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Discussion starter · #21 ·
Junkman don't ruin this man's life! He keeps the maroon car inside and wipes down his white Scat daily. Some of us need to accept that we have surface scratches.... we have swirls... we have cars that need to drive in salt and snow and we just don't have the time to detail them how we want.

Maybe once a year I take some time to do paint correction and it takes 7-8 hours and I enjoy it but at the end of that time I've mostly minimized the larger issues and eliminated small ones. My car had (still has) a huge scratch on the trunk lid when I bought it used. I still see it after wet sanding and compounding (but it is much better now).

I have to live my reality, my Charger is garage kept but not a garage queen. It is driven year round in all seasons and I need to come to peace with the fact it will always look good at 4 or 6 feet and not be perfect. Maybe when I'm older and retired I'll unleash my detailing fantasies because don't get me wrong I do enjoy it... right now I can't make it fit with my lifestyle so I'll be a closeted detailer ;)
Junkman don't ruin this man's life! He keeps the maroon car inside and wipes down his white Scat daily. Some of us need to accept that we have surface scratches.... we have swirls... we have cars that need to drive in salt and snow and we just don't have the time to detail them how we want.

Maybe once a year I take some time to do paint correction and it takes 7-8 hours and I enjoy it but at the end of that time I've mostly minimized the larger issues and eliminated small ones. My car had (still has) a huge scratch on the trunk lid when I bought it used. I still see it after wet sanding and compounding (but it is much better now).

I have to live my reality, my Charger is garage kept but not a garage queen. It is driven year round in all seasons and I need to come to peace with the fact it will always look good at 4 or 6 feet and not be perfect. Maybe when I'm older and retired I'll unleash my detailing fantasies because don't get me wrong I do enjoy it... right now I can't make it fit with my lifestyle so I'll be a closeted detailer ;)
I hear what you are saying. BUT IF you get a full detail paint correction and ceramic Protection, you can maintain it pretty easy even in all season driving.

Maintenance washes only take about 30 minutes to an hour depending on how dirty you allow it to get. IF you wash your car every other week, you will see how easy it is to keep it nice. Every week is better but I would suggest at least 1 to 2 times a month and you will be on easy street.

You don't need to spend hours on end cleaning your car, especially if your not into spending time doing so or simply don't have the time. I personally make time to clean and keep Clean all of our cars each week and at most every other week.
 
Discussion starter · #22 ·
I've stated it in the other detailing threads and even posted a picture, my 392 looks darn near flawless from a few feet away with a nice deep shine.

You let Junkman do the flash test and he'd faint! I've done it, and there are swirls, swirls, and more swirls.

They've both discussed that different people have different goals and levels of how the treat their car.

If when I purchased my 392 it was to be my "for fun" car it would have gotten a lot better treatment. But living in the Northeast, with a 6 year old playing multiple sports, and me loving golf too much, the 392 doesn't get the TLC that is used to, but like I said still looks great. I get compliments on it quite a bit and people are shocked when I tell them it is 8 years old with 145k miles on it.
It think we all live different lives and have different levels of care we take with out loved vehicles. Junkman and I are very similar in the fact we are kinda obsessed. My car is basically a garage queen as you guys call it now and I haven't washed it in 3 weeks and it's barely dusty.
 
Junkman and I are very similar in the fact we are kinda obsessed.
KINDA Obsessed? We are sick with this! šŸ˜…šŸ˜…šŸ˜…šŸ˜…

Now I don't want folks to get me wrong when it comes to driving my car. I drive the crap out of it. As a matter of fact, here's what the odometer says right now:

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That puppy does get some road time and I enjoy the hell out of it!

 
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Just to let you know my car gets rinsed at night and most of the water is blown off.
The Lustre product I use leaves the surfaces slick.
And dirt or dust rinses off with plain water
I can honestly tell you neiter one of my cars have any swirls.
If they did I would break out my orbital and buff them out.
Both cars were clayed soon as they were brought home from the stealership.
Lustre is a great product as it can hide any imperfections and is super hydrophobic.
300206

When have you seen a product bead water like this ?
 
When have you seen a product bead water like this ?
Right here: Click each picture for a larger view: If you can't click on the picture and get the larger view, right-click each picture and choose, "open in new tab." That will open each pic in a separate browser tab where you can see the image in full detail.
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Now before I fixed that paint, here's what it looked like. Notice that I am using the flash test to display just how bad that paint looked:

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Once corrected, the flash test looked like this:

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And the depth looked like this:

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šŸ˜‰šŸ‘
 
You have to consider architects like to design things using standard size garage doors. Now if someone building a home wants to customize . . .

And I've see many garages wide enough for 2 full size trucks but there is so much other stuff in it the space is cramped.

I'm my opinion anyone wanting to keep their ride show room ready needs a dedicated garage just for the vehicle(s) and have outside storage for the yard equipment and bicycles. I think Mantis has the ideal set up for his needs.
I'm not saying make it 35 by 35 but I have a normal 16 foot wide 7 foot tall door and my garage is 24x24 so I can fit plenty of stuff bikes, snow blower, mower yard tools etc. (I don't have a shed).

I feel like half the homes in my subdivision have 1 or two sheds and still manage to park maybe 1 car in their two car garages because of all the crap. Put thousands of dollars of car outside and protect probably $300 worth of crap!
 
Latest photos flash in garage tonight
Comments ?
That flash test looks good. I would love to see a bigger shot (more pixels), but so far, it looks good. I do all mine with an actual camera so that I can get details like this:

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One thing everyone should notice. Look at how every scratch is a STRAIGHT line. None of them are curved. However, those straight lines are at every possible degree of a circle, which gives the illusion that swirls are circular lines. In reality, they are all straight. They are formed from wiping in every possible direction, which is what people do when they wipe dust off of their paint.
 
Well, the reason I asked is because he said that the paint was scratch free, but then he stated that he wipes the dew and rain off the car in the mornings.

That is exactly how you ruin your paint. šŸ‘€

Here's the deal, and this goes for anyone else who does that practice. In the morning, you see what appears to be a spotless car with dew on it. Maybe there was a very light rain and you can't see a stich of dirt on the car anywhere. What you fail to realize is that while your car has sat outside all night long, it has been bombarded with dust particles and they are sitting on top of your paint also. If you took a WHITE towel and went in ONE direction across your paint, you would see a black ridge of dirt along the leading edge of the towel you just used. That black ridge of dirt are ROCKS. They may be so small that they float in the air but trust me, they are rocks. Now multiply that one wipe across your car multiple times, while wiping down the ENTIRE car and you have just created sandpaper. We ALL KNOW what sandpaper can do to paint and that is exactly what this practice does to your finish. Do this practice in multiple directions and you have crated SWIRL CITY.

Here's the deal. Even people who are the most anal about their paint may not realize this and thus, will repeat this practice over and over again. Paint damage doesn't necessarily happen all at once, it's like gaining weight. It happens over time. It's the REPEATED bad practice, over and over again that finally accumulates enough damage that your eyes can finally see. That is exactly why you do the flash test. When it comes to weight gain, the fact that you can't fit that suit anymore is your flash test. So if you eliminate those LITTLE bad practices, you won't end up one day doing a 12-hour paint correction recovery on another day. A full paint correction should only be completed ONCE in the life of your car's paint. From that point forward, you should only need a very light polish, which is used to do a touch up here and there. If you have to continually do a full correction, you are doing something wrong.

This is why I wash my showroom car sometimes 3-times a week. I fully understand what wiping on the paint does when dust particles are present. I wish that I was just as anal about my work out regime as I was when I was 20-years old because the older I get, the harder it gets to stay in shape. But when the day arrives that I can't fit these puppies anymore, I too will have to do a full-body correction and it will probably take a lot longer than 12-hours. šŸ‘€
Thanks for your service, my dad was drafted into the Korean conflict... can't imagine getting on a boat when I was 19 but god bless everyone that does(did)!

I was saying that tongue in cheek about ruining his life, I knew exactly where you were going with your questions. I've watched plenty of your videos in the past but it has been a while. I really do enjoy detailing the car and I don't like doing anything half way. I look forward to doing more detailing when my kids are older and don't want to hang out with me anymore ;)
 
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Thanks for your service, my dad was drafted into the Korean conflict... can't imagine getting on a boat when I was 19 but god bless everyone that does(did)!

I was saying that tongue in cheek about ruining his life, I knew exactly where you were going with your questions. I've watched plenty of your videos in the past but it has been a while. I really do enjoy detailing the car and I don't like doing anything half way. I look forward to doing more detailing when my kids are older and don't want to hang out with me anymore ;)
Aw hell man, I've been on this forum for almost 13-years. I know when you're having fun with me! šŸ˜…
 
That flash test looks good. I would love to see a bigger shot (more pixels), but so far, it looks good. I do all mine with an actual camera so that I can get details like this:

View attachment 300221

One thing everyone should notice. Look at how every scratch is a STRAIGHT line. None of them are curved. However, those straight lines are at every possible degree of a circle, which gives the illusion that swirls are circular lines. In reality, they are all straight. They are formed from wiping in every possible direction, which is what people do when they wipe dust off of their paint.
So I pass the test ?
Sorry donā€™t own a camera šŸ¤£
 
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