After an entire winter of being dirty, my MINI is finally clean. This past weekend I spent over 10 hours detailing the exterior! Most of it was a long backbreaking day on saturday where I go through my annual spring cleaning process, cleaning the paint with dishsoap, claybar, polishing, and waxing.
I’ve updated my car care page with the details of the process, as well as my more often regular wash and wax processes. I’ve also added some new items as I continue to evaluate new cleaning products. New for me is the addition of the Porter Cable random orbit polisher, to polish down scratches and swirl marks that had built up on my MINI, which is now 3 years old!
One part of the process that really impressed me was the claybar. Though I had done it last spring as well, this year, I really had a lot of dirt embedded in my paint. I noticed the last couple of washings, my doors behind the front wheels felt like sand paper. You could feel the claybar picking up the dirt in those areas as well as the boot, and it would get dirty much more quickly. Now they’re silky smooth. Also, I’ve had some rust-colored spots on the clear bra film on my white mirrors for a long time that I was never able to remove or scrub off. To my surprise the claybar took it right off!
I’ll spend another day soon on the interior, and then I will feel fully prepared for MinisOnTop, which is only two weeks away! I also started Round Two of the Trim Test with a few more products recommended in various forums. Once we get some rain we’ll see if they’re any better.