A weekend with the new IV

Friday finally arrived last week and we were able to pick up our new IV in that purty deep blue color at about 7:30 p.m. We get the car home and then I start to polish the car, but something is not quite right. There is what appears to be "rail dust" in the paint, so I get out the trusty clay bar and sure enough...rail dust. By this time it was getting late and I had to be up early for an appointment at the tire store. Saturday morning I arrived at Discount tire for a new set of Michelin Energy Saver A/S tires. They even gave me some credit for the Bridgestones that I traded in. The car seems to ride a tad better with the new tires and the tread pattern should do well in the winter. The rest of Saturday was spent running errands and such and a small 100 mile round trip out of town. Sunday, I was able to get the car washed from the weekend rain and started the clay bar process. After the clay bar, two coats of Zaino Brothers polish went on. The wife needed to run an errand, so we took off. On the way home, I said lets see how good we did this weekend and pullled into the gas station. We had driven 165 mile, and put in 3.5 gallons of fuel..which = 47.1 MPG. Not to bad considering the drive back on Saturday night we were running 72-mph in a pretty good wind.
All in all, we are VERY happy with the car thus far and I am sure we will continue to tweek our driving to stretch out those mpg numbers...

 

Rail Dust: "When the rail car wheels pass over the rails the resulting filings that come from the wear and tear being magnetic would swirl up in the wind and adhere to the cars." As I was applying the polish with the applicator pad, I could feel the little bumps on the paint. I then took a white t-shirt(100% cotton), folded it into a square and buffed off the small section of polish I applied. I then opened up the t-shirt, put my hand inside so there was just one thin layer and ran my hand across the section I had just completed. The finish was covered in little bumps that you could feel as you ran the shirt lightly across the paint. I first heard about rail dust about ten years ago in another forum. I will try and get a picture of the clay bar after I finished the car later tonight.
In regards to the tires, I had test driven a total of 3-Prius's in the last week, each one had a different feel to it. One of the cars we had for a a few hours one afternoon. In regards to our car, we drove around for about an hour Friday night and then I drove around for an hour Saturday morning before the tire shop opened on a variety of roads. I then took the car back later that day on some of the same routes running errands with the wife. Maybe it is just new tire excitement, but it seemed to have a different feel to it.

 

I thought about contacting the dealer in regards to this, to which I still might, but I had all of the items in the garage to take care of the job myself, plus, I had the satisfaction of knowing the job was done right the first time. Besides, the car does not take hardly no time to complete the clay bar process...not like my F350 Crew Cab Long Bed, and I can enjoy a big glass of sweet tea and some tunes jamming on the stereo. I make it a point to clay bar the vehicles in the spring to remove all of the winter contaminants and get a few good coats of Zaino on to help protect the rest of the year.