Ready for Sunday’s meet

On Sunday, I’m heading down to Portsmouth for the Modified Madness show with Astra Owners Network. Although we’re not actually having a club stand, because we couldn’t get enough people (It’s not easy as RO trying to get people to come ), I decided to shine up the car. I think we might go and have a group photoshoot somewhere local afterwards with those who do turn up, and so far I know at least 5 of us are going

Seeing as we’re currently on level 2 Heatwave alert, and feeling it, I decided to clean the car last night while it was cooling down, instead of waiting until today where I’d have more time but it would be hotter… So here is my army:

To name everything from left to right… Zymöl Cleaners Wax, Zymöl Natural Shampoo, Carplan Demon Shine, Autoglym Car Glass Polish, Autoglym Instant Tyre Dressing, Autoglym Clean Wheels, Autoglym Super Resin Polish & Meguiars Smooth Surface Clay Kit. Behind is a Turtlewax Microfibre wash mit & two buckets. I also used a Turtlewax wheel brush, some Autoglym Perfect Polishing Cloths and a few microfibre towels.

So here is what it looked like before:

I rinsed it off with a pressure washer to get most of the crap off… I then attacked the wheels with the Autoglym Clean Wheels & a Turtlewax wheel brush, working one wheel at a time. Shampoo’d the bodywork using the Zymöl Natural Shampoo using the two bucket method & the Turtlewax wash mitt. After each panel, rinsed it down with the hose, then dried it off using the Carplan Demon Shine & a microfibre towel. Once I’d done all that, another microfibre towel came out with the Meguiars Smooth Surface clay kit. Clayed the whole car, then moved onto the tyre dressing. Sprayed the Autoglym Instant Tyre Dressing onto each wheel one at a time, left for about 30 seconds, then wiped off using a microfibre towel. Out comes an Autoglym Perfect Polishing cloth, the Autoglym Car Glass Polish & the Autoglym Super Resin Polish. Started with the lights & windows, then moved onto the bodywork. Coated the whole car and allowed it to dry to a haze before buffing off again with another microfibre towel. Once that was done, coated the whole car with the Zymöl Cleaners Wax. I love the smell of this stuff, its got things like banana and coconut extract in it. Again, left that to dry to a haze before buffing off again with a microfibre towel.

At this point, it was now 10pm and getting dark, but I was happy. The first time I cleaned this car, I used the sampler of Meguiars Cleaners Wax that came with the Smooth Surface clay kit and I thought it was good, but this paint colour didn’t show up as well as the black did. After using the Zymöl Cleaners Wax again (which is the best wax I’d used on the black Astra), I was shown that it wasn’t the paint colour letting it down. It came out absolutely stunning like the black one used to, so I can safely say that I’m not impressed by the Meguiars Cleaners Wax, and for now will be sticking to the Zymöl stuff. I really would like to try out some of this Dodo Juice stuff that everyone raves about though… but I can’t really afford to be buying wax that expensive at the moment!

So here is the result of all that hard work:

I’m umming and arring whether I should clean the interior today. I haven’t cleaned the interior since I bought this Astra, but it’s not actually that bad. We’ve not really had that much wet weather since I bought it (In fact, I don’t think we’ve had any), so I’ve not really dragged in any wet or muddy stuff… so it’s just ground dust hanging around in the foot wells and maybe a few crumbs here and there from the odd lunch or two… so in this heat (It’s about 31ºc outside right now), I’m not sure I can be bothered.

Roll on 7am tomorrow though when I’ll be off to Portsmouth for this show!