We promise to offer our very best advice on any aspect of detailing, completely free of charge with no obligation. We also promise to portray that advice in a friendly and professional manner because our business ethos is your complete satisfaction.

Many companies today do not offer the kind of advice needed to detail your own car, however we have that much passion for our industry, we love to see new budding detailers.

Below is an account of how you should detail your car or motorcycle, and a help form which you can use to contact us with any of your queries.

Please remember that the appearance of asthetics is vitally important to the resale of any vehicle, a well looked after vehicle will fetch more than that which is not, and often considerably more.

If you are considering having your vehicle professionally detailed or wanting to have a go yourself, then please get in touch.

 

STAGE 1

Use the two bucket system, prefferably with grit guards placed at the bottom of each. Get a wash mitt - the softer the better (sponges are not recommended as the small holes in sponges may contain unnoticeable grit turning it into a nasty scourring pad). Don't be tempted by the gritty mitt currently lying on the garage floor, but find a nice new one. Fill the first bucket with warm water and a wax-friendly car shampoo (washing up liquid contains salt and aggressive detergents, so don't be tempted to use it). Fill the second bucket with warm water. Get a hose or pressure washer and clear small animals and children from the immediate area. You are the detailing daddy. Nothing must get in the way of The Detail.

Use the hose or pressure washer to wet the car and shift the loose dirt (don't forget your wheels). Then, if you are doing a 'deep clean' or have old wax on your car it's time to use a strong pre-wash detergent solution or traffic film remover (TFR). These will strip dirt (and old wax) from the car. Some of these products are designed to foam and are applied with a foam lance, if you have one (foam has a better dwell time, so can act on the paintwork for longer). Next take a look at the areas that need a bit of extra effort, like tar spots, dead bugs and brake dust on the wheels. Use dedicated cleansers for these, and remember that the wheels may need quite a lot of dwell time. Now rinse the car again with cold water - most of the dirt should have gone, meaning there are less particles to rub into your paintwork during the next stage: the contact wash. For this, you will transfer on shampoo suds from the shampoo bucket, applying the mixture from the roof of the car downwards. Then rinse the mitt in the second bucket, picking clean shampoo mix from the other one. This keeps the water as clean as possible in your wash mixture. Should the water get too dirty in the shampoo bucket, empty the solution and create a fresh mix. A grit guard in the bucket can help prevent dirt particles being picked up on your mitt. Once shampoo'd, rinse the car with clean water from the hose or pressure-washer and dry with a soft, clean microfibre drying towel. We prefer these to chamois leathers, water blades or cotton towels. You may use a drying detailer when drying your car - this will help break the surface tension of the beads causing the water to run off, increase the surface area of the water allowing the towel to soak up more, minimise water spots and lower the friction of the towel over the surface. Drying is not strictly essential but is recommended for any good clean. You may also find that driving the car a short distance and using the brakes helps to dry the brake discs and prevent the chance of them rusting. Cleaning your alloy wheels often will ensure that brake dust will not cake permanently to the alloy and make alloy cleaning much easier.

STAGE 2

Next, if you have a clay bar, use this to eliminate embedded dirt in the paintwork. Remember to lubricate it, and discard the piece of clay once it becomes dirty... keep folding it to maintain a 'clean face'. Then it's time to polish, by machine or hand, panel by panel. Machines are generally rotary (the pad spins centrally) or dual action (referred to as 'random orbital' as well, because the pad goes around in a random off-centre pattern); random orbital machines can be safer to use on paint if you don't feel confident to attack it with a rotary (rotaries give quicker results though). Machine polishing is the best technique to eliminate those swirlmarks or spidery scratches that result from poor washing, however we recommend leaving the machine polishing to us as it is an extremely difficult art, requiring hundreds of hours to master. You can polish by hand, but the results can be inconsistent and it is often time consuming and hard work. After polishing, you can apply a pre-wax cleanser to remove any polish residue and create extra gloss before the wax goes on; it also helps bonding. After buffing off the pre-wax cleanser with a fresh microfibre, the paint surface is now ready to be Juiced.

STAGE 3

 Any good wax need only be applied sparingly, with a foam applicator pad; hard waxes don't spread as far and are best applied with a pad. Apply panel by panel, allowing between 5 and 15 minutes for the wax to cure and haze over (this depends on the wax and ambient condition). a great test to see if the wax is properly cured is to place your finger on the waxed area and move it away and to the side in a single motion; if the wax feels 'grabby' it is cured and ready for buffing off. If it feels 'greasy' or slightly wet then the wax requires more time to fully cure. Make sure to test a smallish panel first to get an idea of the time required for curing in your current conditions to know how many panels can be waxed at a time. Don't leave it too long on hot panels or the wax can 'cake' on. Then buff off with a clean microfibre. Apply additional layers after 30 mins to an hour (to allow the previous wax layer to cure) although if you have a clean garage, a delay of 24 hours is ideal. Now treat the trim and interior to specialist products and then stand back and admire the shine. Your car is now been effectively detailed.

STAGE 4

 The good news is that you don't need to go to the effort of a full detail that often. Once you have a quality wax applied properly to your car, it will be protected from dirt for a few months. During that time, just wash it with a wax-friendly pH-neutral shampoo - you'll find it's easier to wash than normal as the dirt doesn't stick to the paint so easily. There's no need to clay it or use strong detergents (these will actually destroy the wax layer). For fingerprints and dust, use a protection detailer spray or even just a fine water mist ('spit shining'). After a few weeks, the beading will start wearing off and then - a month or two later - all but disappear (unless you have topped-up the protection with detailing mist). At this point, you just need to strip off the old 'dirty' wax, which will have acted as a sacrificial layer and picked up the contaminants that were intended for your paintwork... you can then wash and deep clean the paint once again, before applying fresh wax to 'recharge' the protection. A new wax layer (or layers) every 3 months is the detailing equivalent of wearing fresh undies every day. And as anyone's mother will tell them, that's really quite essential.

HELP

Complete the form below if you need any expert help or advice.

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