I <3 car wax

[torquill]

It's something that would normally go to lily (there's an -antirant discussion there) but I wanted to go into a little more detail than that.

Specifically, I love the effect that properly applied wax has to my car's paint. Oh, sure, it makes it shiny, and spiffs up even her miserable paint job. There's more to it than that. Protection from sun is good too -- might as well preserve what remains of the lovely red enamel as long as possible.

What I really love is how easy it makes it to get my car clean. I washed and dried my Honda sedan in a half hour today, even with all of the walnut hulls on it. Squirrels sit over my car and drop the green husks of the black walnuts on the trunk and back window, leaving greasy black smears that mate to the clearcoat and take hours to scrub off. I'm not exaggerating; it has taken me two and a half hours in previous years to get the marks off the trunk and bumper, using soap, alcohol, and god knows what else.

Then I discovered that if Gwen has been waxed, the smears Just Come Off. One pass with the sponge to wet them down. Another pass to wipe them off. That's it, that's all. I always felt rather silly about waxing a paint job that has more dings and bubbles than a Lawrence Welk episode... I never knew it could protect the paint from more than sun damage and the occasional bird splat.

I need to re-wax things now (that requires picking up more Turtle Wax from the store) but I currently have a temporary cloth cover in place to keep the husks off. Waxing is definitely worth the small effort involved, especially since I like the look anyway.

Comments

[packy.livejournal.com]

ranttalk;Cool. I should wax my car more often, too.