The teaser (pre on left, post on right):
The journey with my Fuzion has not been easy for me but have been able to mostly overcome everything so far. The latest and perhaps biggest is recovering the grey Filon (fiberglass'ish) to something reasonable.
I will first admit four years of AZ sun, storing at sand dunes 1/2 of its life, and storing hooked up at a high elevation RV park the other 1/2 of its life have not been kind to it. Neither was me thinking paying a "detailing company" to maintain it "properly" at $1 per foot price it turns out. It now is fortunate to be living in an RV garage so was time to recover it or get rid of it and frankly I thought the latter was going to be the solution after some previous "basic attempts" to "wax" it or similar with some highly recommended products yielded no real improvement.
Note the below was three weeks of work for me including a lot of trial and error. I basically touched every inch at least 7 times including multiple polishing steps and far from fun since all surfaces are vertical, but the results kept me going. Its still not perfect but I got three "that's a beautiful rig" or similar at the two gas station stops I made last trip when had not heard that since close to being new.
Will start with what did not work. Expensive stuff including F11 Topcoat and Shine Armor Ceramic Spray did little even though good luck with these on maintained auto paint. Alternative stuff 303 Aerospace helped a little but it came off with first rinse. Nu-Finish and Meguiar's Marine wax added a little gloss but still not good. The one step polish/wax like Meguiar's Marine/RV and Chemical Guys one step were only ok despite them being the common recommendation you will likely find even with a good polisher. What it comes down to is there was just a lot of oxidation and previous bad wax on it so needed a true multi step "paint correction" polishing to bring it back.
OK, so here is my final recipe for success:
1. A good Dual Action (DA) polisher (I bought Torq/Chemical Guys 10FX). With this type of polisher you wont burn through anything yet get very good polish. A cheap polisher is not powerful enough either as tried one too.
2. Wash and clean very well to remove any obvious dirt and grime as dont want anything getting on the polishing pads.
3. Mothers Speed Clay 2.0 with Chemical Guys Clay Luber. Traditional clay also works well but very inconvenient and costly for as much area as an RV has. This is an optional step in general.
4. Chemical Guys V32 polish with their yellow polishing pad on high speed with multiple passes and more than typical pressure applied. Seems like creating a little heat with Filon will help avoid "blotchy" results in the end. I tried some generic pads and they did not hold up well. I tried wool pads but no better luck and much harder to clean/re-use them vs. the foam pads. You will likely want multiple pads to rotate (I went with 4) as they get really dirty so I changed with about every 10 foot section. Work carefully around graphics but I actually had no real issues as you have to go over the edges to get everything. Chemical Guys Pad Cleaner really did work well to clean all the pads with soaking in water.
5. Wipe off polish with wet micro fiber towel. Chemical Guys are the best I have found in terms of not falling apart.
6. Chemical Guys V36 polish with their orange pad on high speed with multiple passes and also more than typical pressure. Again multiple pads to rotate as will still get very dirty. I found no benefit in also doing their V34 in between or the V38 afterwards. I think this is due to filon vs. "paint" just needing a coarse and fine polish basically.
7. Wipe off polish with wet micro fiber towel.
8. Wipe graphics with vinegar and water mixture in spray bottle and micro fiber towel to remove water spots the best as well as any polish residue.
9. Wipe Filon with isopropyl alcohol spray and microfiber towel to remove any trace of polish residue, etc.
10. Your choice of wax, sealant, ceramic/hybrid, or venture into trying true ceramic coating. I went with Chemical Guys Jet Seal applied to all surfaces by hand. It needs to sit for 20 minutes but does come off easy. Also had good luck with NU-Finish. Did not like the results Meguiars RV/Marine wax surprisingly. I had very poor results with Chemical Guys Butter Wet wax. The Filon seems to have some texture and if don't get a really good coarse cut with the V32 above you will see it gets very "blotchy" after this step or in other words worse than what it looked like after polishing especially standing directly in front of the surface vs at an angle.
11. I am not to the "maintaining" step yet and even with storing it in an RV garage now I will be washing it at least every other trip, sealing or waxing it once a year or more, and using a spray like F11 topcoat or perhaps a ceramic spray in between. Will still probably need a V36 polish every few years.
The above might seem like I work for Chemical Guys LOL which I do not. Its just who I went with as had some of their more basic products for a while and most is just good stuff in my experience.
Its funny that when purchasing I was worried about it having so many black or other dark "stickers" but most of them held up extremely well, especially the glossy black ones! My front cap is paint so it held up well with the exception of the big FUZION sticker that I removed with a 3M stripe removal wheel.
I now understand why some places charge $5k+ for ceramic on an RV and could tell you my price would be much higher LOL. On that subject ceramic still needs to be maintained well in most cases and I suspect even more so on Filon.
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