PNOY001

8 ARIAL royalblue

hey i just recently bought my black onyx 5speed black interior is300. Now that i have it, its time for its first cleaning. What would be the best kind of soup, cloth, and so forth to clean it and still keep it with its shinny coat? I know this might seem like a stupid question but on my last old car i just used dish soap. now that i have my lexus what to uSE?

gs300

i cant really help you here cause since i work at a car dealer lenstoler lexus they wash my car every other day but i hear dove soap is pretty good and use a waterblade to dry your car

CSHFLW

dove soap??? NEVER USE Dishwashing soap....removes grease from dishes and removes WAX on cars!!!!

The best I hear is zaiobros.....only online to buy

I use all the maguiers products....have multiply sponges,one for wheels, exhaust, upper and lower half....and have a REAL chammie(spelling?).....

biggie27

CSHFLW is right alot of people on this forum recommend zaino. It might be expensive, but nothing good is cheap ( except Tia food )

ceoart

I never had any good luck using Soup :eek:

mooretorque

chamois = chammie

Zaino. All you need. No, not cheap, but you'll only have to do the car twice a year, so it nets out quite well. I admit to using Lexol on my leather but all who have tried Zaino leather products swear by it.

www.zainobros.com

And I agree with ceo: soup on my shinny car did not produce a satisfactory shinn.........

PNOY001

thanks guys... but what do i use to get the daily dust out? and since you only said 2 times a year what do i use to get that weekly bird poopies?

TMitchell

Use a California duster between washes and Mequiar's Quik Detail mist and wipe between wax jobs.

clivej

Hi Guys,
hi pnoy001, you have a black car,dont even think of using the "california scratcher" you will regret it just like i did,i however found a very good use for it, after cutting the lawn, i use it to clean the lawn-mower, go with zaino, and soon you will not have to worry about bird droppings. A spritz from the enhanzer will keep you both very happy.
clive.

PNOY001

so exactly which items of the zaino should i purchase? hopefully i wont' need to get all of them .. can u guys tell me the best things to start off with ? i just recently got it so i dout it needs waxing again. thanks

mooretorque

Z7 (car wash concentrate) for your wash. Z6 (gloss enhancer) is not necessary, but I'd recommend it , for use right after you wash (or, you can use it between coats of wax if you decide to do more than one coat of wax). Z1 PolishLok, used as first step prior to wax then Z2 (or Z3) wax. Those are all that you have to have, the rest just depends on your needs or particular preferences for, say, leather treatment.

For instance, there's Z5 which is used to remove polish swirls (but if you have new paint, you don't need it). There is a catalyst (which is new enough that I haven't yet gotten any simply because I don't need to rewax yet) that tremendously speeds up drying time for the wax. There's glass polish, plexiglas polish, tire gloss, a clay bar, polishing clothes and wax applicators. But the first paragraph is the minimum.

BTW, when I said "twice a year", that just referred to waxing. Wash all you want. But Zaino's stuff is amazing. It does exactly what it says it does (incredible when you consider that all the descriptions read like usual advertising hype)!!!! It takes a few hours to completely do the prep and wax, but I only do one coat of wax (there is a CL member who did 8!!). I do it twice a year because Sal recommends it for daily drivers, but even at the 6 month mark, the car STILL beads water like it had just been waxed!!! And as far as the shine, even my non-gearhead wife noticed that her RX looked different after I had waxed it.

Finally, can't say enough about their sales and service. If you e-mail the company, Sal himself replies within a couple of hours. When I order my stuff, it arrives in less than a week even though you have to send a check or money order, which means they shipped my stuff before my check even cleared!! All in all, a great company with great product that only advertises by word of mouth. But that doesn't mean that Meguiar's or some of the other companies don't make good product. Just that Zaino works for me. Just mho, after all.

TMitchell

What problems have you had with the duster? I have been using the California duster for years, at least a couple of times a week. Most of my cars have been black, black cherry blue and red ones. I have never had any bad experience with the dusters. It removes the dust and doesn't scratch the surface. I live in Kansas one of the most windy and dusty states in the country. I can drive a car for one day here and it looks like it has an 1/8" of dirt covering it. I do know that you are suppose to let a new duster air out for a few days before you use it or it will leave wax type streaks on your paint.

LexusPride

btw guys, Sal from Zaino suggests using Dawn first to actually fully clean the car, as it removes grime, sap and old wax.

clivej

Hi guys,
Most 98 gs400s ,black, were non-clearcoat ,california scratcher no-good.
clive