can't remember the name!)
Click to expand...

It's Autoglym Rubber and Vinyl Protector and it is the only thing I've found that does the trick on the A2s soft pain and even the door cards!

One thing to note though, don't let it dry and then buff off, as it will leave the durface too shiney - wipe away when still wet.

Cheers,

Mike

(Who must make the effort to keep Tank cleaner!)
 
pc759 said:
I didnt use any fluid with mine but on a repeat of used car roadshow the other night a man did but didnt say what it was etc
does nayone know what fluid you should use to accompnay claybarring?
Paul
Click to expand...
I just use a weak mix of car shampoo in a spray bottle as a lubricant when claying, then rinse the car again after & dry then followed by many hours of machine poishing, if you don't want to rinse & dry again you could use meguiars quick detailer as a lubricant & then go straight to polishing but I find that a expensive way of doing it, I'd rather put the money towards a higher quality wax.
 
I have never polished my A2 in the 6 years I have owned it !! :eek: I wash it with Tesco's Car Wash with Wax once every two or three months and give the lower half a wipe down with white spirits before the wash once a year just to get all the tar and crud off. Washed it today. It still looks like new and is as shiny as ever. :confused:
 
Hey everyone

Just spent so much money this weekend with cleaning products.
Dave you are right on two things, it's addictive and it definitely gets really expensive.

It kind of grows on you, and the better the car looks the better you want to make it look...;) But it's a lot of fun....

Now...
After much research, cleaned my beloved A2 properly...
Shampooing, Claying, Attempt to remove scuffs with T-Cut (FAILED), polishing and wax
Claying makes a HUGE!! difference, highly recommend. The paint felt so rough before, but i didn't know any better so to me was fine, once the claying action started, I could definitely feel but not really see the difference, that only came once I started polishing, and all of a sudden SHAZAM...beautiful shiny and silky smooth.

I can't even tell you my setup right now as I have so many bottles of everything, I try and get that later if you guys are interested I bought the Sonus detailing kit a while a go, but only now put it to work.

Below are the pictures, I feel like they don't do it justice the sun placement was not the best.
The car looks much better live.
And as a big note, I have marks everywhere from the London times.
And my Alloys are super curbed, but I am soon getting that fixed by Andrew the Alloy wiz.

Any feedback and tips based on the photos, are greatly appreciated...
Also...more directed to Mike...I need to get my dents and marks off, based on the pictures, do you think it's going to be expensive?
If you like I can circle the marks for you to have a better look.
I have to big ones around the back wheels both left and right

You can view bigger versions here: http://gallery.me.com/joselopes/100307

Thanks for all the help & hope you dig

Jose
 
Lookin' good Peter - puts mine to shame!

Still, I fully intend to put this right in time for the Scottish Cruise Social, if only to stop Murdo from having a dig (he is a stickler for clean cars!) and I've already got a shopping list of nearly £60 at one online car cleaning specialists!

I already have a rotary polisher (not the stumpy type, but a proper angle grinder style one), so just need a clay, sponges and polishing compound and wax.

As to your bumps and dents, you'll have to circle them on the photos, can't see them for the sun glinting off your shiney paint!

If they are on the doors, then rubbing them out is quite straight forward, but rear wings are a lot trickier, mainly due to having to strip out the internal trim to access the panel - if you do this, you may find that the quotes tumble.

If you can wait, there is usually a dent repairer at Audi Driver International (I know that one member got about 4 dents repaired for £60 one year) and I daresay they'll be at the other big meets throughout the year (GTi International etc).

I must say that the sun we've had this last couple of days has really got me wanting to be in a shiney clean car, so I may well start off the process sooner rather than later.

Cheers,

Mike
 
Skipton01 said:
Still, I fully intend to put this right in time for the Scottish Cruise Social, if only to stop Murdo from having a dig (he is a stickler for clean cars!) and I've already got a shopping list of nearly £60 at one online car cleaning specialists!
Click to expand...

Dig? Moi! Would I ever?:eek: Good on you Mike, grand to hear the finest A2 in the land will be shown off to its best potential! The new brakes will finish things off as well.

I invested in a rotary polisher as well, so Ada will be well pampered before the cruise.

Ref. the dents post, most of the mobile firms will charge an inclusive price per panel as long as there arent excessive dings. It was £30 a panel last time I used dentmaster. Not sure if its a more complex process with aluminium? Mike is right as well ref the rear panels, it will cost more cos of the extra prep work. Well worth it though IMHO, there is nothing that spoils a nice car more than panel dings and when you have shined it up on a nice sunny day they stick out like the proverbial sore thumb:D
 
Lee S said:
I have never polished my A2 in the 6 years I have owned it !! :eek: I Washed it today. It still looks like new and is as shiny as ever. :confused:
Click to expand...

Impossible.

The car maybe looks tidy and clean on the surface or from a distance, but this will not be the case on close inspection or when the sun glints off the surface.(Particularly with dark paint colours) It will be covered in minor scratches and swirls, especially if you use a supermarket valet booth and white spirit which is very harsh. Wax is required to protect the surface from contaminants in the environement and makes it easier to keep clean.

Have a look at justwaxed.co.uk for some before and after shots! This is a car perfectionist local to me who offers a detailing service. He takes between 9 and 20 hours to detail a car and the results are incredible!
 
I agree with Murdo,

I spent a few hours on my other car (MX-5 NC) this weekend, and was appalled by the amount of swirl scratches on it. Mazda paint is a lot softer than Audi, so a couple of dirty sponges (probably when it was serviced :mad:) will cause a lot of scratches. I don't own a rotary polisher yet, so hand polishing is a slow painful process. If I polish it every weekend for the next months or so it will be back to perfect condition for the spring / summer fun!

Happy polishing!

David

PS Nice one Peter:D, looks v. good, black is such a difficult paint to polish, but now you have broken the back of it the rest of the year will be easy!! I find the best way to keep the shine up is to use a quick detailer after washing, or Aquawax of course! :D
 
Well my car is silver to start with, so you are probably right, in that I don't notice the minor swirls. That's why I bought a silver car. But if I don't notice them when I am washing it, who else would ever notice them from a distance?:D

I have always hand washed it since I had it, rinsed thoroughly before washing and changed water whilst washing, used different sponges for the paint work, wheels and under-body areas such as sills and bumpers. It's just that I don't wash it every week. Maybe once every two or three months. It is still extremely shiny and you can run your hand over any panel and it is smooth and glossy. It has never seen a jet-wash or a car wash. Never been parked under trees or been exposed to bird droppings. It has a few stone chips on the front but thats about it. You guys would probably say that it's a disgrace if you saw it, but it looks OK to me.

I should really give it a good cutting back and polishing. I know it keeps it cleaner and looking good. Maybe I will give it a good going over this spring. Maybe not. :eek:

What is this clay stuff though? Is it a brand name? I always used T-Cut years ago. Same stuff?
 
Hi Lee,

The clay bar is just what it sounds like, a lump of clay which is graded to act like a v. v. fine sand paper, don't panic it doesn't scratch paint! You mould the clay into a flat shape, lubricate the paint (with water or a detailer spray) and then rub the clay bar over the paint in straight lines following the direction of wind flow across the car. Once the clay bar looks soiled you re-mould it and repeat until the whole vehicle is complete. The first time you do it you will be surprised the amount of debris that is removed, and the surface will feel like a sheet of glass. The first time I did the A2 it took about 3 hours!! And getting to the middle of the roof needed a step ladder :eek: But the finish was worth the effort. I bought the bog standard kit from Halfords made by Meguairs, and this has everything you need in it, including lube, a decent microfibre cloth and a wax cleaner polish to use afterwards. I think it was about £23 and represents pretty good value.

The clay bar will remove all the wax on the vehicle so it is important to put some back on once you have finished, as I said the Meguairs kit comes with a sample pot of cleaner wax for this purpose.

Cheers,

David
 
Hey everyone thanks a million for all the great comments, really pushes me to keep on doing it...

I have an imediate question though...

I feel stupid...as I spent all the weekend cleaning the car, I had the radio on most of the day both days, I had a battery warning yesterday afternoon so I turn everything off, and though it was just a first warning...turns out the battery it's totally drained found out this morning!! This is the first time I had this, I am a total Newbie to cars...

I live in Derby, any recommendations or tips highly recommended??

I am boroing this from work tonight: https://www.ragingspeed.co.uk/catalog/images/3505135-Jump-Start.jpg

I had a quick look under the bonet, and at first glance couldn't find the battery, I know the distribuition of things on the A2, are a little different as to most cars, any pointers would be really helpfull...

Thanks a million
 
The A2 battery is in the boot, under the false floor.
If the battery is completely flat you might not be able to open the boot as it has an electric relay to open the switch, but I understand there is a manual override...
 
Ahh, yes, that's happened to me - didn't realise just how much juice the RNS-E takes!

The battery is in the boot, under a little flap in the floor, so that's where you need to attach the booster.

Once the car has started, take it out for a drive of at least half an hour to get some charge back in and then think about investing in a trickle charger (see the Autoexpress product reviews for recomendations) for the future.

Cheers,

Mike
 
Hi Peter,

To A2 was designed to lightweight, so the battery is in the boot to distribute the weight a bit better. The jump start pack you mentioned should get it started, just follow the instructions that come with it. I would then recommend running the car (drive it around) for at least 30 mins to put some charge back into the battery. But what you really need is to charge the battery with a decent charger (ie a "smart" charger) such as the CTEX 3600. These smart chargers allow you to charge quickly without the risk of overcharging, and remove the need to take disconnect the battery from the car. I have one of these and put the car to charge once every couple of months, since it only does short journeys.

Tip, if you use a smart charger the boot catch loop (metal loop on the boot sill where the lock attaches) works as the negative (black lead). but this means the boot is open whilst charging. This way the car circuits don't see the fluctuations in charge voltage, just the battery (I think?:confused:)

I am sure others will come along soon with some more helpful tips.

Cheers,

David

EDIT As every Mike (and Dan) beat me to it!! That's what I call service!
 
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