I recently brought my car back to the body shop to have my front spoiler repainted as it was heavily scratched (I have a Brabus body kit on my E320). When I got it back, I noticed a few rough spots on my fender(likely from over spray of paint during the touch up). I heard that clay works well in smoothing out this kind of blemishes. Any experience with this? How does this work? Thanks.

Clay works great on this type of problem. It will remove any debris or overspray that is sitting on top of the paint. While swirl remover and polish help with problems in or below the surface of the paint, nothing beats clay for problems ON the paint. Clay is also very gentle to your paint since it only removes the debris and not the paint.
It works by being somewhat sticky. You spray a lubricant like Meguiar's Final Inspection or Quick Detailer on a small area. Next you flatten the clay into a pancake and rub it on the area you sprayed. The lubricant makes the clay slide easily over the sprayed area but, any debris will be picked up by the clay. Be sure to keep the area wet with lubricant while using the clay. You are finished when the clay slides across the surface with virtually no friction and the paint feels absolutely smooth to the touch. Kneed the clay into a ball and then into a pancake again before moving to the next area. This creates a new clean surface on the clay.

We highly recommend it!

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Bill Wood - Webmaster
MercedesShop.com, LLC

I agree with everything Bill just said. However I would like to add one little tidbit. While Clay Magic seems to be an excellent clay bar, the spary lube they include with it is junk. You will spend hours removing or trying to deal with the streaks from the stuff. Use the Clay Magic bar with some #34, Meguiar's Quick Detailer (same stuff as #34 but with a better sprayer IMO, or Slick Stuff) That should take care of the overspray problem. Oh, one other note. Should you drop the clay for ANY reason, discard it. It will pick up dirt off the ground and then grind it into your paint. You may want to cut the clay bar in two before use as a safeguard against dropping.

Happy Detailing...Lee

Got it! Thanks for the tip...I'll let you know how it worked out!!

How often can you reuse the clay? I've never seen any info on this point. Here in Ontario it costs about $20CDN for a bar, and if it's a "use it once and toss it" product, then it seems rather expensive. Or am I missing something here in regards to the use of a clay bar?

Thanks.

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Darko Vusir
1994 C220

You can reuse it several times. Neither Clay Magic nor Meguiar's gives a specific number of uses. They do say reuse until dirty.

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Bill Wood - Webmaster
MercedesShop.com, LLC

Pretty much you just rub and area, then knead/fold the clay, then keep doing that until you can't knead up a "clean" spot anymore. At that time discard the claybar. The specific amount of times per use is not able to be given in a number because different surfaces have different amounts of crud on them. If you are just keeping up a nearly virgin E430's finish, then you can use it many more times than say a reconditioning or bumper-bumper overspray removal.

Hope this helps...Lee