Clay Bars.

[Alan Drover]

Has anyone used clay bars and what was the result? The paintwork on my Land Rover is sun faded and although I can restore it with a good polish it fades after a while.

[diffwhine]

Used them plenty of times in body shops - great for awkward stuff like bird lime damage.

Not really a whole vehicle solution in my view. A good mop and polish may be simpler. You can pick polishers for next to nothing on Amazon. Don't use an angle grinder as the mop power source -it's too fast.

[Wittsend]

Plenty of YouTube vids of using polishers ...

[Series2ajosh]

A clay bar won't miraculously make your paintwork shiny, a clay bar is exactly what it says on the tin, a bar of clay! its sole purpose is to decontaminate paintwork from things like iron particles, tar, anything embedded into the very top layer of paint that regular washing will not remove, prior to polishing/compound and wax, a very useful bit of kit in any car detailing enthusiasts arsenal, but it's certainly not a miracle cure!

[Alan Drover]

Thanks for the advice. The clay bars from Bilthamber are £11.95 each which seems expensive for a lump of clay. I'll likely invest in a polisher.

[Jeff]

Use them all of the time on the Evoque, great for removing tar splashes etc. Even after a  wash it is amazinfg to see what comes off.

[Old Hywel]

How long before you're through to bare metal?

[autorover1]

Given how thin the original paint was on S2/3 I would be wary of overuse of any abrasives, especially with original paint. 

[Alan Drover]

Clay bars are definitely a no no. I'm now looking at polishers. I want one with random movement rather than circular. I've been looking at cordless ones but the good ones are prohibitively expensive. Can anyone recommend a good mains powered one?

[diffwhine]

I've not seen a cheap random orbital polisher. I tend to find that a standard one does most jobs quite happily. I won't recommend the one I currently have / had, because it caught fire trying to polish my P38A. Maybe a rubbish old Range Rover finally tipped it over the edge.