Preparing black car for sale?

[wmphipps]

I want to sell my 19 year old Nissan Z and could use some advice on getting it looking its best. I do not want to get into polishing and leveling the paint. It has the original black metallic paint that looks good for its age but has some swirl marks that only show up in bright sun. Can I fill in those swirls and make the paint pop and keep it looking good through the sale period without making it a full time job? Any tips of any kind to ready a car for sale will be most welcome.

[Robby144]

Re: Preparing black car for sale?

I think the best route for you to take in your situation would be: A good washing, then claying the car afterwards, then giving it a coat of cleaner wax, then a coat of NXT 2.0 wax.

The clay will "dig out" some bonded contaminants and will dramatically improve the smoothness and shine of the paint, especially on a black car.

The cleaner wax will take care of the really light scratches in the paint as well as any light oxidation that every paint has.

Finally, if you want to, the NXT 2.0 Tech wax to top it all off for an awesome shine. Personally I favor the liquid wax rather than the paste.

These products are readily available at any Kragen, Pepboys, Autozone stores. I would recommend using an orbital buffer like this, because it will make the job of applying and removing (buffing) the wax much much easier and faster. Unfortunately all of this will take quite a bit of effort, about 5 or so hours worth. (I'm just guesstimating) However I must stress that this is all based on my experience and nothing else. I do hope I've helped at least a tiny bit. Good luck with your sale!

[Murr1525]

Re: Preparing black car for sale?

Yeah, clay then Cleaner/Wax is certainly good. Following up with Nxt 2.0 might hide some more of the swirls.

[akimel]

Re: Preparing black car for sale?

Wash + clay + ColorX + NXT would be an excellent process. ColorX should be more effective in removing light swirls than Cleaner Wax, and many have noted that NXT does have some swirl-hiding capabilities.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Preparing black car for sale?

One of my friends has a 2002 Black Jaguar that he wants to sell and asked for my recommendations, I said how a car looks is very important to most people looking to buy a car, at the same time looking good and looking read for display at a car show are two different things.

He didn't want to become a professional detailer just to get the car ready to sell, he just wanted to maximize it's appearance in simple but effective way. Here's the suggestions with this in mind,

• Wash car
• Clay car with Meguiar's Smooth Surface Clay Kit
• Wax car with NXT Tech Wax 2.0
• Dress tires

My friend called me back and said the above products and process got the car looking like it did when it was new and now he doesn't want to sell it.

If you're going to sell the car, just doing a really GREAT job of washing thoroughly so the fender-lips, wheels, tires bumpers, grill, etc are spic and span clean and then clay and wax the paint, dress the tires, vacuum the interior and wipe the glass clean will pretty much do as much to sell your car as investing hours and even days polishing the paint to perfection AND doing all those other things.

• Claying will make the paint smooth which will create gloss.
• Waxing with NXT Tech Wax 2.0 will restore a beautiful shine and mask many of the shallow swirls.

Considering the average person doesn't know swirls are, (they often think that's how the paint is suppose to look), keeping it simple like outlined above will help you to sell your car without having to become a Professional Detailer and investing hours and even days into getting the car ready for presentation.

If you want to do more we can help you with this also but seriously, the above will work on about 90% of all the cars being put up for sale while keeping your investment in time and money to a minimum while still getting fantastic results.

[blackmachdown]

Re: Preparing black car for sale?

This is what's worked for me in the past but YMMV
1. wash car with good soap (nxt/goldclass)
2. clay
3. cleaner wax (colorx/cleanerwax etc)
4. wax (26/nxt/goldclass/16 whatever)
5. shine tires
6. vacuum interior, dress plastics, clean windows

if you want to wow them...
clean engine and dress engine
use megs #7 after cleaner wax to get the most gloss
and quick detailer quick detailer quick detailer

and best of all, in the passenger seat leave ALL the maintenance records you have! that alone has sold so many of my cars

[Tuck91]

Re: Preparing black car for sale?

i felt really bad when i detailed a 2003 Dodge Intrepid and all i had time for was a wash with GC Shampoo, Smooth Surface Clay kit, and DC3 and Hot Shine on the tires and the owner was blown away. He said his car never looked that good and i thought it looked bad because it could have been de swirled and the paint could be taken to the next level. But he thought swirls were meant to be in the car and said "you can actually remove those" He ended up selling the car the next month and im supposed to detail his new Chevy Equinox soon