What are you all using to detail your interior and exterior of your Vette? I have a 1975 blue on blue vinyl. Repainted once 10+ years ago. Is ceramic coating any good for the older paint? What about interior I saw a old post on here complaining of armorall? What to stay away from?

 

Best thing on the market. No question about it.

 

Under "General Corvette Topics" there is a "Car Care" discussion.

 

303, Meguiar's Protectant for Plastics, and (my personal favorite) Nu-Vinyl are all polymer protectants. You should NEVER put a petroleum-based substance on your plastic/vinyl interior parts. You can use a polymer protectant on plastic, vinyl, rubber, even leather (i.e. steering wheel) and it is fantastic. Ideal for vinyl tops, etc. etc. Ditch the Armor-All

Polymer paint polish (i.e. Zaino, etc) are great polishes and much easier to use than wax.

 

I use 303 for the interior. Ceramic coatings are popular now. I find it hard to justify the money to have some do a paint correction and ceramic coat the car when my car lives in the garage most of the time. The benefits of the ceramic coating would be nice for a daily driver (harder coating than wax to resist scratches, easier to wash, easier to get random road grime or bugs off and so on, longevity of coating compared to wax and so on) in my opinion.

 

Came across this and figured I’d chime in for you.

100% agree on the 303 Aerospacce Protectant. I’ve been using this on my cars for over 10 years now. Before that I would use it on my boat protecting the plastics. The boat is a 29 year old open fisherman and to this day I use 303 on it. It does a great job of keeping the plastics (rub rail, window gaskets, vinyl seating, etc) looking like new. For the car, I use 303 on all my plastic and rubber. My leather is treated with other products.

When it comes to the paint. Ceramic coatings are the current “hot thing” out there for paint protection right now. Like ANY paint protection however, it needs to be maintained and refreshed. Do not expect to apply a ceramic coat and simply hose it down to keep it clean and with a perfect shine free of swirl marks etc. for years. It is simply unrealistic. They are great, but they do have limitations. Unless you are doing it yourself, expect to spend a good amount to have the paint corrected and coated. Now you’ll start seeing things about Graphene coatings, this might be the next fad.

Having said that, I am still a fan of paint correction (done regardless of final protection) followed by a good sealer and then a great wax. I love the wet look that I get with that. I do all the paint correction and waxing of my own cars. I have not gone ceramic, I still like my wax. I use Rupes brand polishes to do the paint corrections. I have Rupes polishers so I started using their foam pads and polishes. They have a real good system matching pads to polishes giving you great results. You can do that with many products, but Rupes is what I use. I use Meguiars Synthetic Sealant 2.0 to seal the paint. Then my final is a couple of coats of a good Carnauba Wax. On that I’ve used a few. Meguiars has one, Chemical Guys also has a real good one.

I have kept the paint on many of my cars like that and the results are awesome.

 

Here's another plug for 303. I use it in all the cars I intend to keep. I also use Meguiars interior products when I'm helping out someone else, and I can't get 303.

I've gotten free Armor-All products from people, thanked them for thinking of me and my car hobby, and pitched them in the trash when they were out of sight. I've seen several vinyl interiors ruined by Armor-All and other petroleum interior products.

 

Lot's of votes here for 303 Protectant. Something I haven't used but will definitely try for the interior.
I've been using Chemical Guys "Natural Shine" for vinyl. I like the finish it leaves on the interior. Not too shiny and slick.

 

Another plug for 303 for interior. I use both 303 and also Nu-Vinyl. I personally like the feel of 303 a little better than Nu-Vinyl but I like both and both work great.

Zaino for exterior. Won a "Best Paint" award at a car show in 2019 before all the Covid madness and the car was painted 32-years ago. Amazing stuff.