Clay Magic Review

Written by Glenn Moller / Mustangworld.

Clay Magic
Cost around $20, available at most autoparts stores like Pep Boys.

Magic clay kit $20 at most auto parts stores.

What is this stuff ?
By now you have all heard or even seen these "clay" type products on the market. They have actually been around for almost 10 years in one form or another. They are available from different car care supply manufacturers like Mothers and Clay Magic and a few others. Most Pep Boys stores carry both the Clay Magic and the Mothers clay products. Both systems are virtually identical and are designed to do the same thing.

We've always wanted to check this stuff out and recently we did. The Clay Magic kit comes with a 140 gram clay bar, a large bottle of Body Shine detailer (for lubrication), test glove, a sample size bottle of Wet Wax and a wax applicator pad. The kit costs around $20.

What does this stuff do?
This clay removes small carbon chips and other debris that have embedded itself into your clearcoat layer or paint. If you feel your stangs paint you know exactly what we mean. If your stang is a few years old, you probably notice the paint is still shiny, but it feels rough. Clay Magic removes these grainy deposits very easily and instantly.

Finally Clean your Stang Rear Bumper !
Yes the stang's rear bumper is a nice collector of carbon chips and buildup from exhaust, well this clay removes that stuff !

Here is a shot of our 96 GT with nothing but a Clay job, NO WAX applied at all. We only used the clay.

It's not modeling clay
Nope, modeling clay won't work :-) but it looks similar and handles like it, though it's very sticky. It feels like half cured plastic compound or something. The clay will last a while it mentions and should be able to do your entire stang 14 - 20 times or so.

We didn't do the whole stang, as you will notice, only the horizontal areas of your stang like the hood, roof, door tops and of course the rear bumper and decklid will have most of the grainy carbon deposits. The vertical areas like the sides of your stang should be fairly smooth. But you can remove debris anywhere. The stuff is real easy to use...

OK... HERE WE GO!

1. The clay comes wrapped, but you can put it back in it's plastic case for storage for later use. So take the clay out of the package and get the lubricant ready. CAREFUL NOT TO DROP THE CLAY on the floor. Next wash your car with soap and water, you might use a mild dish soap to strip any wax off as well if you wish. We dried our stang after wards, but the directions say it's not needed.
2. Spray on the lubricant (which is basically a 5 minute detailer spritz). Do one area at a time. If you run out of this stuff you can use other brand spray detailers, just note that you need to do this to lube the area so the clay can slide over the paint. The clay is sticky.
3. Now take the clay and put it where you sprayed. CAREFUL NOT TO DROP THE CLAY on the floor. This little sucker can slide and slip out of your hands if you are not careful. If you drop the clay on the floor you pretty much have to throw it away. You can't risk a grain of dirt getting in there and ruining your paint.
4. Now use it just like an eraser, but not in a circular fashion, just back and forth. Use more spray if needed to slick up the surface. You will notice the spray is clear when first applied, but our paint had so many carbon chips (invisible ! ) it ran a dark brown afterwards... amazing considering we thought our stang was very clean to begin with !
5. Ahhh.. the rear bumper, after a while you will have the clay bar in all kinds of shapes. It's recommended to fold it and re shape it after each section. Here we shaped it to fit the molding and get those spots off the bumper ! It works.
6. We needed to spend extra time on the bumper, but it did remove 90% of all the deposits. We only wish we did this a year ago, because some carbon deposits have left little brown deposits that we will need to remove with compound wax and buffing. We are real neat freaks, so we are talking microscopic stuff here.

Here is our stang again with only the clay job on it (same photo as way above repeated down here for closing comments :-). No wax at all. After you are done with doing your whole stang, you can apply a wax of your choice. The kit came with some yellow Carnuba looking stuff, so we used that to protect the surface afterwards, though in the photo above there is no wax on it. Clay Magic and we recommend a wax job after the clay job for sure to protect the surface.

What we think
We think Clay Magic is great. Again, we were not paid to say so. Though $20 seems high for this stuff, it's WELL worth it. Many high end car wax makers recommend using clay before applying their product and for good reason, it works. Feel your stang BEFORE and AFTER the clay procedure, you will really be amazed at how smooth your stang feels afterwards. While your stang will still look similar to before, claying will add a slight new luster and smoothness to your clear coat. We went with Clay Magic because we noticed the clay bar was 140 grams, a little more than what other makers were including in their kits (80 grams average).

That's it ! Til Next time...

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