Cleaning tips black car (leon fr dsg facelift 2017)

[jfellows10]

Hi,

Does anyone have any recommendations for cleaning products for my black Leon fr exterior and interior as i want to clean it myself more often, but want to avoid swirl marks and want to keep the paint protected. Is snow foam cleaning worth doing also? And any other general cleaning tips are welcome.

Cheers

 

[seatram]

No suggestions as I want tips myself, but don't you love cleaning it and then the next day it's either rained or covered in dust?

 

[SRGTD]

My tips;

1. Definitely don’t let the Seat dealer wash your car.......EVER!!
2. Avoid the many hand wash car washing places.
3. If you currently use a single bucket and sponge and wash leather for car cleaning - Stop; you need to change your washing technique.
4. Have a read of the first 2 posts in this thread over on Detailing World forum - they provide a good outline of good washing and drying techniques; https://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4637

If you’ve already got paintwork swirls, to remove them you’d need to have your car machine polished. You can hide them though if you use products that contain fillers. These need to be topped up regularly though if you want to keep that low-swirl / no-swirl look to your paintwork. If you do invest in getting your car machine polished, then IMO a good safe washing technique is a must, otherwise you’ll have wasted your money.

 

[Nathan penney]

Hi,

Does anyone have any recommendations for cleaning products for my black Leon fr exterior and interior as i want to clean it myself more often, but want to avoid swirl marks and want to keep the paint protected. Is snow foam cleaning worth doing also? And any other general cleaning tips are welcome.

Cheers

View attachment 16393

Snow foam great as a starting point as it removes loose dirt and dust, two bucket method and poor boys black hole masks all sorts of fine swirls if you haven’t got the time or patience to machine polish.
My daily Volvo V70 is black so I’m constantly trying to keep on top of that.
My Cupra is platinum grey so that’s easier to maintain. Lol

 

[Cupra622]

I use the trusty two bucket method and snow foam. I've recently started using bilt hamber products and I think they're great. They go a really long way as well. In terms on black car tips, get used to cleaning it............it will always look dirty...

 

[Jay5959]

Agree with all of the above. Always two buckets when washing, with a dirt trap/filter on your rinse bucket. Fallout remover and clay. Machine polish with a cutting compound then with a finishing polish. Seal it up, ceramic or wax. With a decent sealant the paint should be super slick and much easier to keep clean and can almost self clean (to an extent!). Black paint looks awesome but can be a pain to keep clean. Invest in some decent detailing products, it will save you time and effort in the long run. Check out the cleaning and detail forum on here, there’s some very good and in-depth posts

 

[Jay5959]

Hi,

Does anyone have any recommendations for cleaning products for my black Leon fr exterior and interior as i want to clean it myself more often, but want to avoid swirl marks and want to keep the paint protected. Is snow foam cleaning worth doing also? And any other general cleaning tips are welcome.

Cheers

View attachment 16393

Forgot to say, those wheels look great! They oem cupra wheels?

 

[ChrisM75]

Black shows every mark and scratch so the ideal is to wash as low contact as possible. Foam, rinse, then use a microfibre washmit and the 2 bucket method. Something like Optimum no rinse in the water is a good idea, its very lubricating and makes your shampoo slicker.

Another simple tip is use a waterless wash product as a QD. They usually contain a lot of filler oils, which help to hide fine scratches.

 

[jfellows10]

Forgot to say, those wheels look great! They oem cupra wheels?

They were put on by the dealer who i bought the car from, they gave me a choice of about 10 different 19" alloys to go on it within the price when i bought the car. Was a good deal and definitely looks better than the stock alloys that were on it.

 

[Jay5959]

They were put on by the dealer who i bought the car from, they gave me a choice of about 10 different 19" alloys to go on it within the price when i bought the car. Was a good deal and definitely looks better than the stock alloys that were on it.

Aye they look great and sounds like a good deal mate!

 

[Mr Pig]

It would take a lot to convince me to buy a black car. They look great, for about three seconds after you clean them!

White is the colour you would think would be the worst but it isn't. It's not bad at all. Silver hides everything, always looks clean, but near impossible to paint.

 

[ChrisM75]

Agreed. Even if a black car isnt scratched or swirled it still shows everything. I park under a tree at home and work is super dusty, not only wouldn't I be able to prevent swirls but also the car would always look dirty. Magnetic Grey is bad enough.

 

[SteveW]

Most has already been said, but I do use a chamois and always have done for over 30 years of cleaning cars! So rather than repeat the good suggestions here (like two buckets etc), I'll add some of my own....

NEVER, EVER wash in direct sunlight or when the bodywork is hot to touch
Don't be tempted to add too much shampoo to the water just to make it more foamy - it just ends up leaving streaks on the car.
When you dry the car, try to dry in one direction if using a chamois or similar (rather than round in circles) - or pat it dry if you're using a big microfibre type towel to dry.

Once fully dry, an extra five/ten minutes work with a quick detailer spray (like Autoglym rapid detailer for example) makes a massive difference to the final appearance in my opinion.

I've also got a California Car Duster that I use to go over the car to prevent dust build up between washes - if you choose to use one, just remember to user barely any pressure and just let it glide over the paintwork and you won't do any damage (in my experience)

Black cars look amazing when clean, and when polished properly - but yes they are very high maintenance

I've not had my Leon a month yet, but have already clayed it, and given it a coat of Autoglym Super Resin Polish and Extra Gloss protection. It's already looking better than it was when I bought it from the dealer......

(not the best pic location I know, but it does show the shine I've got on it so far )

 

[SRGTD]

It would take a lot to convince me to buy a black car. They look great, for about three seconds after you clean them!

White is the colour you would think would be the worst but it isn't. It's not bad at all. Silver hides everything, always looks clean, but near impossible to paint.

I’ve owned more than my fair share of black cars, and they are a labour of love and agree, that ‘just cleaned’ look is very short lived.

My next car will very likely be white as it’s one of the easiest colours to maintain from a washing / cleaning perspective, and it hides swirl marks well if you’re time poor and can’t devote much time to keeping the paintwork in tip top condition.

Agree that silver is good for hiding dirt, but the fact that it’s probably one of the most difficult colours (along with some other light metallic colours) to match if you need paintwork repairs, I’d never own a silver coloured car, as my car OCD couldn’t handle driving around in a repaired / repainted silver car with the bodywork in many different shades of silver! It shouldn’t really be such an issue these days with modern spectrophotometer paint matching technology. However, I’m not prepared to take that risk.

An important consideration for me when buying a car is the risk of a poor paintwork colour / shade match if repairs are ever needed. If I consider a particular colour to carry I high risk, then I wouldn’t buy a car in that colour.

 

[ChrisM75]

There are a few interesting products you can use if you have swirls and cant do a full machine polish.

CarPro Essence Plus is a ceramic coating repair product, but it can be used on its own. It helps fill swirls really well and gives a medium hardness ceramic coating of its own. Warning though, its must be the plus version, as normal essence is an abrasive polish.

The other is Bilt Hamber Autobalm. Its a wax with fillers and really works well. Its designed to fill swirls on older less cared for paint, but does the job at any age.

 

[Legojon]

NEVER, EVER wash in direct sunlight or when the bodywork is hot to touch

Can I add onto that... do a panel at a time! When I first got my Black FR+, I washed it on a hot summers day, used SRP and then applied wax to every panel. As you can imagine... when I came to remove all that wax, it took me hours and my arm near dropped off!

 

[Big Col]

as has been mentioned to avoid the swirls, 2 bucket method, snow foam, etc

the 2 products that served me well on my black leon were poorboys black hole and poorboys wax.

Poorboy’s World Black Hole (3 Sizes) - Poorboy's World

Poorboy’s Black Hole is a show glaze for dark coloured cars, boosting shine, gloss and slickness. It hides light swirl marks & leaves a jaw-dropping finish.

www.poorboysworld.co.uk

Poorboy’s World Natty’s Black Paste Wax - Poorboy's World

Poorboy’s Natty’s Black Paste Wax is a carnauba wax that protects and adds shine to all dark coloured finishes and is truly exceptional on black paint.

www.poorboysworld.co.uk

wash > clay bar > wash > black hole > wax

 

[CalJames]

wash > clay bar > wash > black hole > wax

Don't do this.
You never want to clay a car unless you'll be doing some form of machine polishing.
Claying leaves some unpleasant marks on your paintwork.

 

[Big Col]

Don't do this.
You never want to clay a car unless you'll be doing some form of machine polishing.
Claying leaves some unpleasant marks on your paintwork.

we'll agree to disagree on this then,

 

[SRGTD]

Don't do this.
You never want to clay a car unless you'll be doing some form of machine polishing.
Claying leaves some unpleasant marks on your paintwork.

Yes, you can easily inflict marring to the paintwork if you don’t keep the body panels well lubricated when using a clay bar. The first time I clayed a car, i got marring to some areas of the paintwork due to inadequate wetting of the panels (I use quick detailer as a lubricant). Lesson learned, and it didn’t really matter on this occasion as I was claying my car prior to machine polishing it. Also, clay bars come in different grades of aggressiveness to cope with different levels of embedded contaminants in the paintwork, and I’d recommend using the least aggressive one you can get away with to minimise the risk of marring damage.

I've found it isn’t always necessary to clay the paintwork to remove embedded contaminants though - sometimes you can get away with using an iron fallout remover and a tar and glue remover and there’s much less risk of damage to the paintwork. A good check to see if all the contaminants have been removed after using iron fallout remover and tar remover products is to use one of those thin plastic sandwich bags; use the bag like a glove and run your bagged hand over the paintwork. If it glides smoothly then IMO there’s no need to carry out the claying stage.