Zaino Paint Finish

[Jayemtee]

It is a wonderful feeling to drive around with that great Zaino shine. I've been putting it on my high performance show cars for about 15 years and now on my 2010 Insight. The big advantage is that once the shine is there, it takes very minimal upkeep to maintain the shine. The main disadvantage is that is fairly expensive and if you take short cuts it will let you down. Seriously, you must do it right. If you don't want to do it right, you might as well buy the cheap stuff and get a nice 4 week shine. For the sake of this note, I'm going to address new car finish only. It will also work on used cars with very little paint defects.

The first thing to do is to gather the materials needed for the task. First you need to place an order with a Zaino dealer or online at the Zaino store. You will need

Z-18 Clay Bar
Z-7 Show Car Wash
Z-6 Ultra Clean Gloss Enhancer Spray
Z-2 Pro Show Car Polish
ZFX Flash Cure Accelerator Additive
Zaino Custom polish applicator pad (usually free with your order)

They make more products that you can order, but they are not addressed here.

While waiting for your order, you will need to buy some local items as well. You will need

Spray bottle (approx 16 oz)
face towels 100% cotton AND Made In USA (preferably white with no dyes)
DAWN dishwashing liquid.

Step one is to remove whatever contaminants are on your car. If your car is brand spanking new, the dealer might have polished it, it might have acid rain on it, it might have sticky stuff from shipping wrap on it. Otherwise you need to remove existing wax and polish jobs, dirt, etc. DAWN dishwashing liquid removes all types of contamination. You need to wash your car twice with this stuff, and make sure you scrub it down good. You want a perfectly clean finish. Spend a little extra time with your final rinse making sure all the DAWN is rinsed away. When you are finished with this step, the paint should feel gritty to the touch like fine sandpaper. Your finger should grab and squeak as you pull it across the paint. If it feels soft and smooth like a baby's rear, keep washing.

The gritty feel you felt on the wash is microscopic ridges in the clear coat. Now it's time to clay the car to smooth those ridges down. The Zaino clay bars are some of the best in the industry. It is a very fine grit that will smooth down those clear coat imperfections, giving a good base for the Zaino shine. The clay bar is gritty and sticky and needs a lubricant to smooth down the peaks in the paint without sticking to it. Take your new plastic spray bottle and fill it about 80% with water and the rest with Z-7 Show Car Wash, and shake to mix. Take a chunk of clay bar and work it into you CLEAN hands while spraying it with your new lubrication mixture. Work the clay into about a 2 inch circle and you're ready to go. Begin to clay the car. Spray lubricant over an area about 2 ft square and lightly rub the clay bar across it. If the clay grabs on to the paint, you don't have enough spray lube on there. It's gonna take a lot of spray and a lot of elbow grease to do this job right. Remember that the clay is sanding down those peaks that felt so rough after washing and that a few quick strokes isn't gonna wear them down. Periodically, roll the clay up and work it again into 2 inch disc again. It is very important to keep the clay clean. DON'T drop it on the ground or it will get contaminated and you will defeat the purpose of the whole process. If you drop it, throw it away and start with a new piece of clay. If you are prone to dropping stuff, order 2 sets of clay from Zaino on your initial order. Your ultimate shine is going to come from how flat the surface is when you apply the glossy stuff. So patience is your friend as you carefully and lovingly wear your shoulders out with the clay and spray. When you are satisfied that the car's paint is as smooth as possible, wash the car with Z-7 thoroughly to remove residual clay and lube, and rinse thoroughly. Dry with a 100% cotton towel made in the USA.

At this moment, you have a perfectly clean and perfectly prepared blank canvas to do your magic on. Now it's time for the Z-2 polish with the ZFX. The ZFX comes with little 2 ounce bottles to mix your polish in. Fill the little bottle about halfway with Z-2, then add 8 drops of ZFX, then add enough Z-2 to almost fill the bottle. Leave enough empty space to shake and mix the ingredients. Now get the applicator pad and put a dime sized blob of mixture onto the pad and began applying. Start with circular motions, then finish with fore and aft for flat surfaces and up and down for vertical surfaces. A little bit of polish mixture goes a long way. Your little 2 ounce bottle of polish mixture will easily do the whole car 3 times, so you don't need much on the pad. Apply the polish mixture to the entire car and then go have a beer. Come back with the 100% cotton towel made in the USA and lightly buff to a shine. Then get the applicator and polish and put on another layer. You will notice that you need less and less polish mixture with repeated applications. Buff that to a shine and start your third layer. You should not apply more than 3 layers in a 24 hour period. After the last polish application is buffed to shine, get the Z-6 spray and a clean 100% cotton made in the USA towel and spray and wipe the entire car's paint job.

You should now have the cleanest and best looking paint in your neighborhood. The hard work is over forever. On a daily basis, you can use a California duster or something like that to push the dust off. From quick clean up, you can use Z-6 spray and appropriate towel to quick detail the car. Then just hand wash the car with Z-7 as required. Twice a year, after a wash job, you can do a Z-2 and ZFX polish job to maintain a good base. You can do it 10 or 20 times a year if you really want a clean, deep, and wet looking finish. The more solid layers of Z-2 you have, the prettier the finish. Just your initial 3 layers will create beautiful long lasting results. I'll be doing my garaged daily driver once in the early spring when the weather first starts looking nice, and once again in the fall on the last pretty weekend to protect the car from winter's debris.

That's about it for a Zaino finish. There are great resources on the Zaino web site. A beautiful Zaino finish is all about being precise. It involves very little labor, but it requires exact processes. If you buy a lesser quality towel, or don't clean with DAWN first, or don't rinse well, you are cheating yourself and wasting money on expensive Zaino products. And if you don't put a little heart and soul and elbow grease into the clay job, you're screwing yourself.

I confess that I held out with my Meguiars wax products after seeing what a great job Zaino did. I found all of the Z numbers confusing, I found it expensive, and I could smell the chemicals in Zaino that were unfamiliar to me and not associated with carnuba wax smells. I finally jumped ship and switched to Zaino when I realized how easy the shine was to maintain and that I needed a labor intensive Meguiars wax job 4 times a year or more to maintain a car show finish.

[Zwolfe]

Wonderful post, next weekend I'll be putting my Zaino supplies (came in!) to the test. I also ordered some AlpineFiber3 towels from dftowel.com that are Zaino-approved.

My one question is, and this may sound stupid, can I use those towels during the Dawn wash cycle at the beginning? Is there something else I should use?

I plan on devoting an entire day to this and want to get it right the first time, I've became obsessed with not wanting to mar the clear coat.

Thank you for taking the time to write that. I'll likely print out a copy and take it with me as a reference when I'm in doubt / boggled / having an idiotic moment.

Also, got any pictures of your Zaino'd I2?

EDIT: Uh, well, I guess I should had read the product description of those towels a bit more. States they're acceptable for washing - I guess that answers my question.

So how about those pictures? =)

[Jayemtee]

Actually, I wouldn't use a good towel on the Dawn wash cycle. The reason is that this is a pre-clay process. I would use a good wash cloth from a regular auto parts store. Any damage that it might do would easily be removed in the clay process. Also consider that any debris picked up during the Dawn process would need to be removed before the towel could be used again. OTOH, if you have plenty of towels, go for it.

Down the road, when you get into periodic washing on a Zaino'd car, debris will mostly be loosely connected to the car and will be removed more easily removed and less likely to be embedded into your wash cloth. The Dawn wash cycle is a much more intense scrub process as opposed to a periodic wash.

Sorry, my low quality pics don't show much on a silver painted Insight. It looks deep in person. It looks especially good when there's something to reflect off of it.

I did the Dawn scrub and rinse one night and started with the clay the next morning. I've taken about 15 cars through the whole process. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. Also, let me know how you like the finished product.

[Cobb]

Thanks for sharing. Whats your address, I got a car for you to do.

I have all these minor scratches from mechanica car washes. Now on I go through the water only ones and wipe the car down right after I exit the wash.

I just washed my car with the rainx car wash and use some turtle wax ice spray wax. Its been clean for 3 weeks noe.

[Zwolfe]

Jay, ever use Z5? Thoughts if so? My Zaino kit has it, but I'm not expecting to encounter many swirls or fine scratches to warrant its use.

Also do you ever spray and wipe down Z6 between coats of Z2? The instructions that came with my Zaino states it can provide, quote, "a three dimensional look." I'm not sure what a three dimensional look is like on a car, though.

I really hope the weather gets its act together this weekend, Fri and Sat look shot here. I'm holding out and being hopeful Sunday will turn out to be better. I have access to a garage I helped build that I can pull into if I think I can sneak in a dawn wash and rinse outside, though.

[Jayemtee]

Z5 - never tried it.

Z6 - It'll be your best friend. Assuming the weather is okay and there aren't any specific dirt marks on the car, I use a California duster every day and give the car a Z6 wipe down a couple of times a week. Just don't use Z6 to wipe down the car if there are big enough particles on the surface to induce swirl marks. If it's that bad, wash the car. That is your maintenance between Z2 applications.

It sounds like you are ready!!!

There is also a Z8 spray, which sounds kinda like a super Z6. I have a bottle, I've used it a couple of times, I can't really tell the difference.

[Zwolfe]

Well Jay, I'm darn near ready. I just hope tonight's storm didn't ruin my lawn to the point where it's a mud-fest, because I have to pull my car out of the driveway into the lawn to get my hose at it.

More detailing supplies arrived ... FedEx guy actually delivered just short of 10PM. I met him out by the road so he could find my place, plus being anxious didn't have anything to do with it, of course.

So I asked the old lady if she wanted to see what my latest batch of toys were.

She said sure so I grabbed the box and went over to the couch to show her what each item was, what it was for, etc. Earlier this week she had to drag me out of the cleaning supply isle at Kroger as I was poking around for some secret prize like I had a box of Cracker Jacks.

As I showed and explained the wonders of these items she just sat there and nodded and smiled trying her best to amuse me. I knew she wasn't into it, but I kept at it anyway for my own sanity of being able to actually talk to somebody about it.

It was the microfiber detergent that finally cracked her and it was the last thing out of the box. She couldn't believe it, that I'd buy that.

I proclaimed, "It's beautiful, isn't it? All of this stuff ..." (slight pause, knowing I needed to say the same of her, my years of married life paying me dividends) I hastily followed up with, "Beautiful, like you!"

She responded, "Oh that's just what every girl wants to be compared to, - cleaning products!"

Yes. I need to get this done. She's going to kill me.

I snuck outside last night with a flashlight and drenched sponge to remove some bugs on the hood since I don't have any protection on the clear coat at the moment.

[kjanracing]

How much costee all that stuff?

[Zwolfe]

I have a little bit more than $200 in detailing supplies including the Zaino starter kit? And I want to buy more! Ugh.

autopia.org is a good place to go for detailing info, reviews of items, etc.

[Rainsux]

Do you have a Porter Cable polisher? This REALLY reduces the time required to wax a car. My cars look much better since I got it, just because it is so quick and easy to do.

Sam