That's One Good MF Towel!
Thursday, Feb. 13, 2003

Yesterday, it got warm. It was 55 degrees when I went home and very sunny. I buttoned up my jacket, put on my sunglasses and dropped the top on the Miata. I had the heater on feet, as hot as possible, on a setting of three. At 70 mph on 565 that wasn�t enough, and I rolled up the passenger window. When I got home, only my right ear was colder than comfortable.

I had been looking forward to the warm weather. I planned on washing, claying, washing again, and waxing my car. I�d been looking forward to it so much that I was reading up on detailing at Autopia.

I know I mention Autopia at times. If you go there and don�t register, you really don�t see anything. It�s a site full of some of the best auto detailers in the world. There are generally four kinds of people there.

1. They drive their beat up truck over to the man with the Lexus�s house who wants the detailing, and he details the car very well.

2. They are a professional detailer or just a person responsible for making that Ferrari F355 look good at the show in three weeks. One of the best guy�s to read is called Redcarguy and he details hearses (though he�s also the assistant creepy guy at the funeral home too, but he loves the detailing).

3. People who have nice (nice nice nice) cars and won�t let anyone else touch them. These people�s daily drivers are Lamborghinis and there�s no way they�ll risk it being amateur night with the buffer at their local detailer. Plus, like me, they love their car and like spending time with it.

4. Slobs like me who�ve been using NuFinish and think that it shines, oh, about as well as nothing at all.

The appraiser was at the house, as was Aisai, when I got home. We�re getting the house refinanced to a lower interest rate. That and our new acquisition of the timeshare in Whorelando aren�t on our adoption info.

And speaking of adoption, the ABI is moving it�s office. That means that the state won�t be able to finish our fingerprint check for two months. I guess that�s what we�ll be waiting on. And the worst part, that�s the homestudy that�s waiting on that. And the CCAI will be waiting for the homestudy which can�t finish until the ABI gets around to it.

Well, I guess I got my wish of not wanting to be waiting on me to finish the paperwork anymore.

Normally, I�d never wash a car with the highly alkaline suds of a dishwashing detergent. However, I needed to strip the car of it�s protective �wax�. NuFinish is a polymer though, and honestly I don�t think the Joy (as I didn�t have Dawn) did a good job of removing it. So, after that I clayed.

Only now do I see the foolishness of me drying the car with an absorber and then spraying it section by section with the clay�s lubricant. In any case, I started claying. Oh, certain parts really needed it. Other parts were just fine.

I�ve said that no one has played Door Tag with my car in a parking lot yet. Well, that�s not true. On very close inspection, someone with a silver car smacked my driver side. No, it wasn�t Aisai�s Focus, as she parks on the right side of my car.

I got about 70% finished and then the sun had gone mostly down and the temperature was dropping rapidly. I�d have to wash and clay again tomorrow (today) so I remembered where I�d stopped and stopped.

I asked on Autopia what was the best wax that I could just go out and buy. I didn�t want to use the NuFinish, not just because of the unsatisfactory shine, but also because the harsh petroleum distillates will strip out the paint�s oils (or solvents) so that it becomes brittle with age. I had suggested Zym�l cleaner wax, but was hesitant since it�s hard to use.

Though Zym�l�s hype �feed the paint� was right in line with how I�d felt by putting all that harsh NuFinish on.

The consensus seemed to be, since I�ll probably switch to Zaino or Blackfire in the summer, that S100, a wax only found at Harley Davidson dealers, was my best choice.

I didn�t know there was a Harley shop not four miles from where I live. Less than two as the crow flies (but crows never design public transit systems do they?). I called them. They had it in stock. $14.99. I�ll pick that up on the way home.

I�ll wash with Eagle One Wet carwash (Autopia indicates it cleans the best and is cheap. Though the Zym�l smells like bananas�ooh� �Feed the paint�), clay the rest of the car, wash again, and then get to waxing.

Now, the only problem is that I only own about 12 microfiber towels. And I�ve used most of them already buffing off the clay�s lubricant. Today, I�ll try to cut down on my MF usage (and yes, that�s a common abbreviation for microfiber) by not buffing off the lube, and then just rewashing.

It better be warm when I get off work. Rain is coming tomorrow. I�m scrambling to get this stuff on the car. I don�t mind rewashing, but driving with the bare paint exposed gets me paranoid. First generation black Miatas don�t have clearcoats.