- Hometown Hero wrote:
- Anyone familiar with this process or even ever had it done? I had a gentlemen come in the other day who just had his car done and it looked freakin amazing!!! Just curious on any1 elses personal take on it.
Incase you aren't familiar this is the claim.
Ming's secret formula is applied once re-structuring and sealing all painted surfaces.
Stops paint from fading and oxidizing.
Protects against the sun's damaging UV rays.
Locks in the shine, maintains that new car look.
Protection from road grime, rain and atmospheric pollutants.
No need for waxing and polishing.
Fewer and Easier Washes.
Easier color matching for any touch-ups or body work.
Retains greater resale value
Sorry, but it sounds like Snake Oil to me.
As you know, the car has paint applied to the surface and then clearcoat.
All you have to do is properly CLEAN the clear coat with a good hand wash and then perform a clay bar treatment to the clear and you will have removed all the possible dirt in / on the clear coat.
Then apply the wax of your choice.
I have simplified it somewhat, because if your paint still has a good thickness of clearcoat on it your going to get good results with a clay bar and wax.
To comment on the guys car you looked at that had an excellent job done by this Ming's Special Formula, he probably had a great finish to start with, was just dirty into the pores of the clearcoat before treatment.
Those are the people that will claim they have never had the car look so good. Because they let the clearcoat get very dirty or they are thin on clearcoat and the product was able to clean up the paint and clearcoat at the same time.
We always refer to cleaning the paint, when in reality we are cleaning the clearcoat as it is a mil or two thick and attached to the paint surface.
If you clean the clear and clay bar it, you will have removed all dirt down to the microscopic level and then apply wax and buff to a nice shine and you will have as nice a finish if not better than the car you saw.
Takes some elbow grease and technique using the clay bar but nothing beyond the average joe's capability. You don't need to bring it to a Detailer for that kind of job, unless your like me and cannot use my back to do anything remotely close to applying wax even.
But, you do want to be sure if you bring it to a detail shop, that they don't use a high speed buffer year after year, as it will remove some clearcoat if they aren't careful. My experience with most shops is they aren't careful with the buffer until they start to see COLOR, then it's too late.
By that time they have penetrated the clearcoat and are buffing the paint and it's all downhill from there.
The moral of the story is, you will do your wallet and your cars finish a favor and learn how to do it yourself. At least any mistakes can be blamed on you. J/K
You have a 100% less chance of hurting the cars finish if you do all the work by hand and you will end up with a better appearing car than the Snake Oil salesman or the so called $200.00 Detail shops.
Just a bit of info from my experience of not being able to do my own car anymore and the frustration of being at the mercy of these high priced hacks.
At the rate I am going, I will need to bring my car in the Body Shop within 2 years just to have the clear coat re-applied after some normal defects are taken care of.
I pay someone annually to do a detail job and am never satisfied as I think they are too aggressive with the paint/clear coat.
I also try to bring it to my Body Shop for repair of door dings (hospital parking garage) and any other defects to be fixed before it gets out of hand.
These visits aren't cheap, but i have no other recourse to keep the car like new or at least nice enough to keep.
Just my $0.02
Rick
