which clay bar is the best?!

 

Mother's Claybar.

P.S. Are there more companies that make claybar's?

 

Meguiar's makes one but i've never tried. i use Mother's and it's pretty good.

 

mothers/zaino

 

Isn't a clay bar just a clay bar? Pardon my ignorance..

 

I've used Meguiar's last year, and it worked out great. I acutally just ordered another kit for this year.

 

1 - Zaino
2 - Clay Magic
3 - Mother's
4 - 3M

 

Only one I have used was meguiars, and it works amazing, the car feels like glass now.

 

I've used a few bars of Clay Magic already and it worked pretty well. I, then, bought a package of Maguires and found the bar was smaller compared to Clay Magic with a at least a 50% increase in price. Maguires did however give a small sample of wax to go with it.

 

I saw the mothers one that came with an extra bottle of wax, but it was crappy canuba wax (their lowest grade of wax, still good, but their basic wax).

The meguiars "Quick Clay detailing system" that I got had two bars of clay (don't think it was supposed to, but hey, I'm not complaining) and a bottle of "Quick Detail" spray bottle, but I didn't see any wax in the meguiars kit. The kit was $15CAD probably $11USD, was that the same kit?
or do they have another one with wax?
What kind of meguiars wax was it?

 

i have found the clay and speed shine combo from griotsgarage.com to be the easiest to work with but i think its one of the most expensive. an 8 ounce bar is $20. check out autopia.com for the reviews.it is a website of car cleaning fanatics and the posts have some good info.

 

I wonder who Griots bought it from just to raise the price to something unbelievable. I never trusted Griots. They have a contract with their vendors that Griots will not reveal the name of the company that makes the product they sell. This is fine untill someone has a product liability claim against the maker of the product. Then we'll see if Griot's is willing to accept the liability. On top of that it plainly implies that Griot's cannot stand competition in the market

I've found a few products on other sites that are the exact same product for about 30%-40% less. That is once you find out who makes it. If you see something in Griots catalog that looks good to you, just wait a little while. You'll eventually see it at Jeg's or some other similar catalog.

 

Good Point Tom. I've helped pay for the catalogs a few times in the past.
Oh, I like Pinnacle's clay bar and Mothers.

 

I can't remember, one time I bought a clay bar that was white. That was the worst POS.

To me Zaino or ClayMagic are the best, and Mother's is pretty good too.

 

I have seen the meguirs clay bar (is that tiny bar enough to do a car?) at store but havent seen any others like mothers. Maybe I just missed it in the store. but where can you get the claymagic or the mothers for the cheapest?

 

I think PepBoys sells ClayMagic for about $10-$12.

 

ok b/c I just got some meguirs NXT and i wanted to clay it before doing. This forum has sucked me into doing weird things like rubbing clay on my car!!!

 

Claymagic works great and is the best bang for the buck. When I bought it, it was $35 for an 8 ounce bar and $6 for the clay lube. Most clay bar kits that cost 20 bucks+ only come with a 2 ounce bar. I've had it for 2 1/2 years and it is still going great.

I also bought their Clay Magic Power System to save some elbow grease but DON"T buy it, it doesn't work that well

 

Clay Magic - hand down easy to get (pep boys, autzone) - or if you can't find it mothers is good too.

 

I've used Clay Magic and Mother's. They were about the same. I haven't tried any other brand, but I'm sticking to these two brands.

 

I haven't seen a kit from Meguiar's with wax included, so you'll have to pick that up separately. And yeah, the bar is pretty small, but if you think about it, you're not applying the bar to the car, the bar is like an eraser that picks crud up off your car. When I did my car last year, it's an 2K, I don't think anyone had ever clayed the car so it was pretty bad. When I was done, the bar looked pretty good, and still had a lot of life left. I did, however, come pretty close to using up all the quick detailing spray the first time. I bought the kit online since I couldn't find it locally ($10 + shipping)

http://www.meguiars.com/store_meguia...l.cfm?sku=G-11

I'm really a fan on the Meguiar's clay - I have absolutely no reason to switch to another brand because this stuff works perfectly, as advertised. As with any clay bar, just remember to keep the surface slick with the quick detailer - otherwise the clay can catch and might rub off on the surface a bit (not a big deal and easily avoidable, but a pain all the same)

 

To save the spray usage I first park it in the garage fro a long while (overnight) then spray the area I want to do and take my hand and smear the spray on every part of that area. Don't do this with hot metal, the spray will just dry up quicker and you'll wind up using more to get it wet again. And don't smear it with a towel, it'll just get soaked up and not smeared around.

 

The grit or abrasiveness of clay bars is very important depending on what color car you have. Clay magic makes a medium grit (red) and a fine grit (blue) clay bar. If you have a darkish color car then you want to use a fine grit or small grit clay bar, otherwise you can put small little scratches all over your paint and will need to speed buff to remove the scratches. As a car wash and detail owner I've only used Clay Magic and Car Brite Brand clay bars but both work well. Also, it's not necessary to buy the "lubricant" spray that accompanies the clay bars. Simply keeping your car wet with water in a shaded area is enough to lubricant the clay bar and the paint to work effectively. Best of luck all.