rev up your engines, today I'm going to show you how you can make your car's
paint last twice as long, now the first thing that you have to understand about
automotive paint is, most modern vehicles use a four stage process when the cars
are painted, you got the bare metal, and then that's actually has a pretreatment
coating in most places, which is one of the reasons that modern cars don't rust
like they used too, when I was a kid in Niagara Falls, hey cars would be 6-7
years old the fenders are rust and off, they were just
falling apart, because they didn't have any of that pretreatment stuff, then the
actual process of what you might call painting, because it's not all exactly
painting, is that they have an electric coat and that's to keep things from corroding
normally it's zinc based, and that keeps electrolysis out, and keeps the bare
metal from having problems with corrosion, rust, so they don't come apart
from oxidation, now this first coating is measured in microns and a micron is one
thousandth of a millimeter, this electron coating is 17 to 22 microns thick so
that's not very thick really, and the next coat on top of that is the primer
paint, then on top of that is the base coat, the
color that you actually see, strangely enough that's the thinnest coat, that's
10 to 20 microns, then on top of that is the clear coat that's 30 to 50 microns,
that's the thickest one, it's kind of like clear fair nail polish, that coats
at all and that's what really makes shiny, and
what you want to preserve on your car's paint is their clear coat, because that's
what protects the paint underneath, UV rays of the Sun are attacking that clear
coat, birds pooping on your car attacks it, dirt
and grime attacks, it so what you want to do is make that clear coat last as long
as it possibly can, so the first thing you want to do if
birds poop on your car, or you get tar from the road that gets on the side of
your paint, you want to get rid of the stuff immediately, I've been using this
Goo Gone automotive stuff for decades it's really great for taking crud out
you leave it in a trunk with some blue paper towels, then you can spray it on
and get it off before it does damage, especially with bird poop, that stuff is
acidic, if you let it dry sit in the Sun it eats right through your paint, like I
said the Goo gone works great, this is the automotive one that's more gel it's
thicker, so when you spray it on it sits there, now like any kind of product that
clean stuff, you don't want to do it in the direct Sun you want do it in the
shade on a vehicle that's not red-hot, you just want to make sure you do it
before the car sits all day in the red hot Sun and it bakes in, it's why you put
it in the trunk, then you don't have to worry about, hey where am I gonna find
this stuff, you got it you can take the crud off your painting and not worry
about it, now the next thing to make your paint last as long as possible it's to
wax your car, it's a good idea to do it four times a year, once every season so
if you can remember to do it in the beginning of the season, hey that's
easier cuz you know the beginning of winter it's not as cold as the middle or
later winter, so if you do it in the beginning of each season, then you won't
forget, now I have to admit that I'm a bad boy, I don't wax my cars anymore I
use this new finish because technically it's not a wax
it's a polish, I find that this polish works better than a wax, seems to last
long, now it says once a year but nonsense on that , I still do it four
times a year, you know a good paint job cost a fortune
this cost hardly anything, so you know a little elbow grease
it'll make you painting last longer, because to keep your clear coat shiny
which is what makes your paint look good, nothing works better than a really good
polish like that, it's not really abrasive where it ruins the paint, it
just keeps it nice and shiny and protects it, now here's something that I
warn you against wasting your money on, this is one of these nano paint
protectors, really it's a bunch of nano nonsense
this one's using the idea of nanotechnology and ceramics together
says it's a nano ceramic, I tried to stuff out this little
bottle it's like 50 bucks, it's just garbage, and I've also read about people
use this and they said that it ruined their paint job, so stay away from
all this marketing nonsense that some people have, I've seen some German
manufactured products that say, oh they keep your car shining and stuff, and the
system will be like three or four hundred dollars, it's nonsense
their just selling you this really expensive stuff, because they figure you
got an expensive European car and you're dumb enough you bought that expensive
thing you buy really expensive wax for your expensive car, so waste your
money on that, this stuff works perfectly fine, of course if you want regular wax
get a good carnauba based wax and wax it four times a year, take care of it you
know I just happen to like this stuff because I've tried over 51 years lots of
different stuff, and I found this seems to be the best one it goes on easy it
wipes off easy, and it seems to last longer than most of the other ones do, this
my wife's 17 year old Lexus, look at that
baby shine, you can see the reflection of the tree behind it, 17 years old and this
stuff keeps it going, now the next way to keep your car's paint lasting as long as
possible is realized that really bad dust and
dirt is abrasive, you don't want to just get a cloth or something and wipe the
stuff off, I had a customer here in Houston years ago that learned the
lesson the hard way there was a Mexican volcano south of
here that erupted, and we got all this volcanic ash, well he went and got some
towels and stuff, they were microfiber towels and he wiped the dust off, and
what he was doing was he scratched his paint, now that's an extreme example, but
the dirt and crud in our modern society is all over the place, so when you do
have a dirty car, the first thing you want to do is hose it off, you want to
rinse it off of water first, so that the water can just blow all that stuff off,
then once it's gotten reasonably hydrated, you can get some good soap to
clean the car with, now when I was a kid we were cheap we didn't have any money, so
I'd use dishwashing liquid to wash the car, but
really you want to use car wash liquid that's made for car
it's designed not the damage that clear coat, I've been using this McGwire stuff
for years, it's a really good cleaner I mean there's tons of them out there, but
it's like anything else, you get something that seems to work pretty good
then you tend to stick with it, do keep it clean if you want that paint to last
and I have to admit, I'm cheating with my wife's car, because I park it under
this tree all the time, Sun destroys paint, whenever possible if
you can park your car in the shade it's a good thing, then the ultraviolet rays of
the Sun can't destroy the paint, sure putting the car in a garage is great
but if you don't have a garage to put it into as long as it's in the shade it's
gonna keep the paint from being destroyed, because you really want to
take care of your original paint job, as you saw earlier, theirs four layers when a
car is painted at the factory, it's done by machines, they do a nearly perfect job
if you've ever had a car repainted, they never last as long, they never look as
shiny, cuz odds are no place is going to go through those four stages and get it
exactly the same thickness as a robot will, so now you know how to make your
car's paint last as long as it can, so you can ride around in a nice shiny car
and not be embarrassed by one that maybe has the clear coat peeling off, like it's
got a bad case of sunburn, so if you never want to miss another one of my new
car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!