MrTomOates wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 2:02 am
Hi guys,
I’ve officially joined the club! I picked up my new GTI+ yesterday (currently up late in excitement)
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In all seriousness, I absolutely adore the car. I cannot express how pictures don’t really do the car justice enough. I always found myself looking at pictures of the car whilst waiting for it to be delivered and I can honestly say that in person, it’s more than what I expected.
Long story short, I’ve purchased a tonne of car cleaning stuff to look after her and I really want to have her cleaned completely and then applied with ceramic coating. I was going to do it first thing in the morning and spend the entire day making sure I applied a full days worth of cleaning.
HOWEVER
The salesman (finance person as well) stated that because I had the protection package, the dealership had already applied a pollen application of protection (not sure why or what it does) and shouldn’t be washed for 2 weeks.
But I just don’t think they understand the extreme depths I’m going to; to make this car super protected and cleaned. I reckon they think I’m using 1 bucket and an old beaten up cloth.
Do I stick to my original plan of cleaning it or leave it like they said to?
So you went with the protection package? Hope it didn't cost you much because we advised against it, and considering how keen you are to protect your car yourself, it seems to have been a complete waste of whatever money it cost you.
Anyway, ceramic coatings can be very tricky to apply and a PITA to remove with a machine polisher and start again if you cock it up by leaving the applied coating on too long before buffing the excess off. You have to be diligent and disciplined in your timings as well as your technique.
To be honest, to get 98% of the way there, it's much easier to apply a quality sealant every 6 months yourself than put a ceramic coat on (or have it put on at great expense by someone else) once every 2 or 3 years.
I use G-Techniq C2V3. It goes on everywhere, won't whiten rubbers or black unpainted trim and lasts well to 6 months and then deteriorates over the next few months.
That dealership applied Autoglym or similar will have almost certainly been done without an Iron-X style decontaminant, trapping any iron filings in the bodywork. As these rust, you get tiny orange flecks in the paintwork (really noticeable on white cars).
For anyone else even contemplating these (usually) £400 packages, do yourself a favour and buy 2 cans of Scotchgard - 1 for the seats and one for the carpets/mats, buy an easy to apply sealant like C2V3 and a bottle of an iron decontaminant. Wash the car when you get it (2 bucket method and microfibre cloths, or go the snowfoam route if you're obsessive and don't mind using a pressure washer on your car - I personally don't) and then wipe it over with meths on a microfibre cloth to remove any wax teh dealership applied, apply the iron decontaminant,rinse it off and wash the car again. Dry the car off and apply a coat of your sealant to the car, side and rear windows and wheels. This will take you 4 - 6 hours to do properly, taht dealership will have allocated 90-120 mins to do your autoglymmed car, so you know their job will be a crap one.
A week later, wash the car again, give everything a second coat of sealant and you're good for 6 months. A decent sealant will feel like you've given the car a coat of teflon and crap should come off easily when you wash it.
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