I had the day off today, so I decided to finally follow through on my promise to myself to detail my car. I'd been wanting to try a clay bar treatment, and so I did. A claybar treatment is where you take, well, a bar of special finish clay and rub it over the car's finish after applying a lubricant (I used a detailing spray that was included with the kit). You don't really apply any pressure - you just rub the clay around in a circular motion over the car's finish. After rubbing a section, you polish it off with a rag. After polishing a section, you fold the clay a couple of times and move on to the next. It's amazing how much gunk the clay picks up.

My regime was as follows:

• Hand wash with Meguiar's soap
• Smooth the finish with Meguiar's "Smooth Finish" clay bar kit
• Hand wax with Zymol
• Treat tires with armor all
• Clean wheels with elbow grease (and not too well)
• Clean windows with clay bar

My car is silver grey, which really doesn't show up a nice wax job like black, dark blue, or red, but it still looks pretty darn good. See for yourself:

Reflections on hood/windshield

Three-quarter view

I doubt I'll do this more than once a year, since it took about four hours, maybe more. I'm sore from all the rubbing! Oh, and naturally, It's supposed to rain tomorrow.