Protecting Clearcoat?

The best thing you can do is wax your car with a synthetic polymer car wax that contains no Carnauba wax. These include Meguiar's Ultimate Liquid Wax , NuFinish, Turtle Wax, and others, all of which can be found at places like Walmart. The ones that you apply, let dry, and wipe the haze off, will last the longest.

The main difference between these synthetic polymer waxes is how easy they are to apply and wipe off in adverse conditions like sunlight, and how easy it is to remove from plastic trim pieces that the wax gets applied to (usually inadvertently). Meguiar's Ultimate Liquid Wax (or the paste wax version) is usually better in this regard and costs a little more (about $20 at Walmart).

You might be able to get by with a once a year wax job with one of the products listed above. I sometimes wax the top surfaces of my car a little more often, which gets subjected to bird droppings, etc, and waxing the top surfaces is a lot easier to do than the rest of the car.

Some automatic car washes have fairly harsh chemicals that are more likely to strip the car wax off, compared to a hand wash with the proper automotive soap. You could get a frequent wash and the spray-on wax at the car wash, but that gets expensive and doesn't last long.

I would at least do a good wax job up front (and yearly), even if you use an automatic car wash with spray-on wax. It is not necessary to clay bar unless you are looking for an extremely smooth finish. I don't think clay bar makes the clear coat last longer, just provides a smoother finisher.

There are some ceramic type finishes that can be applied by a specialty shop that will last several years, but they are a bit expensive.

XLE2011 said:

I regularly run my Camry through an automatic car wash, even if it is only the cheapest package that only uses soap and the brushes. This pulls all the fine dust off the paint. Then twice a year I take a buffer/ polisher and shine the paint back up and remove the swirls left by the automatic car wash. Then I use a finishing polish to super gloss the paint (clear coat up). Then this is where my process has changed....

I use to use Carnuba wax in the beginning. But that has evolved into a Synthetic wax. And that has now evolved into a spay detailer with SiO2 in it.

I am not ready to have the car professionally SiO2 coated, but some of the new spray detailers with Si02 in them are really good.

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What do you aim for with your sprays and detailing? Deep warm paint that looks like you could take a swim in it? Mirror like glossy reflections? Shininess? Beading 1mm water droplets? Durability?

What Si02 spray do you use? I've tried meguiars hybrid ceramic spray wax and detailer and applying as they recommended on the forums over a base coat of megs ultimate liquid synthetic the paint looked like trash compared to using the top coat of griots best of show spray wax or ultimate quik wax, let alone gold class carnauba quik wax, which had water beading almost as good as the ultimate but has the best depth of any of megs quik waxes.

With the megs si02 spray wax and detailer over a base synthetic water beading was great, but drying the car it was very smeary after using it and wouldn't fling off like it does right now with megs gold class carnauba wax as a base coat and griots best of show spray wax for topping up, with a cocktail of carnauba/synthetics for quick detailing off one or two days dust.

What's the reason for using an automatic car wash along side quick detailer? Just ease of use? Do you not notice the swirls immediately after the first wash?

Camreeeee said:

What do you aim for with your sprays and detailing? Deep warm paint that looks like you could take a swim in it? Mirror like glossy reflections? Shininess? Beading 1mm water droplets? Durability?

What Si02 spray do you use? I've tried meguiars hybrid ceramic spray wax and detailer and applying as they recommended on the forums over a base coat of megs ultimate liquid synthetic the paint looked like trash compared to using the top coat of griots best of show spray wax or ultimate quik wax, let alone gold class carnauba quik wax, which had water beading almost as good as the ultimate but has the best depth of any of megs quik waxes.

With the megs si02 spray wax and detailer over a base synthetic water beading was great, but drying the car it was very smeary after using it and wouldn't fling off like it does right now with megs gold class carnauba wax as a base coat and griots best of show spray wax for topping up, with a cocktail of carnauba/synthetics for quick detailing off one or two days dust.

What's the reason for using an automatic car wash along side quick detailer? Just ease of use? Do you not notice the swirls immediately after the first wash?

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I am not so much concerned with a warm or cold look. I am concerned about a mirror of gloss finish like a glass reflection. By achieving this level of gloss, the shine is very high. I also getting beading water.

So durability is a good question. This is my understanding, So I have been interested in Si02 for a long time. Some Si02 professional coatings claim 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 7 years ( But none of this has been proven in real life or daily driver situations); Only in lab tests.

And then, while a professional SiO2 may stay on the car for so many years, the coating may loose its beading quality before such time. This makes these spray detailers with Si02 very interesting because they can be applied after washing the car and claim maybe 30-60 day time before being re-applied. But in this sense, if you are re-applying every 30-60 days, it will always have perfect beading of water.

I have seen the brands you mentioned and watched the many videos where Griots claims to be superior and I like Griots products, but I use a product from a company locally. called Shock - IT and it works very well.

I use the automatic car wash because I am too lazy to hand wash the car and I would rather use the buffer/polisher instead of getting wet.