Nice looking truck... I cleaned up my '07 this evening after installing new tires.

They always look great for an hour or two and then the pollen or dust or bugs or sap or birds or kids or grass or pets or...

Congrats on 31 years.

James

 

how do you like it? Does yours have the heater?

 

I hate those towels and wouldn't recommend them to anyone

 

They're the only towel I've used so far that doesn't streak. I like them.

 

So as long as it doesn't streak it is ok if it scratches the crap out of your paint?

If you use these towels, use them for blotting only do not rub your paint with them.

 

It hasn't put any scratches in my paint so far. I bought it because it was recommended by Detailer's Domain on here...what did scratch my paint was everything else I've tried...the absorber is terrible.

 

Do you use a Brinkman or SunGun to look at your paint? Use that towel a few times and post a photo...it won't look like this.

 

I've used it three times now with no scratching. I make sure it's a clean truck before I dry it, and the wife's washed the towel.

What about a microfiber towel is going to scratch that a microfiber used for buffing wax doesn't?

I have another in my big box, a "Armor All" orange microfiber towel. Never used it yet though.

 

Why would you be drying a dirty surface?

Not to pick your post apart but just know this, here are many, many, many better choices of MFs over waffle weave towels. Those listed in this thread have to be some of the lowest quality products on the market. If this is your choice, you would be better served going to Kohls and picking up some nice bath towels made from a mf/poly blend. They will both do the job and I'll bet the Kohls bath towels will marr less those Waffle Weaves in this thread.

Just my .02 on it.

 

I'm the one who started the thread, and this is the first waffle weave micro fiber towel I've used. I mentioned the clean part because of this talk of scratches. If it's clean, and if the WWMF towel is clean, what is there in the towel that will scratch the paint ... that a microfiber polishing cloth doesn't have?

Are you saying a regular MF is better than a WWMF?

Another poster mentioned Detailer's Domain. I looked, and sure enough, they do recommend waffle weave micro fiber towels for drying ... only it's theirs which looks pretty simular to me.

Looking through websites, seems the WWMF is intended ... to dry car's that are painted?

Have you used one of the towels I showed in the picture, or even just looked at one in person?

I'm just asking 'cause I'm always willing to learn.

 

Thanks on both counts. It sure passed by fast it seems, hoping for 31 more.

I live a couple hundred yards from interstate, they are adding a third lane, cutting the third lane into a bank all the way up the hill. The wind brings these big brown or tan clouds right to me. They say they'll be done in 2011.

Shucks.

 

We're all hear to learn and part of that process sometimes is a painful one learning the hard way that one method isn't always the best granted the intentions are high. Tried and True methods in detailing always seem to bubble to the top as better. I have a 20 or so various waffle weaves i could give you for free, I use them now for cleaning glass or grease off my floor. Not kidding, they NEVER touch my paint or a customers paint....I won't even use them to dry before a correction detail so I don't have to do yet even more correction.

Have i used waffle weaves. Sure have but never again, not even for blotting dry. There are better methods of drying but often times those methods do come at a price.

To make this easier to comprehend, just understand that the quality of MF's out there gives you many choices that are 100% better than what you have chosen to dry your truck with.

Proper washing and drying techniques are essential to keeping your finish looking good. With my personal trucks, i can go 20-50 washes before I need only "minor" correction on my paint. With those WW's in this thread, cut that number down to about 2 or 3. My trucks are washed weekly and some of those times are an ONR bath and dry...still I don't have to do much correction or polish to my paints to keep them looking as they are now.

As for Detailers Domain, those guys are good, but I can tell you with much confidence, they don't use those towels on a car they have already corrected unless they are going to recorrect what the owner puts back on the surface.

I don't always break out my best MF's to dry a car I am about to correct either, there isn't much reason if the condition of the surface is already bad. But still, I find the WW just too harsh even for drying.

I would be willing to bet your surface is littered with straight line marring and micro marring already from those waffle weaves but you don't see them its bc you are looking at your paint in the shade or by reflection....throw some halogens on the doors or a brinkman or sun gun or even in direct sunlight, take some close ups and you will chit your paints.

Let me show you an example.

This paint looks great right?


Nice gloss, nice color, nice reflection. Dried with Cotton towels.

Taken out of the shade, here is what you get.



Under a halogen light...now it starts to get real



It may appear now it is getting better...nope, still jacked up



Now it looks perfect right?



Nope, not yet, still marred as hell.

Now we are getting somewhere.



More correction....



Finally Corrected



And my money shot.....wait for it....




I am just a dude around here. But if you want your paint to look like this, ditch those Waffle Weaves.

 

What you need to know is that all microfibre towels are not the same quality. Just because it is a WWMF towel from the auto store doesn't make it the same as getting a high quality one from a detailer site. For example, a 5.4 oz. cotton t-shirt will not feel the same as a 6.1 oz cotton t-shirt. They are both t-shirts but your body sure will know the difference when you wear each of them.

Also keep in mind, most of the detailers are insanely perfectionist aficando's. I'm about 80% there, so anything less than optimum is not really a detailer's game. If nothing else, at least you are now aware to look for any marring. If you move forward getting better towels, keep the ones you have, they'll work great for door jambs, etc.

 

as several have mentioned. There are various levels of quality in MF towels, just like there is in anything else.

the towels that are available for purchase from retail outlets (costoc, Sams, wal mart, Autozone, etc) are not high enough quality for those of us that are extremely careful about what we let touch our paint.

something to remember .. every time you touch your paint, you are either protecting it, repairing it, or damaging it. Drying falls into the damaging category, so you should do everything you can to minimize that damage.

 

Well, that's certainly an excellent reminder of why I have owned only one black vehicle and likely will never own another.

Those marks look curved to me. Looks like the time I took a car to a local body shop to fix some paint and to detail the rest of it, when I got it back I was livid .... swirl marks and stuff like that and even some scuffs where hose or cords were drug across it. Took it back and got the owner out there to look at it .... he apologized profusely and they made it right.

Thanks for the post of details and photos, I know it took time and thought. I gotta say that car looked bad before you repaired it, but black is like that.

Excellent work.

Reminds me of last August when I was truck hunting and saw one that looked nice from the road, was an '06 just like my '07 except imagine the red is black. Looked great from the road, really pretty, until we turned around and went back and looked closer.

Looked like that car, maybe even worse ..... it was just horrible.

I understand that the finish starts degrading once it's applied and dried/cured. It faces a tough life on the road, bugs, dirt, sand, grime, acidic rain followed by sun, and that it starts picking up fine scratches ... as well as accumulating water spots.

We can clean a finish, but the scratches remain unless we remove the paint surounding the scratches. We can remove some paint to make them shallower, and we can apply waxes to fill them to one level with a good waxing ... but wax is softer than paint.

There are some coatings that may be harder, but they depend on the paint. I like Liquid Glass myself. But even it needs replinishing.

Eventually, we wash the wax / etc off and there's that paint that shows it's age ... so we wax/etc again.

I know from over 40 years of washing and waxing that it's never ending, that wax scratches from any particles in a wrag that touches it, and that any paint job robbed of a wax job will show scratches accumulated from life "out there". I knew it that day in 1973 when I told that lovely lass with the beautiful butt to get it off my car's hood ... my loss maybe ... but then, maybe saved myself a life of grief (she wouldn't go out with me again)?

You polished the scratches out by taking off paint and it looks great, you applied a wax or some sort of sealer to protect it ... but as sure as the sun comes up again, the paint and the wax or sealer you applied are gonna pick up scratches ... and black will show them in all their glory ... unless that car stays locked away in a dark room.

Anyway, I'll watch for signs of scratches, but I can't see any yet.