Okay, I'm going to pickup my new car on Monday and I want to know what are some recommendations of what I should do initially to help protect the paint from day one. I don't want to pay for the dealer "sealant" treatment but I would like to do something from the start that makes protects the paint a bit.

Thoughts?

 

www.turbowax.com

go there and buy

1 car shampoo
1 clay bar
1 pre wax
1 wax
and then their german applicator and about 4 microfiber towels

and yu will be set

TURBOWAX FTW

 

Make sure the paint is at least 6 months old before you do your first wax..

 

Ok, everybody has their own thing that they do, but I'll post mine.

I use Zaino and only Zaino. If you want your paint to look like glass then use it! www.zainostore.com.

As far as waxing and 6 months old? I've owned 10 brand new GM cars in 10 years (1 per year average) and I wax them with Zaino as soon as I get them home. I start protecting from day 1 and my 2008 H3 and my 2009 G5 GT look better than when I picked them up from the showroom floor.

 

yeah, and dont wash it for 6 months either right...?

 

Well, he's partially right. New paint does need additional time to cure. When I had my 5.0L painted back in '96, the specific instructions were to not wax it for a minimum of 3 months. Washing obviously isn't an issue.

The problem with waxing a brand new coat of paint is that the wax traps in some of the paint chemicals and doesn't allow it to the paint cure properly.

Now the paint on my car is fairly "old" as the car has a manufactured date of this past November, so I should be free and clear to do a nice waxing.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

You can wax a factory paint job the minute it comes off the assembly line. Factory paint is applied long before final assembly and the body panels are baked in an oven at very high heat. This fully cures the paint and removes any of the solvents that would otherwise need to outgas for full curing.

In the case of a repaint like Routs did with his 5.0L back in '96, you do need to let the paint fully outgas and cure, which usually takes 60-90 days. Body shops won't strip your car down to the bare shell - they leave the interior in place unless you're doing a very high end restoration on a vehicle and have stripped it to the bone. So a body shop can't bake the finish at very high heat because it would damage the plastics/vinyl/rubber, etc. And those body shops that do have an oven of some sort use much lower heat than what a factory paint department uses.

So bottom line - wax a factory paint job ASAP. Give a repaint 60-90 days before you wax it.

 

I agree with him! This guy knows what he is talking about!