Firstly - my Tucson is black.
Secondly - I had some Autoglym super resin polish in the garage that I've had for some time and was originally bought to polish the two white cars we had at the time.
Whilst my Tucson was still pretty new and still had a new car lustre, I applied some Turtle Wax Graphene Flex on top of the polish the dealer had used. I used the TW because it claimed to give protection for up to a year. After about 9 months (I'm happy with that) I began to notice that it was obviously wearing off and needed redoing.
I finally got around to it this week.
Now I know that the polish the dealer used was a generic bulk product, so I thought I'd use something better to polish the car with before reapplying the TW Graphene. Now Autoglym has always had a decent reputation and as I already had some, that's what I used.
I washed the car properly and dried it off diligently to ensure there were no water marks left. It was a warm day and I coated the whole car with the Autoglym as the instructions told me I could. Buffing the polish off afterwards was not the easy job it should have been - maybe because it was a warm day. When I'd finished, there were what looked like water marks left over much of the paintwork ! I knew I'd removed them all before polishing and any amount of buffing would not remove these new ones. I ended up using another polish I had in the garage - a Turtle Wax this time. This removed the water marks and I probably had to redo about half of the car again.
Looked lovely when I'd finished, but here's the rub (scuse the pun). Autoglym is a white coloured polish and using it on a black (or any dark colour) is a bad idea because it gets into every nook and cranny which you can't then get at with a microfibre cloth, so I had to resort to using an old toothbrush to get it out, cos otherwise it stands out like a sore thumb!!
I was knackered after this and it had taken so long that it was too late in the day to apply the Graphene coating - that got done today.
It was only after I finished repolishing the car that I realised where the new watermarks had come from. I'd noticed when applying the Autoglym, but had paid it no heed, that there was what appeared to be (water?) moisture in the polish. Don't know how it got there as I'd shaken the container very well before using, but it certainly caused me a lot of extra work and I won't be using Autoglym again !!
I'm expecting comments from Daibill about this.
Moving on to roof bars. This not a rant, just a cautionary tale.
I'd kept the Thule roof bars and feet from my previous car, but were I to still use the Thule bars on the Tucson, I would have had to buy new Thule footpacks and fitting kit. Normal price last year was £160, but I did find some on EBay for £140. Either way, that's a lot of money for what you're getting and it had also come to light on this forum, that if Thule footpacks (and also those supplied by Hyundai themselves) are used, the sunroof (if fitted) cannot be opened as it will foul the footpacks and/or the bars and could possibly cause breakage.
I managed to source a new set of Nordrive bars and feet for just under £100 at the time, so somewhat cheaper than just the footpacks from Thule. These bars, once fitted in the correct position, do allow the sunroof to open as it should. Job's a good'un I thought.
I use (have used) roof bars to carry my 16' Canadian canoes about and I leave the bars fitted permanently. The Nordrive kit though, whilst sturdy enough, did give a small amount of wind noise and the footpack kit is not as well thought out as Thule kit. I also feel that the lip on the outer edge of the Tucson flush roof rails isn't as indented as much as previous cars I've with flush rails, thereby not giving the feet as much purchase on the rails as I feel there should be, especially for transporting canoes, under which there is tremendous wind lift. Thule kit might fit better than Nordrive, but I can't attest to that personally.
I have been doing little canoeing of late and last week, for many and varied reasons, I decided to give it up and sell all of my kit. Even before making that decision, I had removed the roof bars and discovered that the rubber/plastic material that sits between the feet and the roof rails to prevent abrasion had marked the paintwork - not seriously, but I've never seen that with Thule kit. You'd have to get close to see the marks, but I know they're there. I find it mildly annoying and I cannot remove them myself. Maybe a professional could.
Make what you will of this and maybe it will help someone, but to sum up. Nordrive kit doesn't measure up to Thule kit and will mark paintwork eventually. I wish now I'd forked out for the Thule feet even though it meant I couldn't open the sunroof, which I never use anyway !
You should be asleep by now .
