I just donated 4 hrs of elbow grease the other day.
Hand washed my brothers 98 GP SE with Mothers Gold Car Wash in a 5 Gallon bucket of water, a sponge and a chamois.
Followed that up with a Mequiars Clay Bar, and 2 coats of Liquid Glass (first time I've had success with LG -although there was a bit of spotting on the hood).
The car looks phenominal for being just an GP SE (the one with the down syndrome front bumper).

I definitely have to say Clay Bar -it'* about the best thing you can do to preserve your paint (just make sure you wax afterwards).

good write up, im definetly going to have to do this this weekend

Thanks for the feed back guys, I picked up a clay this morning before work. Can't wait to try it out tomorrow

The biggest tips that I think are the most important are:

(1) Don't be afraid to do your first claybar! It'* so easy, and so fast, that you could easily clay every time you wash your car. You'll be amazed at how easy it is, and that nobody ever told you to claybar your car before.

(2) But yeah, you're definitely going to want to wax it to protect that deeply cleaned paint, so plan time for that too. Fortunately Liquid Glass is fast and actually prefers direct sunlight.

(3) Divide your clay bar into at least 2 pieces before claying, because you *will* drop it eventually. (And don't use it once it'* hit pavement.)

(4) You kind of fold the clay over every few strikes to reveal fresher clay.

a thing to note...a clay bar will NOT remove wax. So if you are going to start fresh, you need to wash your car again after using the clar bar or you need to use something like 3M general purpose adhesive remover to get all the old wax off.