Detailing your vehicle with clay is a lot of work. It involves first washing the car, running the clay over every square inch of painted surfaces, and then applying at least one coat of wax. It’s pretty much an all-day process when you factor in the drying time for the wax, but you will not be disappointed if you take the time and do it right. The effects will last for the better part of a year and it’s the single most effective way of making your car look like new again.

If you think your paint looks good and feels smooth after you wash your car, you’re going to be blown away by how it looks and feels after you put a clay bar to it. I remember running my hand along the fender and wondering how paint could feel that smooth the first time I detailed my Z28 with clay back in high school.

There’s a lot more nasty stuff sitting on your paint than you’re probably aware of.

New vehicles are transported by rail from the manufacturing plant to distribution facilities, before finally making their way to the dealership’s lot. A fair amount of rail dust accumulates on the surface of the cars even though they’re shipped in semi-enclosed auto racks. The painted metal surfaces of your car attract these magnetic particles, and it’s not uncommon for your “new” car to still have this dust on it for years after you’ve taken delivery unless you have removed it with a clay bar.

Brake dust, pollen, industrial fallout and plain old dirt bond to your car’s paint over time. Every time you wax, you’re just covering these things up. Detailing any car with a clay bar will make a noticeable improvement in its appearance, but it’s most pronounced in lighter colors and metallics. My wife drives a white Toyota 4Runner. I took it from looking like a yellow-tinged polar bear to a pure, bright white. Did I mention that it’s 13 years old?

You will be amazed by how much dirt and how many tiny particles are left on your “clean” car after you’ve washed it. While a clay bar isn’t going to remove scratches, it will remove light marring and swirl marks. Use a polishing compound such as Nieto Number 7, which I reviewed in detail here to remove any light scratches and oxidation.

It’s important to wash the vehicle thoroughly before you start, as the clay will quickly become dirty and unusable if you don’t. This is the only time you should ever use liquid dish soap to wash your car. Dish soap is strong enough to remove any wax that is left on the paint so that you can get to the contaminants on the surface of the paint itself with the clay bar. Use a liberal amount of soap and warm water.

Do not put off waxing the car after you’ve used the clay. Between the dish soap and the clay, there will be nothing left on the paint to protect it from acid rain, UV rays, bird droppings, etc.

Mothers California Gold Clay Bar System is a good mid-quality clay and spray detailer that will allow you to attain professional results. Stay away from the cheaper clay bars, as they smear on the surface of the paint and create more work. A good clay bar will glide with ease over the paint if you keep the surface sufficiently lubricated with the spray detailer.

I like the entire line of Mothers detailing products. They use quality ingredients to make products that the average guy, as well as the more experienced detailer, can use to get great results to protect their vehicles and enhance their appearance without the boutique prices.

Spot Shot is an important component in my basic automotive detailing kit. My favorite thing about it is that it doesn’t create a messy foam that sprays everywhere you don’t want it to, unlike cheap multipurpose “cleaner/stain remover” aerosols.

Laundry stain removers are meant to soak into the fabric and then be washed and rinsed. Because of this, they can be much thicker than products meant for automotive upholstery and carpet. The problem is that stain removers meant for clothing are almost impossible to remove from automotive fabrics. They may remove the stain, but they often result in large, discolored splotches where you sprayed them.

You might be surprised how quickly you can go through a can treating just a few areas if you are used to using a regular carpet cleaning spray. This is because Spot Shot contains concentrated stain-removing chemicals that comes out more like a liquid than a foam. It is not loaded up with cheap surfactants that serve to fill out the can.

I find myself using this around the house as much as in our vehicles for spills and pet accidents.

Spot Shot leaves a clean smell that most people won’t find offensive. I would almost say that it’s as much a stain remover as it is an air freshener if you love that new car smell.

A good lazy summer’s day to me is some good music on my Bluetooth speaker, a cold beverage, and my favorite detailing products all lined up and ready to make one of our cars look like new again. I like giving our vehicles a quick hand wash and dry, but the real satisfaction comes when I have time to buff out every last little scratch and swirl mark and then run a clay bar over all the painted surfaces before applying a couple coats of my favorite wax.

You will inevitably find fine – and sometimes, not so fine – scratches in your paint when it’s time to wax. Before you wax or clay bar, it’s important to buff out scratches and swirls in the paint so that they don’t show through all your hard work.

Number 7 Polishing Compound is a “Goldilocks” formula. Every other compound on the market that I have tried either has grit that is too aggressive (and should probably be labeled as rubbing compound; a different product entirely) or is too smooth and isn’t capable of taking out more than the very lightest of scratches and swirl marks. The Number 7 compound is gentle enough to use to brighten up headlight assemblies that are starting to yellow without damaging them (always spot test it first), yet aggressive enough to level out scratches that are pretty deep down in the clear coat.

While it has nothing to do with its performance, the smell of Number 7 takes me back to when I was 16 and would spend Thursday afternoon washing and detailing my Camaro for the coming weekend. I don’t know how long this product has been around, but I know it’s been awhile, as I remember my father seeing this on a shelf in my barn on a recent visit and telling me that he used it on his Corvette when he was my age. Similar products with flashier packaging have come and gone, but the basic compound in the green and white container has never let me down.