I orginally wrote this in another thread, and decided to post it as a how-to for anyone searching in the future.

Clay bar'ing your car is one of the best and most important steps in detailing your car to a show car shine.

I prefer the Mothers clay bar kit as the meguiars clay is a little too hard for my liking.

To properly clay bar your car:

Rinse your car off thoroughly to remove any loose dirt.
Wash your car thoroughly with a MICROFIBER wash mit. Remember, if Microfiber touches the ground, its useless, get a new mit at that point.
Rinse off your car.
Take your Mothers clay bar and work it in your hand to soften it up and get a good surface area.
Spray the 2x2 area of paint you are going to claybar with an instant detailer. (One should be provided for you in the kit.)
OPTIONAL: take your fingers and run it along the paint that you just sprayed with instant detailer, you will feel lots of tiny little bumps. Those bumps are dirt and grime that have adhered themselves to the clear coat.
Gentley rub the clay bar against the paint, it doesnt take a whole lot of finesse and you arent trying to buff the paint either, just nice and easy run the clay bar over the 2x2 area.
Keep spraying the area if it begins to dry, a dry claybar can damage your paint.
Run your fingers back over the paint, this time you should feel NO small bumps at all.
Spray with instant detailer again and wipe clean with a soft microfiber.
Check the claybar for any dirt or particles that it picked up, and work that surface back into the clay to provide you with a fresh clean clay bar surface for the next 2x2 patch.
IF YOUR CLAY BAR TOUCHES THE GROUND, IT IS DONE, THROW IT OUT.
IF YOUR CLAY BAR CAN NO LONGER BE WORKED TO PROVIDE A FRESH CLEAN SURFACE, ITS DONE.
Once you have done this over the entire car, you will want to wash your car again to remove any remaining clay or residue.

OLD CLAY: For clay bars that have outlived their usefulness, they arent done just yet. You can use your old claybars to help pull brake dust and road contaminents off of your finished wheels. To do this, you don't want to use instant detailer on your wheels, a lot of them contain alcohol which isnt great for some wheels finishes.

Detailing your wheels with old clay-bars:
Spray down your wheels to remove any loose dirt and grime, the more you can remove without touching the wheels, the better.
Fill a bucket with soap and water, LOTS of soap, as this is your lubricant for the clay.
Fill a second bucket as a rinse bucket, so you can keep your soapy water a little less dirty.
Work the claybar to provide you the best, cleanest surface possible
Dunk it in the soapy water and gently rub it over the surface of the wheel.
When the area is sufficiently clean, dunk your claybar in the rinse bucket and work it under the water to reveal a new clean surface.
Dunk it back in the soapy water and repeat.
Be mindful of any chunks that get in the clay bar, pick those out, you do not want to scratch your wheel by dragging a chunk across the finish.
When done, rinse, and use a wash mit to remove any excess clay from the surface of the wheel.
Sit back and admire your shiny new wheels:
For an extra showcar shine, apply a layer of quality carnauba wax to the wheels, using a lambs wool terry to remove it. Feel free to apply multiple coats for even more gloss. The wax will help protect the wheel as well.

Optional: I like to spray my dry, newly cleaned wheels with something like "armorall wheel protectant" which will prevent grime and dust from clinging to the wheels but will dull the carnauba shine just a little bit.

 

Awesome post man, I need to do this one of these weekends.

 

Add to this, you NEED to wax the car after. If not, it leaves pores in the paint, and can cause damage.

 

Sub'd

 

i need to clay bar my car pretty bad also, might do it one of these up coming weekends if its nice outside

 

i claybarred my car and it worked AMAZINGGG!

 

I clay mine about once a month and wax ever other time I clay bar. I would suggest do your windows with clay bar as well. It works great. My car barely gets dirty even when it rains


Try Griots Garage products. They are awsome. I used to use the Mothers or meguiars until I found Griots.

 

You can use car wash soap and a mitt to lubricate the panels. Better than burning a bottle or two of quick detailer.

 

nice post, i did this a few years back on my monte carlo... used too much pressure (no problems though) and now ive learned a thing or two!

 

would spray wax suffice here?

 

like pretty much "re-soaping" the car?
ive never done this before.. so im trying to learn something lol

 

I'd say you'll be ok for a little while, but I'd still get some real wax on there as soon as you get time. Clay blocking has sorta the same effect as dumping kerosine or something like that on the car, it strips off any wax or real coating the paint might have had on it, so it's left unprotected.

 

awesome! great info!

 

Don't know what you mean by resoaping, but as what the soap works for when claying the car is that it creates a slippery surface on the paint. you do NOT want the clay to "grab" the paint, it'll scratch it up big time.


Also, make SURE you do this in a cool, shaded area. a lot of heat will dry out your lubricant really quickly.

 

lol i mean like.. when u first wash a car
you rinse, then take your mit and soap it up

are you doing the same action minus the pre rinsing?

 

ya that's what you'd do. Just make sure the area is wet and covered in soapy water.

 

also after you clay it when you go to wax it the wax is so easy to rub off cause the paint is so smooth! makes waxing go by much faster and the cars paint looks like a pool of water.

 

i wound up doing this last week, worked out fantastically. YOU DO NEED TO WAX AFTERWARDS though. i know, it doesn't say it on the box, but basically, when you clay bar, you take off a little bit of clearcoat along with the other crap, so waxing is necessary. besides, when you're done waxing, the car looks twice as sexy than just claybar or wax alone. glasssss. ******* makes ur hand tired after while though, washing, washing thouroughly, drying completely, claybaring, wax on, wax off... then a quick detailer just because... not the type of job for those with weak wrists. only hours of soft masturbation can prepare you for this task.

 

what i think he meant did not pertain to washing the car. wash the car as you normally would, just very thouroughly.

what he was talking about there, though, was to use soapy water IF you run out of quick detailer (the bottles really small usually and can't finish the whole car ) so u just use soap water instead and it works the same way. if u clay bar and ur car is dry as u go over it, you could f **** up

 

any pics of the finished product

 

^ im doing mine tonight. i'll try to upload some tomorrow.

 

here's a few from when i washed clayed and waxed mine a few weeks ago. Repainted the rims with a little better preporation this time and also thicker coats of black and clear. no chips yet

 

Clay bar doesn't remove clear. It removes whats ON the clear. That would include rust spots, road grit/grime, bug guts, wax, etc.

As an alternative to using a bottle of quick detailer as the lubricant for the clay, you can use car wash soap. This would mean that after you wash the car initially, then rinse it clean, you would soap each panel again to lubricate the panel for the clay. Just make sure you're soaping the panel frequently so the clay doesn't grab.

You should always wax the vehicle after it has been clayed. A sealant would be good, or something like Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax 2.0 that is a good 1 step wax that will last a while. Alternatively, you can do a full buff and polish afterwards. Just remember that clay barring the car prepares the surface for the buffing/waxing you are about to do, rather than just buffing/waxing onto dirt and debris.