One of the many benefits of publishing PorschePurist is that we sometimes get a first look at various Porsche related products. A few weeks ago, Griot’s Garage (a PorschePurist sponsor at the time) sent us a bottle of their new Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner to try out prior to it hitting the market. While we were happy to try it, the weather wasn’t very cooperative and then once it was, we procrastinated a bit. I mean let’s face it, for most of us, cleaning the wheels on our Porsches just isn’t that much fun. It’s necessary. It can be satisfying if they’re especially dirty, but fun? Nope! The good news is, with this new Griot’s product it just got a whole lot easier.

Review of Griot’s Garage Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner

We’ve tried a number of different wheel cleaners over the years and spent considerable time and money doing so. When we received the Heavy-Duty Wheel Cleaner from Griot’s, I was interested, but didn’t expect much. After all, it’s just a wheel cleaner, right?

The Test

We had about 3 weeks of rain here at the lake, so the 993 hadn’t seen any real use for close to a month. Once the weather finally cleared John and I went for a number of “spirited” drives along the coast of Maine enjoying the 993 and the scenery. 500 miles of hard braking later, we had built up quite a coating of brake dust on our 18″ Turbo Twists. While the picture above doesn’t really capture it, the brake dust was thick and hard inside the wheel.

Following the directions that came with the cleaner I rinsed the wheels first with water. Once done, I sprayed the cleaner directly onto the wet wheel. It was at this point that I noticed the first difference with the Griot’s product. Not only was it going on thick and sticking to the wheel (see picture above), it didn’t smell caustic (a lot of other cleaners we’ve tried make it hard to breathe just being in their presence); this was a very pleasant surprise.

After letting the cleaner sit for about three (3) minutes you could notice the cleaner changing to a pinkish/red hue. This color change lets you know the product is working and in fact, at this point, a considerable amount of brake dust was already washing away of its own accord. I would think, that for wheels with light brake dust, you could simply rinse them at this point with a high power spray and most of it would come off. However, Griot’s doesn’t recommend that and our wheels had heavy, heavy dirt/dust so we needed to srub a bit with a brush (you can use a rag if you like, but a simple, inexpensive wheel scrubber brush makes the job much easier, especially in those hard to reach places).

I spent less than one minute on each wheel (not including elapsed time as the product works) between wetting, applying and scrubbing. The end result, was one of the cleanest wheels I’ve had in a while. There are other wheel cleaners out their that work in a similar fashion to the Griot’s formula, but most are corrosive and caustic with a higher price point: Griot’s product is only $16.95 for a 35 ounce bottle and $49.99 for a whole gallon of the stuff.

With these results, it’s pretty simple to recommend Griot’s Garage Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner. You can purchase on Amazon. Remember, and this is my only complaint, if you buy the 35oz bottle, it doesn’t come with the sprayer. You’ll need to buy that separately. However, the sprayer is cheap, durable and reusable (or, simply use one you have lying around from another product, just be sure to rinse it thoroughly first).

Related Porsche Posts
How To Wash, Wax and Polish Your Porsche, Part I
How to Wash, Wax and Polish Your Porsche, Part II
Have You Ever Heard of an Emerging Speedster?
PorschePurist.com’s Disclosure

Don’t worry, neither had I. I first saw the term on Twitter where my mind immediately equated “speedster” with Porsche (the iconic 356 Speedster that is). While I had no idea what I was going to find, I knew I had to follow the link and get to the bottom of it. Here’s what I found…

Hmmm. Okay, now I get why it’s called the “emerging” Speedster, but what the heck is it? More importantly, why?

My answer to “what the heck is it?” came a few days later in the mail with the receipt of my Griot’s Garage catalog. It turns out that the “Emerging” Speedster was just one of two Porsche Speedsters featured on the Griot’s cover (shown above). The first is a 1958, Ruby Red over black leather example (loaned out by a loyal customer for the cover shoot). The second Speedster, however, is something completely different.

Built by Intermeccanica, the “Emerging” Speedster is a 3/4 shell designed specifically for Griot’s and this application. While it is a “shell”, the exterior of the car is mostly complete and finished in Griot’s Red. The interior, on the other hand, is more of a skeleton (it is buried in the ground after-all). However, it does incorporate a steering wheel, working horn and headlights (both the horn and headlights can be controlled from inside the Griot’s Store).

Now for the Why

You see, Richard Griot (founder of Griot’s Garage) is a Porsche fan. Even better, it seem the entire company is made up of car lovers (of all makes). However, a good number of them hold a special place in their hearts for our favorite marque, Porsche. How do I know?

• The car featured on the very first Griot’s Garage catalog was a 1972 Porsche 911S

• If you were to visit their flagship store, you would find not only the “Emerging” Speedster, but another Porsche Speedster on the roof of their showroom.

• The Griot’s showroom includes a collection of cars including a 1984 Porsche 962 C Werks car

• One of their demonstration cars, which anyone can use the Griot’s Garage machine orbital polish and wax system on, is a Porsche Cayenne GTS

• Their blog currently features a restoration series on a 1973 Porsche 911S

• If all that wasn’t enough, check out the this garage!

The best part about all of this is yet to come. After that initial contact on Twitter, we’re now working directly with Griot’s Garage. In fact, we should be getting some of their product(s) soon to review. We’re particularly looking forward to reviewing their Ultimate Machine Polish and Wax Kit. We’ve seen these advertised for ever and always wondered if they are as easy and as good as they say.

We’re also hoping to put together some contest and special discounts. We’ll announce those as they come available. Lastly, let us know if there are any Griot’s products you’re interested in and we’ll see if we can’t get some to review for you.

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In Part I of this post Andrew had just started to polish the hood on his 944 and the difference was stunning (click the image to the left to see). In today’s post Andrew finishes the polishing and walks us through the process for sealing and waxing with amazing results.

Andrew is a student at Miami University, studying Technical & Scientific Communications with a double Minor in Marketing & Entrepreneurship. He enjoys maintaining his 1986 Porsche 944 and is looking to sell his near-mint 1975 Porsche 914 to a good home! (more on this in a later post).

After completing the entire hood with the orbital (using the SSR 2.5) the red is already on its way back to the original luster and shine it had when it came from Stuttgart some 22 years ago! This next shot is the hood after polishing it twice.

It’s almost new looking! After that, I polished the rest of the car once over with the Poorboys SSR1…

But I’m STILL not quite ready to wax yet! Now that the paint is free of dirt and oxidation, I want to lock in the shine – and with Porsches, to simply shine isn’t enough. They have to shine with Klasse (bad pun!).

Klasse All-In-One (AIO) is a great polish and protector for paint’s surface, especially older single-stage paints found on cars like mine. Their Sealant Glaze is the penultimate icing on the cake, second only to a nice wax. It can infuse the dullest of colors with a mirror-like brilliance, and it only gets better with each successive coat you apply! Normally I will apply two coats of the AIO and follow up with two coats of the sealant. However, I was running out of daylight, and the last time I washed and cleaned my car past sunset my family was a little concerned.

But I digress, the clay bar did such a fantastic job cleaning the paint, one coat from the AIO and the Sealant was all it took to brighten my paint! I used the orbital once more, but attached a softer polish sponge/cloth for both the Klasse products. NOW, we’re ready to wax!

Waxing your Porsche

I’ve used everything from Turtle Wax to Meguiar’s to Zymol, but there’s only one wax that I’ve found to stand above all others: P21S Concours Carnauba Wax.

This stuff is AMAZING, period. Amazingly easy to apply and remove, it produces amazing results on every car I’ve waxed with it, it even FEELS amazing! Best of all, there is no residue on rubber or plastic, something any Porsche owner can appreciate, but especially those ‘80s Porsche owners with rubber bumpers/bumperettes and trim!

I drove back to campus, hoping to take some pictures at a local park, only to find that the weather had other plans. Not one to be deterred, I took some pictures anyway! It’s no fun when all your hard work gets rained on less than an hour after you’ve finished, but seeing the water bead up on the surface still looked fantastic! Here’s my finished product, bad weather and all!

A few weeks back I had asked for some guest bloggers and a number of people took me up on the offer. Today’s post is the first, in a two part series, written by Andrew Granieri. Andrew is a student at Miami University, studying Technical & Scientific Communications with a double Minor in Marketing & Entrepreneurship. He enjoys maintaining his 1986 Porsche 944 and is looking to sell his near-mint 1975 Porsche 914 to a good home! (more on this in a later post).

Spring is here, and summer is right around the corner. What better way to celebrate than giving your car some attention? My daily driver is a 1986 Porsche 944 and it was in dire need of something more than a mere wash (you can click on the picture above for a larger image).

As the photos show, dirt wasn’t my only enemy – I had oxidation to deal with as well! I set to work washing and stripping the car. A lot of people don’t realize that car wash soaps don’t necessarily strip remaining coats of wax from the car – dishwasher detergent does, though! My car was dirty enough to warrant two washings…

An easy way to tell whether or not a car still has wax on it is to look for water beading, or a lack thereof. After using the standard car wash soap, there was still a fair amount of water beading up on the surface, but after using the Ajax, there wasn’t a trace of beading. I felt like going the whole nine yards with this, so I used a clay bar on the car after drying it off!

Using a Clay Bar

Clay bar usage is still relatively new to many enthusiasts, which is a shame because it’s an easy way to brighten your car’s paint! I myself have never used clay on a car before, but I used Pinnacle poly clay and lubricant on my car, and I was impressed with the results. Even with the lubricated surface area, the clay is still sticky enough to snatch up dirt and contaminants from your car’s paint, even if they’re wedged under your clear coat! It sounds difficult, but it really isn’t!

The process is fairly simple. Spray the clay lubricant on both the bar and the surface you’re working on, then rub the clay across the paint. There are a few key things to remember:

• the clay doesn’t need a lot of pressure against the paint to work – just let it glide over the surface – if there’s no resistance, it means that area of paint is virtually free of contaminants.
• If there’s a bit of resistance, you’ve found a dirty surface; check frequently to see if the clay has brought up dirt and turn the clay to a fresh clean side when it picks up ANYTHING.
• Keep the clay bar lubricated!

Misunderstanding this procedure is what gives clay its reputation as a double-edged sword; while it’s great at trapping the dirt and grime, if you aren’t diligent in turning the clay over, you can inadvertently damage the paint by scratching it with the dirty clay! I was especially careful to turn the clay at the first sign of dirt, so my paint was scratch free – save for some trouble spots that needed polished up. Which brings me to my next point…

I needed to polish this paint!

My weapons of choice include a Porter Cable random orbital hand tool and Poorboy’s World polish products, specifically their super swirl removers, or SSR line. The most important thing to understand when working with polishes is that you should use the weakest polish that’ll still get the job done. When you polish a car, your goal is to remove the tiny layer of oxidized paint that lies on the surface — use a polish that’s too weak, and you can always go up to a stronger blend. But if you start off with a strong polish that rips past the oxidized paint, it can be troublesome – and a pricey mistake, to say the least!

I used the SSR2.5 compound on the hood, and the SSR1 everywhere else. With the random orbital unit, it’s important to saturate the polish pad with the polish compound before using it; with no lubrication between the surfaces, you’ll be doing more sanding than polishing! Once it’s saturated, it’s best do polish a square area, moving the orbital in left-to-right and up-and-down motions.

Never stay in one spot! Here are some shots before the polishing…

Here’s a closer shot under the rear spoiler – oxidation is a problem here, too!

This last picture is particularly telling – I’m sure there are plenty of Porsche drivers who can sympathize with my Guards Pink hood! But there’s hope!

In this next shot, I polished only a small portion of the hood. Can you see the difference??

On Friday, part II of Andrew’s post will show how the rest of the car turned out after polishing and then a nice wax.