My sister-in-law's niece's boyfriend used to detail cars for a living and now works for GM so I picked his brain at dinner. He says that "The Protector" and similar products last significantly longer than wax and produce an incredibly smooth non-stick surface, but the existing coat of wax must be stripped prior to application so the Teflon can chemically bond to the clearcoat.
He told me to go ahead and apply it as I would wax and it should work well. He recommends a 3M paste wax as a base and Black Magic as a finish wax. He also likes Meguir's clay bar systems. Something I never really thought of that he said is very important is waxing the door frames.
BrendonR wrote:
RPM - what claybar system did you use? How'd you find it (easy/hard)? worth the time spent?[/u]
I used the Mother's clay bar system. It took all darn day, but my paint looks and feels amazing. It isn't difficult, but it is very time consuming and you need to be somewhat careful.
I washed my Jeep very thoroughly and completely before I began. I worked in small sections, spraying the area with the lubricant, lightly running the clay over the paint, and then polishing with a micro-fiber towel. You can actually feel the clay picking up the contaminants. As Tools said, particles picked up by the clay can potentially scratch the paint so I kneaded the clay after each section to keep the rubbing surface as clean as possible. Also, friction is bad, so keep her lubed up for the smooth slidin'.
I have a tree over my driveway that sprinkled some sandpaper-like grit over my entire Jeep and left my paint feeling rough even after washing. The clay bar made it feel smoother than the day I bought it and it looks great. I am pretty pleased with the results and will be claybarring my Jeep again in the future.