TIL a detailer in Austin told me to use a clay bar on fresh clear coat before polishing, not after.

4 comments

4 Comments

Wait that sounds backwards as hell lol. Clay bar is for pulling out stuff stuck in the paint, like tree sap or rail dust. If the clear coat is fresh and clean, you're just putting swirls in it for no reason. That's like washing a brand new shirt with sandpaper before you even wear it.

claire_young761mo ago

Pretty much this. I've done it myself actually, learned the hard way on a car I'd just detailed. Spent way too long claying paint that didn't need it, then spent even longer trying to buff out the haze. Never again.

hayden_craig952mo ago

Exactly, that's the whole point @smith.nancy. My neighbor did this to his brand new truck last week, spent three hours claying a perfect finish. Now it looks like he drove it through a car wash made of steel wool. Some people just love creating extra work for themselves.

ivan7742mo ago

Holy cow, that advice is genuinely terrible. A clay bar is an abrasive, it literally scrapes stuff off the surface. Using it on perfect paint just puts fine scratches everywhere (which is what those swirls are). You'd then have to do a full polish to fix the damage you just caused for zero reason. That detailer is giving out the exact opposite of good information.