New Cleaning Aid

Adam R · 07-20-08, 10:00 PM

Just thought I'd post this to see if anyone else has tried this and has had any negative results.

We gave our 99 LC a bath today, first one in about 6 months. It's white so it shows all stains, marks, grime, etc. We gave it a really good scrubbing, but there are some marks, rubs, etc that just do not come off no matter how hard you work it over with a wash mitt.

We've used the Mr. Clean magic eraser pads on the household walls to remove rub marks, pencil, crayon, etc and they work great so we decided to see what it would do with the marks on the LC.

Although the box clearly says do not use on vehicle paint, I gave it a shot anyway.

What ever is in those pads, it flat out works with very little effort. It removed the key marks from around the key hole, rust stains around rock chips (living in the Ohio salt belt sucks), and even removed the grime down by the rocker panels that wouldn't come off after I used a soft scrub brillo pad on them.

It doesn't seem to negatively affect the paint. There is a very slight abrasive action, but on my red jeep, I followed up with some polish and it looked great on a test spot.

I'm thinking of washing the entire rig with one of these pads and then following up with a quality polish job. Anybody else had similar results?

Adam R.

NMuzj100 · 07-20-08, 11:07 PM

Keep in mind that white paint is a lot harder than many colors so while it may work great on white it could seriously mar black paint.

I don't doubt that the Mr. Clean pads do a good job but I would recommend going with a detail clay for an overall cleaning. Clay bar your car a single time and it will make you a believer. The advantage of the clay bar is that after removing the contaminate from the car it is removed from the working surface so you are not scratching the "lifted junk" against your paint surface.

Great tutorial on using clay here - Autopia - Detailing Clay & Pre-wax Cleaning

I have used both Clay Magic (cheapest and my favorite) and Meguires Clay bars with great success.

Try placing your finger inside a ziploc bag and running it along the paint before and after using the clay bar. There will be a huge difference in smoothness.