How to Wax a Car

Hi, I am Michael PRO-CLEAN, the Tysons Corner automotive cleaning specialist for 25 years. Today we are learning how to detail a vehicle. Now that we have got it washed the tyres, the engine, the trunks and all the jams and we have got it all dried and everything, we did a basic wash job on it. Now we are going to put a coat of wax on the vehicle. First thing we need, we need a get our self a few small clean towels, a polish wax, a cleaning wax and a mild compound. I will explain each one of these to you. The mild compound on most new cars today has to be clear coat safe. They have clear coats on them; there is no lead in the paint anymore. Using your grandfathers compound that they used to use 20 years ago will destroy the paint on these cars. Then you need a clear coat safe paint and thats wax. All thats used for are vehicles who have damaged paint. Obviously with this car there is no damaged paint, there is no need to use the compound on it. If you have an older car that has oxidation or haze in it, you want to go up to a compound. The cleaning wax again is a clear coat cleaning wax that you want to use. Everything that you buy needs to be clear coat safe, all your products need to be that. All your waxes, from Turtle Wax to McGuires Waxes to Simoniz all the major waxes they are basically all the same. They use different advertisement, but they are all the same thing. This car here, again you want to use a light cleaning wax. You run a quick coat of cleaning wax across it. Ill give you a quick demonstration here. Shake it up get the oils mixed in it, put a little bit of wax on your rag. Find a section; you do a section at a time. Put it on. A lot of people talk about going in circles. Youve seen a lot of people talk about going in circles. You saw the movie one on, one off the Karate Kid movies. You can do that you can go back and forth. It really -- as long as you get the whole thing covered. Give it a a nice cleaning. Well do this little section right here. Nice cleaning take off all the dirt and everything thats in there clear-cut. Let it dry for a couple of seconds to a little haze. Well speed it a little bit. Well get it wiped off here. Thats clean now. Thats about as clean as you are going to get right there. Then what you want to do is, come back with a polish wax. Which is a carnauba wax, carnauba is an oil in the wax. This will actually absorb into the paint. You want it to absorb into the paint, its the easiest way to describe it of all my times of being in a business, using a carnauba wax is putting hand cream on hands. Its absorbing. If you put a hand cream on, you want it to go into the pores and take out the dry skin. Thats what a carnauba wax will do your paint, it will get in the pores of the paint, it will actually feed the paint. So thats what you are going to come back with. A nice carnauba wax, use another rag, shake it up again, always keep them shaking up all the times because the oil will settle on them. Put a nice coat on, like I said rub it in just like doing your hands cream on your hands, let it rub in. then we are going to let it sit for a few minutes. Let it haze up basically to a powder, thats what we let it sit to. Using the microfiber rags that you can again find at any place, there they come in packs of like ten bucks for ten of them. There are good to be used 4-5 times to throw them in your washing machine and then they lose their static and they dont really work like they are supposed to anymore. They just become basic rags. Alright lets wipe this off here. Thats pretty much it. Thats about as wax as you are going to get right there. Its got coat of protection on there. The best thing for waxing a car is at least twice a year, at least twice a year before the summer, after the summer, before the winter after the winter which ever way you want to look at it. A good coat of wax, who ever does it should put a good coat of wax on it. You want to do it in the shade, try to keep out the sunlight when you do it. When you put it in the sunlight, obviously its going to dry a lot faster, its going to be harder to get off. So do it in a shade underneath a tree, in your garage or wherever, obviously we have a garage in here. If you have garage at home or whatever easiest way to put it in. Thats pretty much how to wax a car.