LightingBlue
Well-Known Member
Your opinion on this is something that I would heavily disagree with. The coefficient of friction between the clay and paint with a sufficient lubricant layer is equivalent to what you will have when washing the vehicle.I see the word clay bar thrown around a lot around here and I believe there is some misconceptions for clay bar. Clay bar is quite aggressive to the paint, and if you do it too often, you'll literally strip the clear coat away. Therefore, you only clay bar when you need it.
Now, that is not to say there is zero friction. But what you are implying will happen is at a rate impossible to achieve in a lifetime.
Modern clear coats are ~20 microns thick. You might achieve loss of 5 microns over the paints natural lifetime (~20 years) with VIGEROUS washings, dryings and clay bar on a weekly basis. I'll take my chances with clay barring the car and not anticipating the factory paint (or me) to last another 80 years.
Full disclosure: I've worked in detail shops specializing in restorations of classics to show-prep for exotics. The "urban legends" of the mysterious and often-confused clay bar is as broad as it is exhaustively tiresome to dispel.
Back on topic.... If you have more than one vehicle and are planning on doing adequate, regular cleanings of the vehicle, I would highly suggest migrating to the "clay towel" for speed of cleaning and cost savings. Have been very impressed with these products after initial skepticism. And you need to do just as much paint correction after using one of these as you do after using a clay bar..... WHICH IS TO SAY "ZERO". Your vehicle needed paint correction before using a clay bar if it needed paint correction afterward.
https://www.autogeek.net/clay-towel.html
Sponsored