Waxing A 20 Year Old Car

[celica_xr9145]

Got a question about waxing my car, being its red it needs a wax once every so often (2-3 Months), after 3-4 months, it starts to fade and go pink.

I used to use CRC car wax but lately have just tried turtle wax and works a treat.

On the tin, it says its 'Clear Coat Safe.'

Now the car is 20 years old, should i not wax it so often or do you think its safe to carry on the way i am?

Seems like the turtle wax is much stronger than the CRC wax so want to make sure its safe

[Bling]

Wax should be fine. Its only adding a layer of protection to the car

Its the cut and polish types that would be bad to use too often/much at all.

[RomanV]

Aahhh, my car is also faded toyota red.

However, instead of using wax, I have applied liberal amounts of dirty hand prints in the vicinity of the engine bay area, as I figure they arent really gonna make the car look any worse.

[celica_xr9145]

since ive owned the car i have never used cut and polish, only wax.

Could do with it on the rear bumper though

[Luke28]

I would suggest giving it 1 cut and polish.... then just keep it waxed.

[Heylin]

Toyota Red and Yellow used on MR2 and Celica in 1990 and 1991 models had a UV stabiliser fault. PS your car doesnt have clear coat, unless someone has made the mistake of trying to fix fading by putting clearcoat over the top.

Waxing will slow down the process and make the paint look more shiney but not stop this issue.

Basically to keep it looking in top condition you want to do the following

1) Using a fine cut compound such as Meguiars Professional (Fine Cut), go over the whole car to expose the fresh paint underneath the fine layer of faded paint. Trust me, youll need to do this many many many times before youll wear through your paint, this is more an issue with clearcoats.

Tip 1: CRC wax belongs in the bin next to Turtle Wax.
Tip 2: Get yourself some micro fiber polishing cloths, so much easier.

2) Use a quality polymer based wax such as Meguiars NXT or Gold Class,

polymer resists UV longer than carnuba or silicon based waxes, silicon protection is gone within 1 week, carnuba lasts about 3 weeks to a month if car is parked outdoors, a good polymer should provide 2-3 months of protection tops.

Dont get me wrong if youve got clearcoat paint in good condition a Carnuaba wax provides adequate protection and deep shine but a polymer base is reccomended in your case.

Trust me with the red \ yellow paint youre going to have to do the above process every 2 months if you want your car looking great. I eventually got sick of mine and resprayed.

[t0ms]

find a dealer in your area for AUTOGLYM.

it aint cheap but does a magic job

get "PAINT RENOVATOR" which is a conditioner and light cutting compound which will bring the colour back up

next use "SUPER RESIN POLISH" to bring the shine up. one coat is ok but 2 or 3 will make it mint.

then use the "LIQUID HARD WAX" its thin and smells like kerosene but you wipe it on really thin leave it to dry and then wipe off. two or three coats will effectively seal the polish to the paint.

when you go to wash the car a lot of the dust will just hose of the wax but if you do "wash" it with detergent you only need to reapply the wax. not the polish. you might only have to do that twice a year.

it sounds like a lot of initial work but it is worth it and i can personally attest to that once it is on and you get to the wax point its is so easy to keep clean and so little work it makes it all worth it

[Heylin]

Agree with the top post if your paint is not affected by the UV fault. Bascially in your case if the paint sees light its going to go pink no matter how much wax you use.

Provided you follow the surface restore step each time you will expose fresh (non faded) paint ready for polishing \ waxing.

AutoGlym is a brilliant product by the way.

I was washing my car 2 times per week and waxing a preped surface every months with my old (UV fault) paint job and it was just upto my high standard.

old paint job freshly polished and waxed, you can acheive high quality results on old red (UV fault) paint.



new paint job, much more shiney, only doing every 3 months now (car is garaged all the time).

[Heylin]

If anyone is interested visit my car detailing post at the MR2 forums

http://www.mr2.org.nz/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5093&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[celica_xr9145]

Hey, thanks for all the replies, thats some awesome info!

Have heard some good things for Autoglym, will give that ago, will also get the Paint Renovator, Super Resin Polish and the Liquid Hard Wax.
Will also look out the the Meguiars Fine Cut and Meguiars Gold Class.

Thats an awesome write up you did on the MR2 owners club, car really does look awesome!
Just out of interest, how much did it cost to get a respray?

[Heylin]

Full respray (red mica) + some minor panel work (dings) + fitting of bodykit was $4200 all up, ($3500 if I had gone for standard red).

Door jambs cost about $400 extra on top.

This was in 2006, I would estimate today about $4000 - $5000 for a full respray on MR2 or Celica.

If you plan on keepng the car for 4 or more years then its worth the $$$.

[Bling]

I thought this was for sale? I wouldn't blow my money on products I might not need on my next car, but thats me i guess

[tsoob]

get the whole thing cut and POLISHED at a workshop with a buffer, its very important that they do the polish after the cut. if you have it done right you wont get that fade anymore., also a regular (4-8 weeks) wax after will help to keep it lookin mint.

[celica_xr9145]

it is still for sale but its always interesting to know this sort of thing

[celica_xr9145]

get the whole thing cut and POLISHED at a workshop with a buffer, its very important that they do the polish after the cut. if you have it done right you wont get that fade anymore., also a regular (4-8 weeks) wax after will help to keep it lookin mint.

really, i was watching something called wheeler dealers and they were restoring a red MR2 AW11 and he used a buffer on that and came out fantastic.

Would this still work good with the UV fault though?

[Heylin]

get the whole thing cut and POLISHED at a workshop with a buffer, its very important that they do the polish after the cut. if you have it done right you wont get that fade anymore., also a regular (4-8 weeks) wax after will help to keep it lookin mint.

The UV fault is the whole batch of paint, you expose new paint underneath it fades out.

The UV Fault cannot be corrected

- fine cut exposes new paint and polishes
- polymer wax seals the surface and protects the paint (to a degree)

Unless you get a respray this is a process you are going to have to live with until youve worn away all the paint.

I managed 4-5 years doing this method and I never wore through the paint, and the car always looked mint.

[kim0663]

Shitty cut n polish + machine polisher

WILL EAT THROUGH THE PAINT REALLY FAST.

Stay clear away from products such as, CRC, TURTLE aforementioned when it comes to cutting compounds.

My 2c

[celica_xr9145]

chances are i will never use a machine buffer, i find it more satisfying waxing it by hand.

Currently looks like this and well happy with the result, like you said, its keeping it up thats the worst, soon it will be someone elses problem.
Chances are my next car will have faded paint so this info will come in really handy!

Thanks again guys

[Bling]

i was watching something called wheeler dealers

Was that recently??? Best show ever! Can you remember the channel / day etc it was on?

[celica_xr9145]

i was watching something called wheeler dealers

Was that recently??? Best show ever! Can you remember the channel / day etc it was on?

its on every weekend on the discovery channel, i havent seen the mr2 one in NZ yet, i watched all of them whilst in the UK, could be the mr2 one this weekend.
Last weekend it was the alfa spider

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... type=&aq=f