What have you done to your car today?

mfennell said:
New hose. Still leaks. I have a new pump on hand but nothing looks wrong with the existing one. I'm handing it to my friend Drew. "Please fix this". It needs an alignment anyway.
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My leaking PS saga has come to a close. I gave it to my friend Drew at Foreign Cars of Monmouth. "Yeah, it was missing a seal". "WHAT??!?" Apparently there's a seal that MB doesn't stock separately and comes with the pump if bought from MB. I have no idea why it was missing on my car but at least it wasn't a complete fail on my part.

There were a few fails though. An obviously bent control arm that I completely missed. I didn't replace the upper shock mounts, which are clunking.
 
i put this on both my challenger and my wifes daily back in 22, still going strong on the challenger (it lives in the garage so to be exptected) but got over 2 years (i think closer to 3) on the wifes car (neither of our dailys get the garage treatment so all weather). its the consumer version of what was offered by the place that did the PPF on my challenger.

 
Bike N Gear said:
Are there any DIY ceramic coating products that are worth the effort? Wife's new car will not be garaged.
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Yes, but good prep is the key. I've used this multiple times and it's good for at least two years with proper maintenance washes.



The Gtechniq also has great reviews, I'm just used to the application and flash time with the CQuartz.

They do have a CQuartz Lite 2.0, but since the prep is the same, I prefer the longer lasting products.

Oh and if you're going to run it through a car wash, I think you at best get half the life of any good product. I'd just use a good ceramic spray once a month if I wasn't going to hand wash.
 
Bike N Gear said:
Are there any DIY ceramic coating products that are worth the effort? Wife's new car will not be garaged.
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Do you wash at home? What is your process? While its not the multi-year ceramic process, I have a few quick detail Si02 products i use on our vehicles. If you wash with a foam cannon, foaming on Chem-X Snake Oil as your final step (plus drying with towel) leaves a nice slick coating that will last a couple months. If you hand wash from a bucket, you can spray on Carpro Hydr02 Lite (spray on, immediately hose off) and provides a similar coating as Snake Oil. As another option, for a spray on, wipe off product, I've also used Mothers Ceramic CMX spray detailer.
 
JonF said:
Do you wash at home? What is your process? While its not the multi-year ceramic process, I have a few quick detail Si02 products i use on our vehicles. If you wash with a foam cannon, foaming on Chem-X Snake Oil as your final step (plus drying with towel) leaves a nice slick coating that will last a couple months. If you hand wash from a bucket, you can spray on Carpro Hydr02 Lite (spray on, immediately hose off) and provides a similar coating as Snake Oil. As another option, for a spray on, wipe off product, I've also used Mothers Ceramic CMX spray detailer.
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Wife's previous 6 cars were never once washed at home. Despite the fact that she likes this one, we're both retired and have plenty of free time, I still doubt this one will be either. Really just trying to prolong inevitable damage. Our sprinkler system constantly hits one corner of the car and we have very hard water. It's currently covered bay about 1/16" of pollen.
 
Bike N Gear said:
Wife's previous 6 cars were never once washed at home. Despite the fact that she likes this one, we're both retired and have plenty of free time, I still doubt this one will be either. Really just trying to prolong inevitable damage. Our sprinkler system constantly hits one corner of the car and we have very hard water. It's currently covered bay about 1/16" of pollen.
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Ceramic won't really prevent hard water spotting. It will make it easier to remove and maybe some of the beads will roll off the surface before drying, but my Maverick has hard water spots from sprinklers. Then you need to make sure the product you are using to remove hard water spots won't harm the cermaic coating.

Your use case, if you aren't worried about microswirls from your car wash, I think just wash as usual and add an SiO2 products like @JonF suggested once a month or so. I use Reload but there are ton of products available. It's not really a ceramic spray wax, although some people like those as well. They are all wipe-on, wipe-off. Some you can mist on while the car is wet and then dry as usual. Saves time and less chance of streaking with the correct drying towel.
 
Changed the rear hatch struts so I don't need a baseball bat to hold it up. Should have gone with a lighter duty set since it doesn't have a spoiler on it at the moment, so it's a bit hard to close now.

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Then I pulled the headliner because like any car from the era it's sagging. It's usually a.messay job so I wanted to get that done before cleaning up the interior

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Vaccumed up under the hood a bit
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Next will be a deep clean of the interior
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