Is a clay bar really necessary?

No matter how skilled you are, a clay bar or cloth is a necessity. You can remove an incredible amount with rust and tar removers, as well as other car care products, they dissolve the vast majority of the impurities that get on your car's paint and really stick to it.

Although I recommend using car care chemicals to remove as much dirt and grime as possible, it is definitely a good idea to give your car a clay treatment every now and then.

By using car care chemicals first, you also reduce the risk of making micro scratches or wash scratches when you have to remove the stubborn dirt with your clay bar, glove or cloth.

It is typically around 10-20% of the ingrained dirt that cannot be removed using car care chemicals, and therefore requires you to treat it with a clay bar.

What impurities are on my paint?

Although a lot of dirt is removed when you wash your car, unfortunately some remains and simply builds up over the year. These typically include the following;

• Fly rust (brake dust and similar metal particles)
• Tar
• Chemical fallout
• Lime stains

Why should I use a clay bar?

There are various reasons, but it all comes back to the fact that it makes your car easier to maintain and clean, and that adding some form of paint protection also gives it better adhesion.

It is also incredibly important before polishing, as your polishing pads do not fill up with dirt and smear around the car's paint.

So in short, there are a lot of benefits to using a clay bar.

• Easier to keep the car clean
• Paint protection lasts longer
• Polishing is getting better
• Polishing pads do not get unnecessarily dirty

My car looks clean, should I use a clay bar?

Even if your car looks really clean, it can still be full of embedded dirt. It is especially difficult to see the dirt on darker colors.

A really good tip to test whether your car's paint is really clean, when it is either completely dry or still wet after a car wash, is to feel the paint, and if it feels completely smooth, without any bumps in the paint, then it's just fine.

If it feels like there are bumps, impurities, or even sounds like some kind of sandpaper, it needs a little extra love, and preferably with a clay bar.

What is a clay bar?

The clay bar originated in 1990, when a Japanese man named Tadao Kadate invented it to remove stubborn dirt from car paintwork in a safe and effective way. Even over 30 years after its arrival, it is still largely the same as it was then. However, slightly different variants have been added, in the form of synthetic materials, such as gloves or cloths.

What all clay bars have in common is that they look a bit like modeling clay and are a sticky mass. It collects the ingrained dirt from the car's paintwork, whether it's rust, tar or something else, and when it's dirty enough, it's twisted together to force the dirt into the center of the clay bar, creating a new surface.

It is therefore also important and necessary to check how dirty your clay bar is so that the dirt can get into the middle, so that you also avoid unnecessarily smearing the dirt around your car's paint.

Other types of Clay materials

Although the clay bar is great for removing dirt, it also has some drawbacks. One of them is that if you drop it, you have to throw it away as it collects rocks and dirt from the ground. The next one is its size.

Here you can use a clay glove or clay cloth to your advantage. They have a significantly larger surface area, which makes it possible to clean the paint faster, and even in combination with some rust removers.

They also have a significantly longer lifespan than a traditional clay bar, as they are made of a perforated material that can be rinsed free of dirt, and if you happen to drop it, you just have to clean it.

They are also more expensive to purchase, but if you want it to go faster or are afraid of losing your clay bar, it is definitely worth investing in.

Clay gloves and clay cloths from The Rag Company are even so gentle that they can be used to clean the paint of your ceramic coated car without causing scratches, if used correctly.