- The Miata's paint clearly looks like doo doo,
so the question is, can I fix it?
And can I fix it using toothpaste?
Oh, this is gonna be a mess, dude.
I doubt it.
(thunder crashes) (rhythmic music)
(thunder crashes)
So, detailing your car can only do so much
in terms of making your paint look good,
but I know a lot of you guys are looking for
cheaper and quicker methods for this kinda stuff,
so that's what we're here to do today.
We're gonna try three different methods
of paint correction on the Miata,
and we're gonna see what pans out the best.
We're gonna look at my tried and true method
for paint correction: a standard compound, polish, and wax.
Then we're gonna go with a much cheaper,
much quicker all-in-one method,
and then we're gonna go with the bootleg hack
of all bootleg hacks.
We're gonna rub some toothpaste on the Miata
and see if that does anything for the state of the paint.
All right, so what do I mean when I say paint correction?
Well, I basically mean the process
of removing surface imperfections from your paint,
the top three of those being surface scratches
and swirl marks that happen over the years
from poor wash practices and all sorts of things.
Then we've got water etching, like right here
from water being on the car, and drying in the sun,
and leaving some hard mineral, you know,
deposits in the paint,
and then we've got oxidation,
which you can see here on the front bumper.
Oxidized, not oxidized.
So hopefully today at least one of those methods
will fix all three of these problems.
We've got the hood divided into thirds
so we can compare our products nice and easily
next to each other.
I gave it a thorough wash and a clay bar last night
to get rid of any of the surface contaminants,
any stuff stuck in the paint.
I think this'll do something,
I think this'll do pretty dang good.
I don't think this is gonna do anything
except rub toothpaste on my car.
All right, let's take a deep dive
into that first kit and see how many scratches,
swirls, and oxidation we can remove.
(lively drum music)
(cash register dings)
Okay, so in this kit
we've got what I believe to be a pretty good setup.
It's very commonly available.
You can get this stuff pretty much anywhere.
It's a Meguiar's 105.
This is our cutting compound,
and then we've got the Meguiar's 205,
which is their finishing polish.
And then once we go through those two steps,
we'll finish off with a nice paste wax,
which should give us a beautiful, protected shine
that should last a long time.
So I'm expecting great results outta this.
I don't see it going any other way.
All right, so let's get started with the cutting compound.
So we're just gonna use about four pea sized drops here.
The easiest thing to do with this, I think,
is use too much product.
I'm gonna add a little water to the pad,
keep it lubed up.
Tap it out.
Kinda get it spread around, get it started.
And we'll put it on the low speed, get it started out.
(lively keyboard music)
So after just a quick pass, this does look a lot better.
Now one of the hallmarks of good paint correction products
is how easily it comes off when you're done,
how easily it wipes off, and honestly,
that's one of my biggest gripes with the Meguiar's stuff,
is it gets a little gummy sometimes
and hard to wipe away, so we'll see.
Maybe the toothpaste will be better.
Okay, now we're movin' on to our polish pad.
Basically this is just a little bit softer,
a little less aggressive of a foam,
with some pea-sized drops.
(lively keyboard music)
Now we've got a nice, flat surface from the compound.
The polish is gonna bring that shine
and really make it look good.
Just keep it moving, not too fast,
not too slow.
All right, so now that we've finished the polish,
we're ready to put on a wax.
Well, waxing is one of the only times
that you're allowed to use circular motions on your paint,
and that's really because it's such a soft thing,
and your paint should be very clean
when you get to this point
that you're not gonna put any scratches in it
doing it this way.
So it doesn't take too much, doesn't take any pressure.
You just wanna get a nice, even coating on the whole car.
Let it dry, and then buff it off.
Overall, it looks so much better.
The reflection, my reflection in the paint
is like almost night and day, I would say,
and I'm pretty pleased with
how this front bumper turned out in this section.
That was a lot of oxidation,
and we pretty well reversed most of it,
if not all of it.
Those surface scratches and swirl marks
are all but gone.
Maybe some of the deepest ones remain.
Overall, the water etching has gone down considerably.
We've still got a few spots, though,
that I can see.
(punches slamming)
(rhythmic digital music)
All right, so now that we've seen what is possible
with a very thorough paint correction method,
let's move on to the cheaper and quicker method
and see if we can return the same results.
Be kinda cool if we could.
Cheaper, quicker, what more do you want?
(rhythmic island music)
(cash register dings)
Okay, let's get this stuff.
Is this stuff open?
Let's see how it smells.
It smells pretty good.
God, detailing stuff just smells the best sometimes.
Come give her a whiff.
- Smells like grapes. - Mm hm.
(rhythmic island music)
Tap it out, yeah.
(buffer grinding)
So, after using this for a minute,
it's actually pretty easy to work with.
It doesn't gum up at all like the 3M stuff,
which is very cool because that is my biggest gripe
with the 3M stuff.
It does splatter a lot, so I mean,
I think it's a pretty thin product.
It does kinda fling, which, you know,
I can kinda try to mitigate,
but only so much.
As far as the hood goes for swirl marks and scratches,
now we haven't really inspected it yet,
but it seemed to do a decent job for just one step.
I don't think it's gonna do as good on the oxidation
on the bumper, though.
I'll do a couple, I'll give it as good a chance
as she could ever have, 'cause I want it to work, you know.
This is easier for sure.
(rhythmic island music)
Whoo, it might be in competition.
Let's see, let's keep goin'.
(rhythmic island music)
(buffer grinding)
(rhythmic island music)
(buffer grinding)
All right, so the second one,
our $20 compound, polish, and wax in one
actually did pretty good.
It was easy to work with, with really long working times.
It seemed to do a pretty good job on surface scratches.
All the light scratching seems to be pretty well worked out,
but I will say I don't think it went quite as deep,
didn't cut quite as deep,
and didn't really zamboni as well
as the compound on the first one.
It didn't do nearly as good on the water etching,
and it did pretty good on the oxidation on the bumper.
Maybe not quite as good,
but honestly, for $20, and for how much quicker that was
than this, especially if your paint
is in a little bit better shape
to start with than this, not a bad option.
I'm honestly pretty impressed with it.
(punches slamming)
(rhythmic keyboard music)
Now it's time to jump down the old rabbit hole of internet
and put some toothpaste on the hood,
and see what that does.
I got some whitening Colgate,
and we're ready to try it out.
If it works, I'm a toothpaste believer.
(modern digital music)
(cash register dings)
Time for toothpaste.
All right, when it comes to the toothpaste trick,
I wanna make sure we're doin' this right,
and honestly, this is kind of news to me
that this supposedly works.
So I've been made aware of some YouTube videos
where some people go through this
and show you how to do it,
so I've been watching 'em
to make sure that we give this a fair shake,
'cause who knows?
What if it works?
That could be cool.
All right, so it seems like from watching these videos,
there are really two processes for the toothpaste method
that are prevalent online.
One is just buffing with the toothpaste,
kinda like what we've been doing with our products so far,
and the other is to smear the toothpaste on,
let it dry, and then buff it off.
Let's do it.
So I guess we'll try the buffer method.
So we're gonna add a pretty good amound of water to the pad,
and just do some pea-size drops, baby.
See how it taps out (laughs).
This is gonna be a mess.
(buffer whirring)
It does smell good.
Once you get the water mixture right,
it actually works pretty well with the buffer
and feels okay.
We'll wash off a little better,
and then we'll give it another crack.
(buffer grinding)
Makes a lot of noise.
It's definitely not doing nothing.
I mean, it's fixin' some scratches for sure.
The proof is in the paste, let's keep goin'.
All right, so before we move on to the bumper,
one of the videos about toothpaste
said that you have to apply the toothpaste
and then let it sit for about five or 10 minutes,
and then you work it.
There's a pretty good scratch right here.
I'm gonna put some toothpaste on it, smear it in,
and let it sit while I do the bumper,
and then we'll check the scratch,
see if we can make it any better with that method.
(lively horn music)
(buffer whirring)
Okay, so after giving the toothpaste
the best shot we could manage to give it,
it doesn't seem like it did a whole lot.
I would say overall, it does look a little bit cleaner
and a little shinier at a glance,
but you know, I think if we put pretty much anything
on a buffer and buffed it like that
we would get that effect.
When you look closely, it really didn't do much
for the light scratches,
which is where I thought it might actually
be able to work, and it didn't do much.
It lilterally did nothing for the bumper,
and also didn't do anything for water etching,
so in my opinion, the toothpaste thing.
That is kinda myth-busted.
(punches slamming)
(rhythmic keyboard music)
So what have we learned today?
Well in my opinion,
if you wanna correct your paint,
there's nothin' better than the tried and true method.
With the $20 product from Amazon,
honestly, it didn't do bad.
It did better than I expected.
It did a pretty dang good job on scratches.
It did pretty well on the oxidation,
and the fact is, it cost a fraction of this.
It cost 20 bucks for this bottle,
and I think this was the best to work with
in terms of actually buffing.
It also claims to be a wax amongst the other things
it claims to be, and we tested how well
it left a wax-protected coating on
just by pouring some water onto the paint,
and it didn't bead up very well with this,
where obviously with our paste wax,
this section is very well protected.
Now the toothpaste, on the other hand,
just didn't do anything,
and that's kind of what I was expecting.
I think toothpaste is meant for your mouth,
and honestly, per ounce, not that much cheaper than this.
If you wanna save some money and some time,
then this really isn't a bad method,
but if you wanna get the best looking paint you can
and you don't mind spending a whole day buffing your car,
then I gotta recommend the tried-and-true compound,
polish, and wax.
And that's what I'm gonna do to the rest of the Miata
to get the rest of it looking this good
so you guys can quit hating on my terrible-looking bumper,
and then maybe one of these days
we'll fix that fender.
Thanks for watching, guys.
If you wanna see a video on how to get your paint
ready for paint correction,
then go check out my video on detailing.
Lemme know in the comments below
what else you wanna see us do to the Miata,
and lemme know if there's any other DIY hacks
or tricks that you wanna see us try out,
'cause, well I don't wanna do anything else with toothpaste,
but I'll do some other stuff.
Follow me on Instagram, @zachjobe,
and Donut, @donutmedia.
Thank you guys, we'll see ya next week.