The first clean...

wilko

wilko

Top Gear
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I've seen a few threads on the site about cleaning you brnad spanking new Audi but what I want to know is what's the best products for the job?? And when/how often should I be using these products??
Had the car 3 days now and it's filthy can't wait til saturday to give it it's first clean... but what do you guys use for your beauties to keep um clean and shiny?? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/froggie_red.gif

The site I've been looking at with all the cleaning products is Click Me! if there ar others that you would recomend then please post um! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
You could try Swissol - highly recommend the stuff.

Someone else will probably be along shortly to recommend Autolgym or some thing else. Never used that myself.

Swissol seems pricey at first but it is so concentrated that it lasts for ages. And you get all the buffing cloths and pads and even some tyre shine stuff (like back to black) in the starter set.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I'll start the bidding at...

http://www.meguiars.co.uk/

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto, it's great at a great price. Oh and i've just cleaned mine this afternoon, she's shiny again /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/groovy.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'll start the bidding at...

http://www.meguiars.co.uk/

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto, it's great at a great price. Oh and i've just cleaned mine this afternoon, she's shiny again /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/groovy.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I will third that.WIll only ever use Meguiars only my cars as they have the best products at reasonably prices.
 

Wilko,

How fussy are you about keeping your motor clean? How deep are your pockets regarding cleaning stuff?

The meguiars stuff is very good for regular "budget" cleaning products.

Something like http://www.cleanandshiny.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=9060 will give you a very good finish and it's very easy to apply and more importantley remove!!! Excellant results with only minimum effort.

For washing this is my preffered shampoo http://www.cleanandshiny.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=9055 smells lovely as well. Avoid anything from halfords wash wise apart from maybe the zymol wash they do as they contain chemicals that'll strip the wax from your paint!!!!

But make sure your paints at least 6 weeks old before you wax it the paint needs to fully cure and even though it is baked during the build process at the factory it will continue to cure emitting gasses. If you wax your car before the paints fully cured you can get water marks in the paint.

If your pockets are deeper I personally use Zymol wax's and siwssol cleanser unless the paintworks in a really bad state then I use the Zymol HD cleanse at it's a lot better at removing really noticeable swirl marks and bird doo doo marks form the paint but it does require a lot more effort than the swissol version.

But be warned they are not cheap waxes! I use the concours wax and it's not cheap £145 a pot, I also use the carbon wax as well which is a bit more reasonably priced at £42 but the concours gives a lovely deep wet look shine to black cars. The HD cleanse is £35 for a bottle.

J.
 
marriedblonde you're the man... thanks mate you're a star!! I'll be getting my discounted order in very very soon!

Until it gets delivered i'll put up with the Autogym I've already got. I'll save the waxing for another month!!

Thanks again for the info! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beerchug.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/groovy.gif
 

Wilko,

Don't bother with any polish or anything for the time being. Just give it a wash and a chamois and it'll come up looking like new. If you have a young children nick some of there johson and johnson baby shampoo - it's nice and gentle and wont remove wax etc from the paint work.

Because the alloy's are so new a wash down with soapy water will bring them up looking like new. When you get round to ordering your meguiars wash em off and dry them (not using the same sponge as you use for the car or the same chamois!!!) and apply some wax to em. That'll make cleaning them easier next time round. Something like wonder wheels will be fine on them after that, just remember to apply wax to them often.

To clean the alloy's on my cars I buy some of the scouring pads designed for none stick pans, you know the greem sponges with a white scourer on the top. Absolutely ideal for remove all the crud of your rims, them with some soap is normally all thats required. For any touch brake dust marks etc brake out the wonder wheels.

J.
 
Your welcome! And I have just reread my previous post and I really need to learn to type slower... But hopefully you have got the gist!

J.
 
Tell me about it I forget to do that all the time!

Got to wait until next week til I order my stuff but really not rush cos like you say can't do much until I'm sure that paint has cured.

Until then I have a bunch of different shampoo's I can use to clean it with what should I look out for that would harm my paint work (not kids = no johnson & johnson!!) Like I said I have some autogym & some halfords advanced shampoo (which used to bring my old car (pug 306)) up a treat! What do you think??
 
Regarding your alloys. I have applied Wheel Wax ( the one in the tub - about £20 ) since new on this car. About every other time I wash it. I have never had to use anything other than a light wipe with a towel using shampoo and water. Nothing sticks to them at all.

Highly recommended.
 

another site well worth a visit for clothes and bit's n bobs is

http://www.seriousperformance.co.uk/

although they only work on a cash/cheque bussiness at the moment they do offer free P&P so for things like clothes etc they are very cheap!

I'd order some micro fibre clothes for when you get round to cleaning your car as they are brilliant at buffing up the paintwork after applying the wax!

J.
 
Hi guys what meguiars products do you use?
 
For waxing this gve excellant results http://www.cleanandshiny.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=9060

For washing this is my preffered shampoo http://www.cleanandshiny.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=9055

If you have a lot of swirl marks, hard water marks, bird dropping stains then after washing and drying use this: http://www.cleanandshiny.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=9048

The wheel wax mentioned above for keeping your alloys nice and shiny can be found here, although just aplying a normal paint wax on them will be a big help! http://www.cleanandshiny.co.uk/details.asp?objecttradersearch=1&ManufacturerID=1397

J.
 
does anyone else think I have too much free time...

Right loking at the prices on clean and shiny and at www.seriousperformance.co.uk you would need to spend £60 at clean and shiny to save the cost of postage which is free at serious performance. (I'm pretty certain clean and shiny offer a 5% discount with the mkIV code)
Although I have not ordered anything from serious performance I know people from the uk-mkiv's forum that have and have been happy with the service.

J.
 
I use Meguiars Gold Class Car Wash Shampoo and their Gold Class Clear Coat Liquid Wax, great products.

Just remember to only use 100% cotton cloths or microfibre cloths when polishing.

Also tried the NXT Wax but found though it was very shiny, it didn't last as long as the Gold Class. Seemed to attract the flies too, unless that was me!

Certainly agree with what MarriedBlonde has said. The Body Scrub worked wonders when I 'sorted' my other half's 11 yr old car that was never garaged! Brought the paintwork up a treat!
 
Think it must have been the smell (of the waxed car you understand, not me!!!!)

Strangely enough, someone on another forum said the same thing!
 
The problem I having now is that the clean and shiny website is very very unreliable and is mostly down! I hope it doesn't represent there service!!
 
I initially ordered my first batch of stuff direct from Meguiars website, very quick and reliable though they do charge postage.

Alternatively, get their catalogue free of charge from their site and it has a directory in the back of stockists. Certainly a lot of them in the Midlands, including a lot of 'master stockists' who hold not less than 80% of their products featured in the catalogue.
 
Strangely enough, just looked at the Halfords site, and they now seem to stock some Megs products.
 
Don't you have salt to deal with? Shampoo won't remove that. You need special stinking gazoline to remove that, and it eats the wax also.

I have something that has all 3 of those, but it's a Finnish product. Not sure if there's something like that available in UK, but I highly recommend it at winters. Removes salt, removes wax, but includes somekind of wax in it also. So it prolongs the life of the wax, or at least keeps it normal, while removing also the salt.

A bit more expensive, stinks like hell, melts your watch, but works.
 
audi upgrades

If you guts want to order anything hold fire. I'm trying to arrange a 10% discount from serious performance. His prices are pretty much the same as clean and shiny (often a few pence cheaper but not dearer) but he gives free postage on all but the big commercial sizes.

I've been speaking to a few people and they all highly recommend Alex and Serious Performance. Watch this space.

J.
 
Hi there all,

I would like to ask you guys what shall I use to clean the dash board? Because of the strange surface it has what is the best way to clean it?
Thanks,
 
I've been using a turtlewax product for a while,after autoexpress recommended it.
Something like 'wax it wet'.
Spray it on after washing the car and then chamois as normal.
I think it's great.
Halfords were doing BOGOF deal at the time as well.

Ease of use is paramount to me.I'm not one of those that is willing to spend hours cleaning a car.Life's too short !
 

Ok spoken to Alex at serious performance and he as agreed to a 10% discount for members on this forum

Just mention my name on the order - either James wilson or MarriedBlonde, take 10% off the total price and it will be honoured.

Because he offers free postage (apart from the large industrual sized stuff where theres a £5 postage fee - no discount on the postage I'm affraid) he only accepts cheques as paymant.

But 10% not a bad discount!

J.
 
Hi Guys,

Wilko, I have had some problems with the hosting on the site in the last couple of weeks but i believe it has been resolved now, and no! its not a reflection on the service you would get /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

With regards to the discount. We are making a standard discount for forums of 10% I will let you have the code for Audi Sport on Monday and Married Blonde the one for UK MKIV's will be changed too /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

We have also offered free carraige for the last 2 years on orders but have found that we now have alot of people ordering one product with free delivery, as you can imagine with the cost of postage and packing we could not continue to do this as we lose money! hence the £3 delivery charge, if the delivery is going to be a deal breaker on a larger order then of course im sure a deal can be had /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Obviously if you want one product C&S we have positioned ourselves as not the cheapest company.

We sell ourselves on the service we offer we are not just a cheap place to buy product (although we do try), im sure you will remember the threads last year of the company that sold with no carraige took payments then never supplied.... We hold a considerable quantity of stock. We have a fully functioning (now!) ecommerce website that takes most major credit and debit cards, offers order statuses and provides a login with order history and details so you dont have to keep typing them in when you want to order. Most orders are delivered within 3 days of order by either a courier or Royal Mail and in lot of cases people have had orders next day (but this is not gauranteed)

If you are local to Camberley in Surrey and wants to pick up from us your more than welcome and If you need any help or advise or need a demo (if your local) feel free to email me at john@cleanandshiny.co.uk or pm me.
 
I've done mine with Zymol, took two days holiday when I picked the car up and it looks awesome. Have been using it for a number of years and would now never use anything else.
Would never use a polish again .......
 

Cheers John,

Like I said I've always received good servce from you in the past and the 10% discount will do me to continue using your company /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

J.
 
The one problem I always have with cleaning is getting rid of all the traffic film from the windscreen. I've tried all sorts over the years and nothing seems to work that well. I find that Holts Screeies is OK as a short time thing, if say you have to drive at night and your screen is all smeary. Just spray it on the screen and operate the wipers, but it only lasts for a short while.

I saw a letter in the April 2005 issue of Audi Driver magazine where a guy had tried all sorts and the only thing he has found that works is a product sold by B+Q called 'Squeegee Off'. I bought a kit consisting of the product plus a washer, a squeegee and a plastic bucket and I am going to try it on my windscreen this week-end.

If anyone know any other good ways, please let me know.
 
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