firel3lade Posted September 2, 2005 Report Share Posted September 2, 2005 After a massive 21 weeks wait my GTI arrived yesterday. I think the stealer who quoted July for deliver pulled a fast one with his numbers from VW. He rang to ask if I wanted to pay £300 for Autoglym Lifeshine paint protection, I said no, so he will just remove the transportation wax and polish it with Autoglym. Thinking of DIY Supagarding the car, what preparation would you guys suggest, can I apply on top of Autoglym polish? Looking forward to the big collection day now on Monday. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheechy Posted September 2, 2005 Report Share Posted September 2, 2005 Mate - don't mean to have a go but a number of questions on almost this exact topic have been covered many times before - even fairly recently. The overriding consensus is that Lifeshining or any other long-term paint protection system should not be applied by anyone other than a professional as the car needs careful preparation and application. To answer your question - the lifeshine has to be applied directly to the paint - so the autoglymn would have to be removed prior to application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hotdog Posted September 2, 2005 Report Share Posted September 2, 2005 I've had my Golf supaguarded by a professional company. It is superb and I can't recommended it highly enough. However, get it done professionally, its worth it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cleanimage Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 Amen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FiveStar Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 If you're gonna be pampering the car on a regular basis, then I wouldn't bother with the Supagard treatment (in fact, I wouldn't bother with it at all, but that's a different story). Wash the car regularly and give it a cleanse/polish/wax 2-3 times a year and your paintwork will stay in tip-top condition for many years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calm Chris Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 5* Your comments go against the gain of 98% of TSners that have used Supaguard. Please explain your comments, since someone might be silly enough to heed your (seemingly) poor advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brazo Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 Chri5 I can assure you that 5 stars advice is spot on. If people wish to have supaguard then that it their perogative. The two main problems with this sealant for anybody who likes 'good paintwork' are as follows. Firstly the dealer preps your car. ALarm bells should start ringing here. A guy brought a brand new 55 car over to me yesterday with holograms all over the paintwork from bad dealer prep. Should the dealer have supaguarded this he is just sealing in a poor finish. CI this comment isn't directed at you only dealers! Secondly washing your car however skillfull you are will induce minor marring/swirling into the clearcoat. The better you are the less you will see etc. I last machine polished my black car 7 montsh ago and i'm not ashamed to say that very minor marring/swirls are starting to appear as a result of its weekly wash. I can remove these quite easily but If my car was supaguarded then that would eb removed with the machine polish. So The supaguard would have lasted 7 months only! About the same as the klasse sealant that is on my car! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
runflat Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 Brazo, your comments regarding dealer damage infliction echo many other members comments. My car arrives in 2-3 weeks. What would you recommend? Is it worth mentioning that I will be checking for swirls etc. and ask them to take care or just take it as it comes? Opinions from anyone plz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firel3lade Posted September 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 Thanks for the advice guys having now read all of the post on Supagard I think I will give it the DIY a miss. I have been to stealers to see car this mornin' and told them just to remove the transportation wax and leather the car off. I spoke to the two guys who prepare the cars and they told me they would apply a product called Neilson Ultimate Gold Wax and not Autoglym Polish as stated by the salesman. So on Monday I should pick up a car with virgin paintwork and decide what pruduces to use myself or find a good local Valeter to apply Suapagard for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brazo Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 Runflat you could aks them not to prep it at all but they may come back with the line we prep the car to ensure no paint defects exist and may get you to sign a disclaimer. Either way your at their mercy. I would agree with Gixer750 and just get them to carefully remove the transportaion wax. The car I saw yesterday had rotary buffer holograms all over it after the dealership had 'polished' it. The question that springs to mind is why is the dealer using a very powerful polisher on brand new paintwork? It now needs a light polish again to remove the holograms. SO a brand new car has to be agressivly polished twice to get it in the state that it should have arrived in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FiveStar Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 [ QUOTE ] 5* Your comments go against the gain of 98% of TSners that have used Supaguard. Please explain your comments, since someone might be silly enough to heed your (seemingly) poor advice. [/ QUOTE ] Brazo has virtually answered for me, so not much to add. One of my main reasons against this type of treatment is that I simply do not believe the claims of how long the product will last. If the stuff was so good, wouldn't the manufacturers apply it to every car to help guard them against 'corrosion warranty' claims? Also, how do you actually know that the dealership 'grease-monkey' has even applied the Supaguard let alone applied it properly? As clean_image has said many times, it needs to be done properly. I can't even trust my dealership with doing an oil change properly (they routinely use incorrect spec oil for my vehicle, so I have to supply them with the correct stuff when I have a service!) - so I certainly wouldn't trust them or any other dealer with applying a £300 sealant package. I would say that if anyone MUST have this done to their car, have it done after you've taken delivery by a repuatable valeting company that will come to your driveway so you can actually see that it's being done properly, but I still wouldn't believe the protection claims that are made. Just another thing, I have a relative that had the Supagard treatment supposedly done to his car and six months on it hasn't made me want it on my next car after seeing it today... dull and lifeless are a few words that spring to mind to describe the paintwork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cleanimage Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 There isn't any thing here that isn't especially true... except 5*s view that he doesn't belive the claims that a sealant last five years... I can hardly belive it myself, but having seen various vehicles, I am in no dount what-so-ever. Brazo is also correct - for his situation. But the truth is that the majority of cars in this country get done with wash & wax their whole lives. And that's it. Most of thse won't be washed as often as they should be! Few cars ever get waxed, let alone polished, and people who machine polish their cars are probably 1 in 100,000. For 99% of people, the kind of cob webs and swirls that would cause Brazo to put his hair out, are nothing but normal!!! Looking out across the road at my neibour's saab, it looks wonderful. But I know close up that it looks terrible. If he had had it sealed, the swirls would be reduced as sealed paintwork stronger. There would also be none of the oxidization and dullness that is evident when looking close up. You have to remember that if you want perfect paintwork, then you need perfect paint with a good wax over the top. But as only a handful of would ever notice perfect paintwork. So for most cars it is perfectly acceptable to cover up the swirls and scratches. In fact it is sometimes the only option as you can only buff a car so many times. A car with supagard may not look perfect after 3 years but for the majority of punters, it would look a damn sight better than a car without. When the man in the street comes into clean Image and asks how to care for their car, I usually give them some wash & wax and tell them to buy some SRP. There is no way in the world that I'm going to recommend spending £300's worth of gear including random orbital. It's just not realistic to assume they will even bother with the SRP after a few months... they will be down the car wash like everybody else. However, sealants like Supagard ARE a realistic option. But lets not confuse the needs of fanatical enthusiasts, to the needs of George next door. As for dealerships, who is really going to notice a few swirls? Especially on a silver car? Every car you ever bought would have had them, when did you start noticing them? Many of the people who read this forum will have no idea what we are talking about. I bet I could walk from one end of town to the other inspecting every car and I doubt I would find one car with perfect paintwork - yet people aren't losing sleep over it! I flipping wish they were! I'd be able to open up a valeting megastore in every town in the country! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brazo Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 "But lets not confuse the needs of fanatical enthusiasts, to the needs of George next door." Tis true CI I think we all go ott on occasions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cleanimage Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 ...but you are raising the game, raising awareness, and helping the industry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FiveStar Posted September 3, 2005 Report Share Posted September 3, 2005 [ QUOTE ] ...but you are raising the game, raising awareness, and helping the industry. [/ QUOTE ] Good point. The more that people become aware of high quality valeting/detailing in this country the better. The cowboys will gradually disappear or have to up their game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy_PC Posted September 4, 2005 Report Share Posted September 4, 2005 Amen to 5*/CI - perfect example of an enthusiast and a valeter agreeing for a change. I wouldn't have any long term products put on my car by anyone, period BUT that's because I have OCD when it comes to car care, just like most of you lot. Just like Brazo, I PC'd the Astra for the first time in nearly 8 months yesterday and this would I suspect have removed most if not all of any dealer applied sealant so £300 odd for 9 months' protection. I picked up some literature from Supaguard in my local vauxhall dealer the other day (having spent a fair bit of time there recently, but that's another sory!!!) and it claims "ner wax or polish your car again" in black & white (well, red & black to be picky) and that's my main bone of contention as they then supply a paint sealant cream and shampoo package - it's this sort of cynical marketing which really, really pees me right off (bit like the Zymol thing)- the guy my Dad bought his new car off actually admitted that he wouldn't have his own car Supaguarded (Vauxhall dealer) and agreed with me on this point. And not waxing my car again? Couldn't even think it TBH, let alone do it!! It's all down to proper prep ultimately - if a car with crappy paint finsih is sealed with whatever product, then it's just that - a sealed cruddy paint finish which just happens to be shiny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cleanimage Posted September 4, 2005 Report Share Posted September 4, 2005 The funny thing is that the "Never wax your car agan" thing came out about 6 weeks ago (at least thats when we got the point of sale stuff). Until then, Supagard had shyed away from this phrase which has been used by several American products that I really don't trust. It's a phrase that really does work, especially amougst women. Where the phrase is inaccurate is that it gies the impression that Supagard lasts forever, when in fact it lasts three years. si it should be "Never wax your car for three years". Supagard doesn't require any addatives, and even though it comes with Paint Seal Cream, it isn't a condition that you use it, many people don't. So for a change, it isn't cynical marketing. Nor does Supagard require a special shampoo. Thier shampoo is normal car shampoo - it says you don't need to wax again, but you do need to wash your car! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy_PC Posted September 4, 2005 Report Share Posted September 4, 2005 Fair point indeed mate - and TBH it's the product & marketing that I have an issue with as opposed to those who use this stuff professionally (as opposed to a crazed enthusiast like me) - then again, for normal people, it's probably a better bet - i.e. those who don't wash their car every week and enjoy doing it! Plus if people want to pay guys like you to do it for them, hey, who am I to argue?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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