- The Miata's paint
clearly looks like doo doo, so the question is, can I fix it? And can I fix it using toothpaste? Oh, this is gonna be a mess, dude. I doubt it. (thunder crashes)
(rhythmic music) (thunder crashes) So, detailing your car can only do so much in terms of making your paint look good, but I know a lot of you
guys are looking for cheaper and quicker methods
for this kinda stuff, so that's what we're here to do today. We're gonna try three different methods of paint correction on the Miata, and we're gonna see
what pans out the best. We're gonna look at my
tried and true method for paint correction: a standard
compound, polish, and wax. Then we're gonna go with a much cheaper, much quicker all-in-one method, and then we're gonna go
with the bootleg hack of all bootleg hacks. We're gonna rub some
toothpaste on the Miata and see if that does anything
for the state of the paint. All right, so what do I mean
when I say paint correction? Well, I basically mean the process of removing surface
imperfections from your paint, the top three of those
being surface scratches and swirl marks that happen over the years from poor wash practices
and all sorts of things. Then we've got water
etching, like right here from water being on the
car, and drying in the sun, and leaving some hard mineral, you know, deposits in the paint, and then we've got oxidation, which you can see here
on the front bumper. Oxidized, not oxidized. So hopefully today at
least one of those methods will fix all three of these problems. We've got the hood divided into thirds so we can compare our
products nice and easily next to each other. I gave it a thorough wash
and a clay bar last night to get rid of any of the
surface contaminants, any stuff stuck in the paint. I think this'll do something, I think this'll do pretty dang good. I don't think this is gonna do anything except rub toothpaste on my car. All right, let's take a deep dive into that first kit and
see how many scratches, swirls, and oxidation we can remove. (lively drum music) (cash register dings) Okay, so in this kit we've got what I believe
to be a pretty good setup. It's very commonly available. You can get this stuff
pretty much anywhere. It's a Meguiar's 105. This is our cutting compound, and then we've got the Meguiar's 205, which is their finishing polish. And then once we go
through those two steps, we'll finish off with a nice paste wax, which should give us a
beautiful, protected shine that should last a long time. So I'm expecting great results outta this. I don't see it going any other way. All right, so let's get started
with the cutting compound. So we're just gonna use about
four pea sized drops here. The easiest thing to
do with this, I think, is use too much product. I'm gonna add a little water to the pad, keep it lubed up. Tap it out. Kinda get it spread
around, get it started. And we'll put it on the low
speed, get it started out. (lively keyboard music) So after just a quick pass,
this does look a lot better. Now one of the hallmarks of
good paint correction products is how easily it comes
off when you're done, how easily it wipes off, and honestly, that's one of my biggest gripes
with the Meguiar's stuff, is it gets a little gummy sometimes and hard to wipe away, so we'll see. Maybe the toothpaste will be better. Okay, now we're movin'
on to our polish pad. Basically this is just
a little bit softer, a little less aggressive of a foam, with some pea-sized drops. (lively keyboard music) Now we've got a nice, flat
surface from the compound. The polish is gonna bring that shine and really make it look good. Just keep it moving, not too fast, not too slow. All right, so now that
we've finished the polish, we're ready to put on a wax. Well, waxing is one of the only times that you're allowed to use
circular motions on your paint, and that's really because
it's such a soft thing, and your paint should be very clean when you get to this point that you're not gonna
put any scratches in it doing it this way. So it doesn't take too much,
doesn't take any pressure. You just wanna get a nice,
even coating on the whole car. Let it dry, and then buff it off. Overall, it looks so much better. The reflection, my reflection in the paint is like almost night and day, I would say, and I'm pretty pleased with how this front bumper
turned out in this section. That was a lot of oxidation, and we pretty well reversed most of it, if not all of it. Those surface scratches and swirl marks are all but gone. Maybe some of the deepest ones remain. Overall, the water etching
has gone down considerably. We've still got a few spots, though, that I can see. (punches slamming) (rhythmic digital music) All right, so now that
we've seen what is possible with a very thorough
paint correction method, let's move on to the
cheaper and quicker method and see if we can return the same results. Be kinda cool if we could. Cheaper, quicker, what more do you want? (rhythmic island music) (cash register dings) Okay, let's get this stuff. Is this stuff open? Let's see how it smells. It smells pretty good. God, detailing stuff just
smells the best sometimes. Come give her a whiff. - Smells like grapes.
- Mm hm. (rhythmic island music) Tap it out, yeah. (buffer grinding) So, after using this for a minute, it's actually pretty easy to work with. It doesn't gum up at
all like the 3M stuff, which is very cool because
that is my biggest gripe with the 3M stuff. It does splatter a lot, so I mean, I think it's a pretty thin product. It does kinda fling, which, you know, I can kinda try to mitigate, but only so much. As far as the hood goes for
swirl marks and scratches, now we haven't really inspected it yet, but it seemed to do a decent
job for just one step. I don't think it's gonna
do as good on the oxidation on the bumper, though. I'll do a couple, I'll
give it as good a chance as she could ever have, 'cause
I want it to work, you know. This is easier for sure. (rhythmic island music) Whoo, it might be in competition. Let's see, let's keep goin'. (rhythmic island music) (buffer grinding) (rhythmic island music) (buffer grinding) All right, so the second one, our $20 compound, polish, and wax in one actually did pretty good. It was easy to work with, with
really long working times. It seemed to do a pretty good
job on surface scratches. All the light scratching seems
to be pretty well worked out, but I will say I don't
think it went quite as deep, didn't cut quite as deep, and didn't really zamboni as well as the compound on the first one. It didn't do nearly as
good on the water etching, and it did pretty good on
the oxidation on the bumper. Maybe not quite as good, but honestly, for $20, and
for how much quicker that was than this, especially if your paint is in a little bit better shape to start with than this, not a bad option. I'm honestly pretty impressed with it. (punches slamming) (rhythmic keyboard music) Now it's time to jump down the
old rabbit hole of internet and put some toothpaste on the hood, and see what that does. I got some whitening Colgate, and we're ready to try it out. If it works, I'm a toothpaste believer. (modern digital music) (cash register dings) Time for toothpaste. All right, when it comes
to the toothpaste trick, I wanna make sure we're doin' this right, and honestly, this is kind of news to me that this supposedly works. So I've been made aware
of some YouTube videos where some people go through this and show you how to do it, so I've been watching 'em to make sure that we
give this a fair shake, 'cause who knows? What if it works? That could be cool. All right, so it seems like
from watching these videos, there are really two processes
for the toothpaste method that are prevalent online. One is just buffing with the toothpaste, kinda like what we've been
doing with our products so far, and the other is to
smear the toothpaste on, let it dry, and then buff it off. Let's do it. So I guess we'll try the buffer method. So we're gonna add a pretty
good amound of water to the pad, and just do some pea-size drops, baby. See how it taps out (laughs). This is gonna be a mess. (buffer whirring) It does smell good. Once you get the water mixture right, it actually works pretty
well with the buffer and feels okay. We'll wash off a little better, and then we'll give it another crack. (buffer grinding) Makes a lot of noise. It's definitely not doing nothing. I mean, it's fixin'
some scratches for sure. The proof is in the
paste, let's keep goin'. All right, so before we
move on to the bumper, one of the videos about toothpaste said that you have to apply the toothpaste and then let it sit for
about five or 10 minutes, and then you work it. There's a pretty good scratch right here. I'm gonna put some toothpaste
on it, smear it in, and let it sit while I do the bumper, and then we'll check the scratch, see if we can make it any
better with that method. (lively horn music) (buffer whirring) Okay, so after giving the toothpaste the best shot we could manage to give it, it doesn't seem like it did a whole lot. I would say overall, it does
look a little bit cleaner and a little shinier at a glance, but you know, I think if
we put pretty much anything on a buffer and buffed it like that we would get that effect. When you look closely,
it really didn't do much for the light scratches, which is where I thought it might actually be able to work, and it didn't do much. It lilterally did nothing for the bumper, and also didn't do
anything for water etching, so in my opinion, the toothpaste thing. That is kinda myth-busted. (punches slamming) (rhythmic keyboard music) So what have we learned today? Well in my opinion, if you wanna correct your paint, there's nothin' better than
the tried and true method. With the $20 product from Amazon, honestly, it didn't do bad. It did better than I expected. It did a pretty dang
good job on scratches. It did pretty well on the oxidation, and the fact is, it
cost a fraction of this. It cost 20 bucks for this bottle, and I think this was the best to work with in terms of actually buffing. It also claims to be a wax
amongst the other things it claims to be, and we tested how well it left a wax-protected coating on just by pouring some water onto the paint, and it didn't bead up very well with this, where obviously with our paste wax, this section is very well protected. Now the toothpaste, on the other hand, just didn't do anything, and that's kind of what I was expecting. I think toothpaste is
meant for your mouth, and honestly, per ounce, not
that much cheaper than this. If you wanna save some
money and some time, then this really isn't a bad method, but if you wanna get the
best looking paint you can and you don't mind spending
a whole day buffing your car, then I gotta recommend the
tried-and-true compound, polish, and wax. And that's what I'm gonna
do to the rest of the Miata to get the rest of it looking this good so you guys can quit hating
on my terrible-looking bumper, and then maybe one of these days we'll fix that fender. Thanks for watching, guys. If you wanna see a video
on how to get your paint ready for paint correction, then go check out my video on detailing. Lemme know in the comments below what else you wanna
see us do to the Miata, and lemme know if there's
any other DIY hacks or tricks that you wanna see us try out, 'cause, well I don't wanna do
anything else with toothpaste, but I'll do some other stuff. Follow me on Instagram, @zachjobe, and Donut, @donutmedia. Thank you guys, we'll see ya next week.
I'm new to waxing and I planning to do the same exact thing that they are doing to my whole car with the stage 3 method. Also, do I need the drill or can I use the foam pad with my hand?
It will take forever and ever and ever and you’ll hate yourself by hand. Best thing is to buy a da polisher. If you wanna be frugal harbor freight. Orange pad if your using 3D speed work well together.
Looks like a Nanoskin “Speedy” foam buffing pad.
I wouldn't completely follow that. 1. I would use a DA polisher, not a rotary 2. All in ones are good place to start 3. I wouldn't use m105 m205 if you are a beginner