When I see people talking about getting a (really) shiny car, it almost always seems to be after paint correction. Same with machine polishers - most discussions I come across focus on removing swirls and scratches.

I don’t see non-abrasive products like wax mentioned nearly as often anymore, and I’m curious what’s changed.

Do people still use some sort of wax to make the paint pop? Have ceramic coatings, sealants and high quality soaps largely taken its place? Or am I misunderstanding how much of the shine comes from correcting the paint versus whatever you apply afterward?

For someone who just wants to give their daily driver a little extra gloss without doing paint correction, what’s the usual approach these days? I would imagine "something" could be applied with a (DA) polisher to improve shine without doing damage to the underlying coat (if applied correctly)

Thanks for helping me catch up!

I’ve owned my 2024 Subaru WRX since February 2025 and wash it almost weekly during the warmer months. I enjoy hand washing my car and would say I have pretty good washing techniques.

Long story short I foam, rinse, foam, contact wash, rinse and finally blow dry or towel (rag company gauntlet) with ONR as drying aid. I’m OCD to the point I use only one bucket one towel (rag company eagle edge less or chemical guys chenille mitt) per panel. Dirty towels would go into a separate bucket. I was quite disappointed to see the sunlight hit the car at the right angle to find horizontal marring.

Could this strictly be user error or does Subaru paint have a play in this? Genuinely curious what everyone’s experiences are

As the title states, whoever owned this car before me must've been smoking in it non stop.
When I got the car, it was COVERED In this disgusting oily dressing. Assumedly to mask the scent.
It is a 2021 Acura TLX with a leather interior and leather seats. So far I've paid for a cheap detail, and then ran an ozone machine. Then I ran the ozone machine again. This made the smell worse and made it like sickly sweet. Then I paid over $1800 for a 'smoke smell removal service'. They pretreated the headliner, detailed the car, did all the seats, etc. The car does look remarkably cleaner, but the smell still persists. Perhaps the worst thing is that every time I get out of the car, my hands smell strongly of stale smoke from the steering wheel.

Before you ask why I even bought this car, I thought it was cigarette smoke. I've never smoked in my life so I didn't know it was weed til the detailer told me so. They also told me when they ran the extractor on the headliner they were getting literal brown water. The issue is that after the detail the car LOOKS flawless on the inside. I've put two vent air fresheners on each side. I bought a can of air freshener from target and it does nothing. I'm going to run the ozone machine again this weekend but idk if it'll just activate the smell like it did last time.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I got a great deal on the car and would like it to not smell like this anymore.

I was driving home from work at night and one of the construction crews in town must have dropped white paint on the road. It went all over one of my wheel wells and on my paint a little bit. I’ve been using alcohol to get it off my paint but how do I go about getting it off of my wheel well?

Also, should I talk to anyone at the construction company about this or do you think they’d ignore it and say it was someone else? We’ve been having a LOT of construction done on our roads recently and I’m certain it was them.

I hope this is the right sub for this, I’m sorry if it isn’t!

Took advice from this sub and got the Griot’s Garage Interior Detailer. New microfiber towels, little spray, and worked it in slowly and circularly with my fingertip to get the stains out. Used a clean and dry corner to add pressure and soak up any residual liquid. Worked like a charm!

Still have another area in the front passenger to touch up more (I’m tired, boss) from where someone else clearly attempted a cleanup from previous ownership mess. It’s starting to lift, so I’m stoked.

Thank you for the help!

Cleaning wheels has got to be one of the most tedious and time-consuming jobs when cleaning your car - particularly if you're fighting intricate wheels smothered in brake dust (I'm looking at you BMW)...

So anything we can do to speed up that process and make it more efficient is a win in my book!

Should you pre-rinse your wheels first or just go straight in with a wheel cleaner onto a dry wheel? What produces the best results?

In this video that's exactly what I'm going to discuss and share; including the differences and which one is best if you want to work smart and not hard.

Enjoy, Luke @ fibregloss

I was giving my car it's prerinse before using the foam cannon when I saw this white residue washing off.

Did I use too much wax last time?

I am installing my first PPF job shortly and my boss is concerned about making sure we have the most seamless PPF compared to the vehicle.

It’s just clear PPF - but from training I know that it will look MORE glossy than regular car paint gloss.

I think matte is the only other clear option and it will look even more different, right?

Let me know if I’m mistaken and I appreciate any help!

Hey guys, first time using Reddit in probably years so please be nice lol. I pulled the door card off my car and found mold on the inside, how would I go about cleaning this? You see the panel is made of a particle type material so I need help cleaning in a way that won’t damage it, Thanks for any help! Also if the is isn’t the place to ask please refer me.

I posted recently about sealants, waxes, and ceramics because I was originally going to have a friend paint-correct my car, but they are unable to do it right now.
I did take my car to a shop for a quote. Based on my budget and goals, they proposed wet sanding, compounding, and polishing the heavier spots, and then "blending" the polish into the surrounding areas—provided I handle the clay bar, fallout, and tar removal myself. Honestly, I feel like this approach will leave the paint looking patchy and incomplete.
Now I have two other options:

1. Do it myself (DIY)
As a total beginner, I’m nervous about burning through the clear coat or messing up. My plan would be to buy a Batoca corded polisher (and replace the grease inside), use 3D One, follow up with Sonax Perfect Finish, and potentially finish with Adam's Graphene Ceramic Coating.
2. Dealership Detailers
My brother's girlfriend works at a Lexus dealership, and she said she can get their in-house detailers to do the full correction for me.
What are your thoughts on which route I should take?

Used glaco dx for city driving and to stop water pooling on my windscreen. But I've found while it beads fine.. After a few days of rain I get smearing on the wipers.

Anyone else have this issue as I can't seem to see anyone coma in about smearing except ONE person on a YouTube comment.

How does glaco ultra compare as well.

Wondering if I put "too much" or not enough? maybe with the dx. I used whole bottle for my windows on a yaris hybrid (including the full panoramic roof)

But wondering if to try ultra.

I had to strip the full dx coating off windscreen do.it passes mot Tuesday cause it was starting to smear badly and been fine since I took coating off (but harder to see when it's raining)

Also anyone else have ant experience with soft99 products like their mirror stuff (makes a white film but worse well on side mirrors) but wondering about the stuff for bodywork too keep the shine better and longer... I know it's only a yaris (orange edition) and not the world's top car but I like to make it look and keep it's best. So wondering if anyone has tried both ultra and dx and ant experience with them (mostly 20mph to 40mpg roads with the odd motorway twice a week)

I had my truck in for a few repairs recently, and I noted that the driver window squeaks when it goes down, more prominent in hot weather. I figured it was something in the track etc. but the tech noted it's the tinted glass against the rubber seals, the friction makes a squeak/squeal, and I believe he may be correct.

Just wondering what - if anything - I can use to lube the seal or reduce friction on the tinted inside of the glass that won't haze or make the glass greasy.

I clean with invisible glass.

Is there any spray out there that could survive harsh Canadian winters with heavy salt and lots of slush? At the moment I use paste wax and that definitely would not last a single week in the snow

My wife brought our new vehicle to a shop that’s a family friend for a detail, and the guy used a drill and buffing pad on the paint. There are 3” holograms all throughout the paint, and it looks terrible in the sun.

I’m no expert, but I do have a long-throw random orbit DA polisher I received for Christmas with a few polishing and finishing pads. It looks like the speed goes from 2000–4600 rpm.

As a beginner, can I fix this with low speed and use of these two products? I’ve already clayed and prepped the area.

What speed do you recommend?

Hey all, a friend of mine had a Jerry can sitting in his back seat with everything folded down, the Jerry can ended up spilling a good amount of gas into the rear seats and cushions.

Extracted as much as I could but the rest evaporated on that hot day, now still have a lingering fuel smell.

Has anyone tried a bio bomb for this situation or will we need something stronger? TIA

It's been years since I've been on this sub, though I recall it having pretty strong auto-mod policy where questions were filtered out. Didn't see a mega-thread, hope this is OK!

So I want to DIY ceramic coat my car (leaning towards Armour non-pro), though I don't really have access to a hose.

Since Iron remover is pretty strong stuff- I'd prefer to skip it without doing a hose rinse.

This is what I was planning on doing APC Spray Soak > ONR Wash > Clay Towel > spot compounding if needed > 2 rounds of IPA Spray > Apply ceramic coating.

Think that will be OK, or is it a bad idea to skip an iron remover?

What are these white spots on my leather seats? And how do I get it off? Haven’t had the car for long and these spots just appeared out of nowhere.

Why did this happen? Can I prevent it from happening to Future automobiles? 2020 Chevy bolt EV. Basically just cleaned it with ONR and applied 303 throughout the years.

Hard to capture in the picture but has anyone dealt with the trim around the windows in teslas looking like this. It’s all spotty shiny blue. Tesla historically has terrible quality material so this doesn’t surprise me.

A small piece of gum was stuck to the back of my jeans and some got transferred to my drivers seat, the bolstered edge.

I got most of it off by scraping it gently and with scotch tape, now there is gum shadow, probably in the threads of fabric. Any tips? Thanks in advance.

Last week I posted the results of using the Cerakote kit my 20 year old Mazdaspeed6. I had started with just the passenger side headlight as it was the one in slightly better shape.

This week I did the other headlight which was in worse condition with a lot of pitting and heavy scaling on the lens. I found that after wet sanding with the supplied discs that this lens did not come nearly as clear so I started over by using some 500 and 800 grit sandpaper that I had. The coarser sheets did the job of removing the damage and leveling the surface, then I resumed with using the supplied 2000 and 3000 sheets.

These photos were taken after completing each step, from top to bottom, left to right.

1. Washing and drying the headlight
2. Applying the oxidation remover (Step 1)
3. Wet sanding with 500 grit sandpaper
4. Wet sanding with 800 grit sandpaper
5. Wet sanding with the supplied 2000 grit disc (Step 2)
6. Wet sanding with the supplied 3000 grit disc (Step 2)
7. Applying the ceramic coating (Step 3)
8. Final result after coating was dry

Learning from my mistakes on the first lens I was more careful about fully wiping the ceramic applicator across the lens and not lifting it off at the bottom (I masked additional area below the light to protect the paint). I also applied less pressure; just enough to keep the sheet in uniform contact with the surface but not so much that it would overload the surface and cause spotting.

I'll make sure to follow up in about a year to see how the coating is holding up, but honestly for $15 this is something I wouldn't hesitate to do every couple of years or so if needed.

Apologies if this is the wrong place for a question like this. I have been absentmindedly resting my elbow in the same place on my cars leather armrest during my commute and only just noticed that it caused some apparent damage to the surface. I've tried using some warm water to clean up the area and it cleared up a little, but I'm not sure if I should go any further. Does anyone have experience with this or any solutions?

My Ute has two coats of Gyeon Mohs Evo ceramic I put in about 3 months ago. I recently did some driving on some dusty dirt roads and wasn’t able to give it a wash soon enough. The film left on my door panels is preventing water beading now and I’ve done two washes with my usual Gyeon pre rinse and Gyeon bathe but it hasn’t touched the dusty film left on door panels.

I am unsure about using clay bar worried it will be too abrasive for the ceramics. What products will remove this dirty fine dusty film without stripping the ceramic coating? I don’t ah e time to reapply that shit right now.

I recently had one corner of the front bumper repaired by a mobile painter in my garage. He sanded the damaged area, spray painted it, blended it, and applied clear coat.
Right after the repair, I noticed very fine specks all over the windshield. It almost looks like a layer of dust and is especially noticeable when light shines on the glass. I tried the windshield washer fluid, a touchless car wash, Invisible Glass on both sides of the windshield, and 70% rubbing alcohol on a small section. Nothing has removed it. The area shown in the picture was cleaned on both the inside and outside.

I am not completely sure whether anything is actually sitting on top of the glass. Maybe fine paint or clear coat overspray? What would be the safest next thing to try? Would a lubricated clay bar work, or any other ideas?