I do pretty much what Oz does. At least once a year, but usually twice because the car sleeps outside:

Wash
Decontaminate with "zero cut" clay.
Polish any scuffs with a DA polisher (mine's a Portercable) with the softest pad I've got and Menzerna's lightest polish.
Retreat with cQuartz or Reload, depending on whether I had to polish anything.

Since I already do the worst thing possible for the finish (drive the car) I try to not worry too much. I don't get mad about wear and tear from legitimate use, but do if it's from carelessness (door dings).

A couple of months ago the car took a shopping cart to the face and I was worried it wouldn't buff out, but it did. It was pretty deep but not through the color. It was on the nose, so the plastic flexed. If it had hit aluminum it'd have been another story. Someone left an empty cart on the sidewalk, but the sidewalk slopes towards the street. I turned just in time to see it and *almost* catch it :-(

 

I had my car treated with Ceramic Pro, so I haven’t run into an issue with ‘grit’. After a gentle wash, I just go over the car with a spray polish detailer. If I don’t set a micro fiber cloth on the car just right while I’m doing this, it’ll slide right off. The ceramic coat is expensive, but certainly avoids a lot of effort. Clay baring over the ceramic would be counter-productive.

 

Yes you are correct.

Claying actually is just 1 step of many in detailing a car correctly. It actually adds micro-scratches in the finish when removing the grit.
Its the second or third step in detailing depending on how you detail and requires at least a machine polish to get the micro-scratches
out after.

One other thing never wet sand a car to remove scratches with any grade lower then 3000, 3000 is even extreme... 5000 is best and will remove the least amount of clear.
When you remove to much clear later on years down the road you will start to see cloudy blotchy spots do to thin clear.
Same goes with heavier cut compounds They remove to much clear. big mistake people make is compounding cars to much.

I was schooled by a guy who's cars have won many best in show.

my car after being detailed by his methods its like glass!

 

I've had the experience of polishing and coating my Ftype prior to owning it. Here are my observations on this topic:

1.) Jag does not put a ton of paint on these cars from the factory, double digits in microns all around the car if I remember correctly. You'd have to be insane to want to wet sand the entire car, there's just not enough meat there. If you were doing so to try and remove a particularly deep scratch that's a different story.

2.) Maybe it's just the BRG, but this paint is S-O-F-T. Any detailer worth their salt will be able to recognize this and mix product/techniques to be able to polish swirls out without going much beyond a medium polish, never mind compounding. I had great luck with Jescar micro finishing polish on a Yellow griot's BOSS pad on a Griot's 15mm boss polisher at the time.

3.) A coating, PPF or both are almost a requirement on these cars with the softness of the paint. If going for a pro-level coating I'd highly recommend finding someone who installs CarPro (cquartz finest reserve) or GTechniq (Crystal Serum Ultra) and be sure to specify that the specific PPF coating made by each is used on those areas and not the paint coating.

 

+1 - You were a bit more direct than I was, but I think you are saying the same thing. As with any cleaning or reconditioning; its advisable to start with the least harmful method and then adjust based on results. Interesting that you said the paint was "soft" - I drove Infiniti's for about 10 years and heard similar sentiments on all the forums. I always use my D/A and choice of polishes etc. from the start so I never had the need to consider sanding. Bottom line is that sanding is a slippery slope even for the pros because many of the new paints are water based or otherwise not applied as thick or dry as hard confirming your statement that there is "not enough meat there". I would be willing to bet you could find paint shops that would turn you away even if you were wiling to pay. I had some minor issues on a car and two shops told me they wouldn't do it - the 1st said, they didn't want to take the risk and the 2nd basically said that most people would not worry such minor stuff, and didn't think I would be happy with the result. Again, there are great paint and detail people that do amazing work. I had my own detail shop and ran one for a new car franchise and would regularly restore paint on used cars when I had time (Florida dealer that took in beech trades with salt water film on the paint), so I would consider myself above average with restorative work, but I am always careful and don't play around with heavy scratch removers unless absolutely necessary. My car has PPF and I am preparing to do the first real detail, but I am only planning to use the Adams One-Step which removes scratches and leaves a surprisingly nice finish and then a smooth polish. I will likely just put some final polish/glaze over all of it, including the ppf, and then a layer of Adams ceramic spray.

 

Again maybe it's just the BRG, but I found that even a decent quality microfiber towel wiped dry over the paint would put some light scratches in. Nevermind the gloss black trim, on this or any other car for that matter. I just wonder when the MFGs are going to wise up and either PPF that stuff from the factory or go to a vinyl covered version.

When wetsanding for scratches I'll typically go as low as 2000 if it really needs it, but even then I'll only make a few passes at very light pressure, not sitting there sawing at it like you see a lot of people doing. In most cases a 2000 --> 3000 --> 5000 done properly is actually safer and removes less clear than trying to hammer away at it with a microfiber or wool pad and heavy cut compound.

A trick I learned a long time ago is that the door jambs are typically a place that will have the absolute minimum amount of clear coat applied at the factory, and are typically not touched much unless the car is in a severe accident. You take paint thickness readings all around the car and then compare them to the door jambs. So if for example the entire car reads between 80-90 microns around the outside but the door jambs read 50 microns, it's safe to assume that the largest portion of that 30-40 micron difference is clearcoat. You can also tell this is the case by the sheen of the paint in the jambs vs the rest of the car, they tend to be a lot less glossy due to less clearcoat.

I had a very nice 87 560SL (black single stage paint) in for a paint correction that I was told had never been painted. As I worked my way around the inspection of the car reading about 80-100 microns all around the left rear quarter and up onto the left side of the trunk lid suddenly shot up to read about 230 microns. That doesn't happen by mistake, and the paint in that area was in rougher shape than the rest of the car, so I felt much more comfortable going a little more aggressive in flattening the defects in that area.

I prefer to go by the science rather than sticking to the old timers' golden rules that were developed in the era of high RPM rotary buffers, harsh wool pads and single stage paints or the very early days of clear coat. Technology has advanced significantly but the methods are lagging behind except for a specific segment of the detailing world that are starting to find the limits and coming up with really, really impressive results because of it.

 

Ha - clay bar is extreme? Wet sanding is definitely the last resort but there should be plenty of clear coat for a multi-stage cut/polish if it's really in that poor shape. I'd leave it to a professional though as you definitely can burn through if you don't know what you are doing. And if you try yourself and end up with poor results it will be that much less likely a professional will be able to help because you've already recuded the thickness of the clear coat. This isn't something worth screwing up to save a few $100.

 

I found the link to the thread for the guy (Selborne) that color sanded his car. Not for the faint of heart or impatient. It was on a different car forum. it turned out Gorgeous. Check it out here.

https://www.ftypeforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=242

Wayne B.

 

I think the issue is that many don't realize there are multiple grades of clay available, and the stuff at the parts stores can vary. A fine grade clay a couple times a year is no problem, but a medium grade would be too harsh unless you're going to be correcting anyway. Even a fine grade on an already properly decontaminated car could lead to marring and so should pretty much always be followed with a light polish at minimum, not only removes marring but also any leftover product/fallout before protecting.