I just got a 2011 silverado in the green steel metallic, I think the color name is...anyways, this is my first car of my very own, and first new car, so I am looking to take very good care of it. One problem is I work construction, and park on a dirt lot daily so she gets very dirty and beat up. What would you recommend for the best possible protective coat for the wax? And after, what would be a good product to top that off with for a nice glossy finish? Another concern is the underhood rubbers like hoses and belts. I want to keep these all maintained and in good condition so they will dry and crack less, what would you recommend for these, and wiped blades too? Anything else you would recommend for a brand new truck? I've learned with my last car, although you can undo a lot of damage and neglect, its just better to do the small things to keep it in the best condition possible from day one. Thank you!
Artemis53 - Congratulations on your new awesome Silverado ! They are beautiful, and can do a lot of work at the same time. At the basic level of maintenance, for ease of use, and durability, the Collinite family of waxes are very good and leave a very nice shine. Specifically, the Collinite 845 Insulator Wax is really easy to use, and leaves a great finish that is durable in the conditions you describe your truck is exposed to. Another good product of theirs is Collinite 476S Super Double Coat Auto Wax - this one is a true wax in a tin can, while the 845 is a liquid in a plastic bottle. If you decide to try these products, just make sure to shake the heck out of the 845 Insulator Wax first, and often while you are applying it, and you will be fine. If you want to talk about how to get the best possible finish before you apply your wax, sealant, etc.., let us know and we can help you with that too. For under the hood, the plastics, rubber seals, etc., pretty hard to beat 303 Aerospace Protectant; it sprays, so its easy to use under the hood, and doesnt leave a messy greasy finish, etc.. Later on if you want to get into more detail about a lot of this stuff, please feel free to ask questions, make comments, etc.. A really great bunch of people frequent this Site, and the guys at Detailing Domain, Phil Yiu and Team, are easily the best around with products to sell, information, and most of all, Customer Service.. I regularly Detail a slightly older Silverado in a beautiful dark metallic green color, and when Im done, its a striking, awesome color to see, especially in the sun. Hard to find another color that looks that good on a truck. Good luck with that beautiful truck !! Dan F
Thanks Dan! I am still working on building up my skills and products, but I took great pride in my 2006 subaru that was, my favorite black, obsidian black pearl. I always used meguiars products because they were easily had and never let me down, but now that I have a fresh canvas, so to speak, I do want to get more into preventive detailing, instead of cover up, like my subaru (it was swirled and scratched quite bad, but after a few coats of megs ultimate liquid wax and other products, you never could tell!) You said you detail at least one truck, any advice? So far, I've only worked on small cars so never had as much to worry about. Also, my bed is bare paint for now, what would you do in that situation to at least thoroughly wash and clean it, then I may just do a spray wax...what do you think? Again, thank you!
Artemis53 - You are welcome ! I am glad to help ! I had to chuckle when you talked about your black '06 Subaru - I have had black cars in our family for almost 30 years ! I know, what is wrong with me ?? I must like pain! I have an '09 Black Grand Cherokee today that is my work vehicle, and will post up a pic of it soon. Understand what you are talking about regarding what you have done, and what you want to now start to do. Speaking of trucks, have Detailed many, many, for Clients and have owned a few myself as well. And of course at least one of them was black - a Ford F-150 Harley Davidson. If you are wanting to get into perhaps correcting those scratches, car wash swirls, etc., then we can all discuss with you the various machines and methods we all use, to remove those flaws in the paintwork, and hopefully keep them from coming back too quickly. On any truck like yours, you would need to get a folding platform to help you do the top of it and to get across the hood if its really tall. They sell a really nice one at Home Depot, probably Lowes, and probably on-line at a number of places - the one I use is a Werner AP-20. Its really stable and long enough so that you can walk along it and not have to move it as often as say a 3-step folding ladder, and its much more stable, easy to get on and off of. Truck beds - they make us all crazy ! There are so many options - drop in plastic bedliner, sprayed in liner, bedrug, etc...I have had all the options except the bedrug, and it sounds like the easiest to install, and take out, doesn't weigh a whole heck of a lot, and wont move around and scratch your paint like a hard plastic one might. You will have to decide what you can live with realistically here. Do you care about the paint getting scratched back there? If you carry anything heavy, well, its going to probably happen at some point. The spray in liners are nice, but costly,, you have to shop around. Line-X seems to be one popular brand. Plastic Liners are available about everywhere too including your Chevy Dealer, shop around for this one too.. The hard plastic liners will scratch your bed paint anyway if they rub on it for awhile, but they protect the bed floor and sides really well.. BedRug might be sold under that name - google it and see what happens.. Meguiars products are pretty darn good and they keep improving their lines all the time. They now make an Ultimate line of compounds for example that are about as good as the Professional lines and they can be had over the counter now I hear. Trucks are long and mostly straight panels, and they take time to do if you are wanting to correct paint defects because the full size trucks are so big. Perhaps you might be wanting to think about getting a machine to help you polish the paint and make this work way faster and get better correction than doing it by hand. There are Rotary and Random Orbital machines, and also a Random Orbital forced rotation machine (Flex 3401VRG), Let us know if you are thinking along those lines and we can give you more feedback on this. As far as Preventative measures, its still the same process today as it was long ago - you wash, polish, and apply products to the paintwork to help protect it from the elements. Most products have a definite short lifespan. The newest products out there today, are applied with a pad by hand or sprayed on, and these newest products claim to add a layer of protection over your paint that protects it better and doesn't require you to do anything other than wash it for a very long time. There are many sold by Detailiers Domain and others sold on other Forums. I dont think any of them have been out long enough for me personally, to be sure how good they really are, or how long they really last, and if there is any problems with them on paint after a few years or not. These products are also more expensive initially, compared to the products I mentioned above from Collinite. So again, you need to think about it, study more, and decide where you want to go with all this. Depending on where you are located geographically, there may already be a number of Detailers around that might be more than happy to show you their set ups, shops, techniques, etc... If you are in Western Washington, I would be happy to show you what I have and use and you can see how I do it.. Good luck ! Dan F
