Detailing World Forum banner

Completely strip any wax and or sealant

20K views 48 replies 29 participants last post by  NRDetailing 
#1 ·
hi all, first post here long time lurker though.

what can I use to get rid of sealant/wax put on my car?

Will snow foam > rinse > wash (dodo juice) > CarPro Eraser.

Is that enough to eliminate any previous wax (HydrO2 Lite applied about 9 months ago, then Collinite 985?).

Thanks,
V8JB.
 
#8 ·
Normal wash routine, followed by a spray bottle with a little bit of dish soap in it. No need to buy all those specific wax sealant stripping products, when all they are is that buy different colours and smells.
Not true. Dish soap has salt in it. Not something I'd want to deliberately put on my car, unless I wanted to encourage corrosion. It also probably won't strip everything.
I can recommend Meguiars Wash Plus. That leaves a really clean LSP free surface.
Disagree with this. In my experience Meguiar's Wash+ did not remove even Sonax BSD (which is hardly the most durable coating). After using Wash+ on my car there was no noticeable degradation of BSD's beading properties.

Also, John at Forensic Detailing showed that Wash+ can lightly mar the paint because of the abrasives in it. I only use it before polishing for this reason.

In response to the OP, you're probably best off getting some Upol Slow Panel Wipe. This is what bodyshops use to ensure a car's surface is completely free of contaminants, waxes, and grease before painting. Therefore should be good enough for changing your LSP! :)

Hope this helps!

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk
 
#14 ·
Not trying to be rude, but you'll soon realize that having the right products makes this hobby less stressful.

You'll start out wanting to just get the car clean, and follow the basic steps, but as you learn and improve, you'll start to notice more things, and then realize that those things need specific products to handle them.

Stripping a car down with just chemicals isn't enough. You should be claying and decontaminating the paint before you apply another product. Tar, Iron, Grease, all these need fairly specific products to remove, and polishing out foreign contaminants isn't exactly great for your pads.
 
#15 ·
I've got quite a lot of products at the moment and realise its an expensive hobby. I dont mind paying if its worth but i can tell tell like any area some marketing hype can lead to money being poured down the drain.

For example to strip or even regular washing should i be using a tfr? I mean sometimes I have so many products for different things I do wonder if I should do a bog standard wash and get the same result my my neighbours. Except they take 20-30 minutes and I take 1-3 hours.

I do enjoy it in the summer months, but life is busy at the moment and I just want a clean, long lasting coating that makes it 'easier' to wash when required.... and I am having an issue finding that.

TBH I was blown away by the hydro2lite sealant that was awesome.... Im just wondering if that is good enough still (expensive... I guess due to ease of application?)
 
#17 ·
I've got quite a lot of products at the moment and realise its an expensive hobby. I dont mind paying if its worth but i can tell tell like any area some marketing hype can lead to money being poured down the drain.

For example to strip or even regular washing should i be using a tfr? I mean sometimes I have so many products for different things I do wonder if I should do a bog standard wash and get the same result my my neighbours. Except they take 20-30 minutes and I take 1-3 hours.

I do enjoy it in the summer months, but life is busy at the moment and I just want a clean, long lasting coating that makes it 'easier' to wash when required.... and I am having an issue finding that.

TBH I was blown away by the hydro2lite sealant that was awesome.... Im just wondering if that is good enough still (expensive... I guess due to ease of application?)
It sounds more like you want to be able to add protection easily, versus just add really good protection once.

There is a lot of spray on wet and rinse products that seem to offer decent protection, and can be topped up after any wash. If you want to just apply 1 product once and not have to worry about it you'll need a good coating, which needs very high levels of prep to last (including long cure times for the multi year stuff).
 
#18 ·
it Can be as expensive OR as cheap as you want

Yes specific products for specific tasks Can make that task a lot easier.

there Are a few products that you do not "need" to use every time, so they last a heck of a long time.
for me
i choose to Clay twice a year, spring & late autumn /early winter, so the clay + clay lube last Ages
same with Tar remover, its a "as needed" product mostly in summer,
TFR is the same, Or you can swap a dedicated TFR for a citrus apc,, both last ages as "not needed every wash"

For me , Detailed Onlines Nano sealant - brilliant and a snowfoam then mitt wash and rinse and its "done",
Winter time i have used Gtechnic C2V3 for the same results/reasons, it costs more, isnt as fast(near instant) application but lasts the Whole winter for me.
Same with wax
AG UHD , nope it isnt cheap, it doesnt have the "kudos" of a speciality £££££ wax, but it lasts and honestly its brilliant.

Prep is hard graft, get the car to a standard your happy with, then it really is maintaining that with the easiest For you manner using whats Needed at the time Rather than wheel everything out and get to applying Everything in stages taking all day , so its ready to wash again (and dry) for wax and sealants tomorrow.
 
#20 ·
If you are stripping waxes I would assume that you will be reapplying a new wax/sealant? With this being my assumption, you will already be using a snow foam or pre-wash, then use a shampoo that doesnt contain wax. To prepare the surface better for you next wax to adhere to, I would advise to use an Iron Remover and tar remover at this stage, and then clay the car. If you want to seal or wax the car at that point, wipe down with a bodyshop panel wipe/silicone remover, or else polish/correct paint and then use the panel wipe/silicone remover.
The combination of;
Pre-wash
Shampoo
Iron remover
Tar remover
Clay bar
Polish
Panel Wipe/silicone remover

should have the car back to bare paint with nothing else present
 
#21 ·
Meguiars Wash +

I have used Meguiars Wash + a couple of times on a deep red and a silver car (this was after a 2 bucket wash) and both times it easily removed as far as I could tell all signs of any LSP.

Granted I would have struggled perhaps to see any marring on the silver paint, but I checked the red car thoroughly as well and didn’t see any issues caused by the Wash +. Obviously not a product to use frequently but in my opinion it does exactly what it is designed to do, and is ideal if then followed by a light polish and new LSP.

It is also very good for deep cleaning glass.
 
#22 ·
hi all, first post here long time lurker though.

what can I use to get rid of sealant/wax put on my car?

Will snow foam > rinse > wash (dodo juice) > CarPro Eraser.

Is that enough to eliminate any previous wax (HydrO2 Lite applied about 9 months ago, then Collinite 985?).

Thanks,
V8JB.
This is the most important part of the post. If they have been on 9 months it will be a lot easier than if they have been applied yesterday.

The Megs wash+ followed by Panel wipe will do the job. Maybe a second appliaction of panel wipe to sure.
 
#28 ·
I've given up on everything except the polisher and abrasives, and even with them I have to reserve some degree of skepticism especially when dealing with removing paint coatings. But if my goal before doing work is to remove an LSP from the surface, I'm pulling out the polisher and abrasives, period. And I've tested soaps like Wash+, Clean Slate, Adam's Strip Wash, Dawn, Purple Power, etc. I've tested IPA panel wipes at various dilutions and concentrations, I've tested a bundle of body prep solvent cleaners (wax and grease removers), sprays like Poorboy's Strip Down, different degreasers. There's a line between removing the wax from the surface, and creating a hydrophilic surface. Just because the surface is hydrophilic, it doesn't mean the wax has been fully removed. Just because the surface is not hydrophilic, it doesn't necessarily mean there's a wax left on the surface. Does that make sense?

Once we factor in the potential for heavy masking surfactants that aren't easily rinsed, it's too difficult to make a clear judgement on wax removal. Then we have to account for the "true" behavior of unprotected paint which adds another degree of confusion. I can have the panel polished, IPA wiped, then washed with Dawn and the panel is FLAT during the rinse. Then a few months later, polished with the same abrasives, same IPA wipe, same Dawn soap, and the panel is sheeting slightly, no where near as slow as before 2 months ago. What changed? Temp? Humidity? The types of LSP's I was testing consecutively over this period? So where do I pinpoint my baseline unprotected water behavior?

Most of my testing has been on fresh products, strip products have had various degrees of visual effectiveness but this varies greatly between products. Fusso Coat was extremely resistant against Meguiar's Wash+ at full strength out of the bottle and heavily worked in with a sponge a multitude of times. Pretty much everything in the short term is resistant against the other strip wash soaps. Body shop wax and grease removers have been so-so, some of them are much better brands than others (Dupli-Color wax and grease remover was nearly useless for example). Wash Plus generally does a good job of producing a hydrophilic surface when used very heavy and worked directly in a section, but using it like this has produced marring on every panel I've tested it on.

I'd say I can easily make the call when a product has survived on the paint, truly unprotected surfaces when exposed to the same durability cycle and contamination on a daily driver will in most cases produce a hydrophilic water behavior over time, but I'm not at all comfortable making a solid call in the short term with anything that the LSP has been fully removed by "product xyz". It's been "prepped" with the abrasive and polisher, that's what I'm going to start saying.
 
#33 · (Edited)
I had a new bumper fitted and resprayed at a high quality bodyshop some time back - was chatting to the bodyshop guy, who understood the whole detailing thing and he said the paint is baked so you can go ahead and polish / put wax on if you like.

Went to wash the car a few days later and rinsed it with the hosepipe first as i always do and noticed super tight beading right across the new bumper.

And i know the car wasn't washed or valeted by them, because i specifically asked them not too - they said they used panel wipe on all the paint before spraying and that was it.

So this was fresh clean paint beading merrily - i guess knackered LSP will pool water flat, but maybe when its all properly gone, the clean paint will bead again ? - hence it might be V difficult to say for sure whether the LSP has actually gone.
 
#35 ·
I had a new bumper fitted and resprayed at a high quality bodyshop some time back - was chatting to the bodyshop guy, who understood the whole detailing thing and he said the paint is baked so you can go ahead and polish / put wax on if you like.

Went to wash the car a few days later and rinsed it with the hosepipe first as i always do and noticed super tight beading right across the new bumper.

And i know the car wasn't washed or valeted by them, because i specifically asked them not too - they said they used panel wipe on all the paint before spraying and that was it.

So this was fresh clean paint beading merrily - i guess knackered LSP will pool water flat, but maybe when its all properly gone, the clean paint will bead again ? - hence it might be V difficult to say for sure whether the LSP has actually gone.
It could be polishing oils that bead the water and after a wash or too it disappears. My brand new car didn't bead water after a decon wash.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk
 
#45 ·
Just stumbled across one of the videos I saw that showed the marring that can be caused by Wash+. Their testing fits with my experiences, in that Wash+ may be able to remove a straight wax, but it doesn't really touch a sealant of any sort. In my experience it doesn't even touch BSD or CarPro Hydro, which are quick "easy on" products, so it's definitely not the best tool for stripping back to a completely LSP free surface.



I'd stick with my suggestion of panel wipe (after washing the car, of course). Unless you're going to go to all the effort of polishing the entire car, but even then I'd tend to want to panel wipe before and after polishing as well, to remove as much LSP as possible before polishing, and to remove the polishing oils afterwards.
 
#46 ·
Panel wipe is even less likely to break an LSP down imo. Wash plus+ works for me and again I'll say you really need to work it in and 'scrub' the paint. It's not a typical shampoo you just glide over the panels with. If you have used it this way and failed to remove the products you have mentioned then I have no other advice, it works for me this way but I guess certain conditions are stopping you getting the results Megs+ offers.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top