Single Stage red paint

[Mysta Joe]

Hi, I live in the Cayman Islands we have 80-90 degree fahrenheit temps all year round. So all this sun is tortue on some car paints. I recently bought a 2001 Mitsubishi Evolution 7 which has a single stage paint and it is red. The cars paint was very faded when I purcahsed it, however using all Meguiars products I brought it back to very good condition and shine.

Steps I did:
1. Washed car twice with "NXT car wash"
2. Deep Crystal System Paint cleaner
3. Color X
4. NXT Tech Wax 2.0 paste

Vector 10" Waxx Pro orbital polisher was used for steps 2 and 3 .

Now my questions are:
1. Will this new shine last long with regular washes (once every week or two)?
2. How often should I re-wax it only?
3. How often should I do all 4 steps? (not keen on this)
4. Would it make sense to just get the car sprayed with a few layers of clearcoat for long term shine? or will the color still be able to fade away? (would prefer this for long term protection so I just have to do regular washes, and maybe waxing twice a year?)

Thanks for any advice and answers. And these Meguiars products are awesome, I'm upset I never took before (or after) pics so I could show comparisons, but they did do wonders to my car !!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Single Stage red paint

Now my questions are:
1. Will this new shine last long with regular washes (once every week or two)?

Not if the car is parked in the sun. The sun is a powerful enemy to a single stage paint and if parked in the sun the paint will start to fade, oxidize and get dull all over again. The process is slow you you won't notice a difference 1 day after you've done this work but as time goes by the results will diminish, that is the results won't get better and better as time goes by.

Single stage paints require regular maintenance and more regular maintenance if the car is exposed to extreme sunlight, like where you live. One option would be to hire me to live there and I can maintain the paint on this car for you on a daily basis when I get back from the beach.

2. How often should I re-wax it only?

It would be more beneficial to re-apply a pure polish like M07 Show Car Glaze, M03 Machine Glaze or M81 Hand Polish with the edge going to the #7 as it is richest in polishing oils and it's these polishing oils that are going to bring out the full richness of color and maintain it also.

For maximum beauty and protection, if the car is parked in the sun at least part of each day, the polish and wax once a month.

3. How often should I do all 4 steps? (not keen on this)

As needed.

If you wash the car carefully so as not to instill swirls and scratches, and as long as the car is not parked where contaminants are in the air landing on the paint forcing you to have to clay the paint, then you can get away with only applying a pure polish and applying a wax, that's 3 things, wash, polish and wax. That's the nature of a single stage on a daily driver in a bright, sunny, warm environment.

4. Would it make sense to just get the car sprayed with a few layers of clearcoat for long term shine? or will the color still be able to fade away? (would prefer this for long term protection so I just have to do regular washes, and maybe waxing twice a year?)

Thanks for any advice and answers. And these Meguiar's products are awesome, I'm upset I never took before (or after) pics so I could show comparisons, but they did do wonders to my car !!

Yep... as we wrote here,

Tips for how to correctly take pictures to document an Extreme Makeover

MOST IMPORTANT

If you're doing an Extreme Makeover on a Special Interest Car, especially if the paint is a heavily oxidized single stage paint finish or an extremely swirled out clear coat paint finish, the it's vitally important to capture the Before Pictures.

Why?

Because once you bring a machine polisher or even your hand down onto the paint and start removing oxidation and other defects you can NEVER go back and get these pictures. And the reason this is important is because that's where the value and the power in your pictures comes from, the before pictures. Once you've restored the finish you can always get more "After" shots, but you can never go back in time and capture the "Before" shots.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Single Stage red paint

Steps I did:
1. Washed car twice with "NXT car wash"
2. Deep Crystal System Paint cleaner
3. Color X
4. NXT Tech Wax 2.0 paste


And these Meguiar's products are awesome

These are great products and you produced great results, but give a pure polish like the #7 a try or next time you restore a neglected single-stage paint give M80 a try in place of DC1 and ColorX.

Before



After careful massaging with M80 and then polished with M03 and the topped with NXT

[Mysta Joe]

Re: Single Stage red paint

Thanks for the quick replies Mike !! I figured when I said I was in Cayman Islands someone would offer to come and polish the car for me, LOL !

I fogot to mention I actually went and bought a King Garage Canopy to park the car under whenever it's parked at home. And when I go to work with it I actually get to park in a parking garage, so it will not be parked in direct sunlight as much as it was before I owned it.

I will go and purchase some #7 Show car Glaze and polish with it next wash and then wax again. Should I apply the #7 by hand or use my orbital polisher?

Also I saw you quoted my #4 question but you did not provide an answer, do you have any comment for that.

I'm sorry I did not take pics before. The day before I was going to do the whole car I even taped off half of the spoiler specifically to do a side by side comparison by hand only and I was amazed at the difference, but when I woke up the next morning I was so excited to get it done that I forgot all about the pics and just got down to business.