September 22, 2012: With the Cirrus spending its days and nights outside, it gets pretty dirty, especially in the spring and fall. Today was a good day to give it a much needed bath and apply a good coat of wax for the upcoming winter.

It doesn't look bad from a distance.

Up close, however, is a different story. Debris from all the trees collects in the creases in the body lines, and becomes quite hard to remove after enough time has passed. The photo looks across the trunk lid and shows what remains after washing the car.

The highlights in the paint seen above are actually stains from the dirt and debris.

I pulled out the orbital polisher and the compound.

The left side of the roof has been compounded, while the right side had not. The difference is pretty evident.

The difference between the compounded and non-compounded areas is quite apparent.

The compound did a good job of removing the staining.

After the compound came an application of clearcoat polish. I love this stuff !

The clearcoat polish is exactly what it says. It does a great job of removing scratches and making the paint shine.

The above picture shows why I love the clearcoat polish.

The last step is to apply a good coat of wax.

I also decided to remove the front license plate bracket. Georgia doesn't require a license plate on the front of the car. I think the front end looks cleaner with the bracket removed.

Unfortunately, the mounting holes are still visible after the bracket is removed.

The finished product looks pretty good.

The paint looks great !

The car is now 12 years old at this point and still cleans up great despite sitting outside.

Closeup of the metallic paint.

The hood cleaned up quite well.

The car still shines beautifully.

I vacuumed the interior as well.

2000 Chrysler Cirrus all cleaned up.