Meguiar's Clay Kit will bring back the luster of your car's paint job!

I purchased my 1995 Mustang GT from a used car lot in 1997 and put 50,000 miles on it from 1997 to 2000. After 2000 it was no longer my daily driver and I only drove it in the summer months garaging it in the winter. My 1995 Mustang GT has seen many an Ohio winter during it's liftime and additionally it has been ungaraged for a good part of its life. This has left the paintjob rough to the touch and left swirl marks when I would try to wax it. My Mustang is in better shape then the one in the picture and no amount of claying is going to help this car!

I was skeptical at first. A under 20 dollar Smooth Surface Clay Kit from Meguiars was going to restore the exterior paint after over 10 years of being out in the elements. But at this point I had nothing to loose.

I thoroughly washed my Mustang to remove all of the loose debris then pulled the car into my garage. I used the Meguiar's Deep Crystal Car Wash and dried the car with Meguiar's Microfiber towels.

I then opened the Meguiars Smooth Surface Clay Kit. The Clay Kit includes: two 50 gram clay bars, individually wrapped & in a moisture-seal case, Quik Detailer for use as a clay lubricant, Cleaner Wax sample & Meguiar's Supreme Shine Microfiber Towel.

I always recommend trying a new car product that you never used before on an inconspicuous spot first. If the product causes an undesired effect on your paint job it will be less noticeable. On my Mustang I choose an area on the front fender below the Mustang GT emblem. I know that this area of the car reflects down so if the product did not produce the desired effect on the paint job it would not be very noticeable.

According to the box, the Meguiar's Smooth Surface Clay Kit "removes above surface contaminants" and is non-abrasive so you don't have to worry about taking off the clear coat and exposing the color coat of paint on your car. Per the instructions, you spray Quik Detailer on the surface then rub the area with the included microfiber towel until dry. Then you spray some Quik Detailer on the spot again and work the clay bar back and forth along the surface. I was amazed how dirty the clay was after rubbing it along just a small spot of the car. After drying the area with the microfiber towel I rubbed my hand on the surface. It felt as smooth as the surface of a brand new car. I was amazed!

OK, at this point I was truly amazed by the results from just claying a small spot of my Mustang and I was ready to get to work.The contents of the Meguiar's Smooth Surface Clay Kit is more then enough to do one car. I proceeded to work on the hood. It is important to keep the area that you are claying well lubricated with Quik Detailer. Also as you see the clay getting dirty with surface contaminants it is important to kneed the clay and use an area of the clay bar that is not as dirty. I was surprised, I was ready to put some major elbow grease into this job but really you let the clay bar do all of the work. The clay bar just glides across the surface lubricated with Quik Detailer.

Wow, the exterior paint on my Mustang hasn't look this great in years. I still had one new clay bar left and plently of Quik Detailer so i decided to clay the car one more time using a new clay bar. This time the clay bar didn't pick up as much bonded contaminants but it still picked up a little as noted by the change if color of the clay bar.

Claying left the paint job of my Mustang very smooth and the Quik Detailer used as a lubricant for the claying process left a pretty good shine to my old Mustang. Time to put a good coat of wax on the old 'Stang to really make the paint job stand out. The Meguiar's Smooth Surface Clay Kit comes with Cleaner Wax Liquid sample which was enough to do one coat of wax on my Mustang. The kit does not include an applicator pad so I went out to my local auto parts store and bought some wax applicator pads and some some extra Meguiar's Microfiber towels. It is very important that the paint job of your car be cool and that you apply the wax in a shaded area and not in direct sunlight. My car was still in the garage from claying so I just left it there to wax it.

I applied the Meguiar's Liquid Cleaner Wax using an applicator to one section of the car at a time. I applied the wax in a circular motion. Once I applied wax to the entire car I looked for spots that I missed and applied wax to these places. I then used a clean microfiber towel to remove the wax from the entire car. In addition I used another clean microfiber towel to polish the car to a fine sheen.

Wow, claying really brought back the finish on my vintage Mustang. Take a look at the picture. I used the Meguiar's line of wax and claying products in this Lens but you would probably get similar results from products offered by other car detailing companies such as Mothers.