I just spent a few hours washing the M5, followed by Meguiar's Swirl Remover 2.0 via PC on the hood, trunk, fenders and doors above the belt line. Looked SWEET. (The car has been washed by others, and had more swirls than I could tolerate), even though it doesn't show them as badly as the black car.
Anyway - I am 3/4 of the way through applying Gold Class, out in my driveway. The gardner comes through and decides since both cars are out of the garage it would be a good time to blow it out. Before I even realized what was happening and could stop him - it was too late. LOADS of dust all over the waxed but unbuffed car.: mad: Now what do I do? I'm worried that buffing off the wax is gonna scratch the crap out of it. I pulled it into the garage and blew it off with the leaf blower - but that wasn't enough.
Autopia to the rescue - I posted my plight on the Autopia detailling board - I had to wait another 30 minutes for the wax to cure anyway - and within minutes I had the right answer - wash the car again! Duh! This was the right solution - you don't lose the benefits of waxing, but it washes almost all the residue off, and of course was much safer than trying to buff it out dry.
After using my sheet/blot/microfiber-wipe drying technique, I could see a) a few spots where I hadn't actually touched the surface with the wash mit - there was a bit of cloudy gold class residue there that wiped right off) and b) that the result was a little streaky - like micro-fine swirls from the direction of my wiping. I knew this was residual wax, so I re-wiped with a clean ultimate wipe and some Final Inspection detail spray. I was ALMOST happy - but I just couldn't resist. Out came my "secret weapon" for quick detailing when spray isn't enough - Souveran. Did the whole car above the belt line (the Gold Class was already protecting everything) and buffed it out. Wash, dry, spray, wax, buff - took only 20 minutes! I was indeed sweating! But nothing goes on and comes off like that stuff if you're in a hurry. Hard to say if there is a difference on the anthracite between the souveran and the gold class - it MAY have a tiny advantage. Most importantly it did get rid of that streaking.
Anyway - I'm really psyched - because I ended up doing a lot more than I intended, and the car looks great. ( I WAS going to wash, swirl-remove the hood, wax the hood and be done.) And I got a good workout besides
SO - here are some pics:
I notice the second to last picture really shows the orange peel. It DOES have orange peel, but it ain't that bad! Honest!
)
Linear Mode
