4ged4G63
20+ Year Contributor
- 421
- 4
- Sep 6, 2002
-
Arizona
you can see some pics in my gallery.
my response to him:
thanks dude. I havn't even got real hardcore yet with detailing it. I have hand waxed just the middle part of the car, top of the doors, fenders, 1/4 panels and thats it. I still need to do the hood, roof and front and rear bumper and lower parts and run the buffer over it.
so i figured I'd share this info with others, if you are a fanatic and anal about your apint you can follow these steps, or you may have your own, either way, I used to detail cars and have found little tricks and methods that help make things go easier and make for a cleaner more meticulous detailed car.
first, philosophy
The first basic philosophy of a clean car is to be thorough. if you have rinsed the car after washing it and you still see soap dripping down the side out of the mirrors then you are not done rinsing it, leftover soap will streak the paint after you've dried it and it breaks down wax easier. I hand wash my car, 1 because its black, no machine washes should be brought near a black car and 2 because it is more thorough than a machine wash, you can get every square inch of the car with your hands and a wash mit because your hand can contour around the edges unlike a machine can. this thorough philosophy is applied throughout all of this.
some helpful tools for the job. Not all of us have boat loads of money to spend on just detailing supplies but if we did heres the tools we'd need to go get.
1. a strong shop vac with attachments
2. a chamois, not the kind at autozone, those suck, the kind that dealers have, they become all balled up and ratty after a few months of use, these kind are the best, I can make 2-3 passes over the car in less than a minute and most of my car is already dry. Plus it is easier on your paint than a cotton towel is at least I've noticed since I've been doing it. The chamois will dry the car and not leave those fine hair line scratches, some towels will. Many people claim that chamois strip wax. this may be true but I don't care since I keep up to date with waxing. I think the only people that bi*** about chamois stripping wax are the people who wax their car when they first get it and never wax it again in the next 5 or 10 years they own it. Also, dragging anything, a towel, a chamois, etc accross the paint will help to strip wax. I've had my chamois for almost 8 years.
3. nice soft wash mit, 2 of these, one for each hand or one designated just for rims.
4. glass cleaner (must be tinit safe, no amonia I think), car soap (NOT dish soap! dish soap is for dishes, not car paint), some liquid wax spray if you want to keep the wax fresh in between waxing.
5. cotton towels, for removing pre wax and wax. the best kinds of towels for this are your mothers guest bathroom hand towels, the triple weave kind (double weave aren't the prefered but will work), the ones that are for guests only and if she caught you just dryin your hands on she'd kick your ass! just don't let her catch you using them on your car! if you use them just for waxing and wash them right away she may never notice. do not use these for polishing exhaust tips or polished radiators
pick up some cheapie towels for this. you can get really soft cheap towels at autozone, usually in a pack of three
6. a nice big air compressor tank with hose and air blower attachment. why? cause there is no better way to get the car completely dry than to blast the excess water out of all the cracks, out of the mirrors, out of where the bumpers meet the metal, the moldings etc. ever try to buff or wax a car with water dripping down the side of it? its a pita, can you say streaks?
7. a bucket
8. a wheel brush, a long one that can get in behind spokes.
9. numerous strong brissled brushes for scrubbing floor mats or carpet.
10. a general purpose cleaner that can clean the dash, door panels etc or the carpets, I use an armor all multi purpose cleaner.
11. bug and tar remover
12. stain remover for carpets. some products at the store are ok but for the bad ass products go to your local dealer and tell them you want the same can of stuff they use for removing stains from carpets. Some dealers have the miracle stuff. you put it on and rub it and the stain disappears.
13. you really anal about detailing? go get a box of q tips for the interior, in the vents etc.
14. wax and pre wax cleaner. my favorite is a mix of stuff but mostly the higher quality stuff. yeah its more expensive but you pay for what you get, zymol and meguirs resides on my shelf. Another wax that has recvd rave reveiws but that I have not yet trid, zaino bros. I also use a wax called mirage, but its really hard to find (and no I won't tell you where to find it), it gives great results, almost as good as zymol but much much easier to work worth. high quality waxes such as the aformentioned with high counts of carnuba need to be kept refridgerated so the oils don't seperate.
15. metal polish. mothers makes one of the best, eagle one the stuff you tear off out of the can is good but it is very strong more for use on exhaust tips rather than polished show quality metals like you'd find under the hood.
16. milwauke buffer or a similar buffer that spins/revolves at high revolution. milwaukee buffer is good but its a back breaker. theres lighter ones out there. those other buffers that just dance around on the paint suck ass! they don't do shit except create that 3 dimensional haze that plagues most vehicles that I've seen that have just been "detailed". if you finish detailing your car and you step back to take a look at it and you see that 3d haze you've done something wrong.
17. buffing pads. they have a few different kinds, the flat kind or the "egg crate" type and then they have different strengths too. Use the white ones that are softer, the yellow ones are for advanced detailers, if you get careless with the yellow pad plan on repainting the the panel. basically the yellow pads are stiffer/stronger than the softer mushier white pads that are more forgiving. see tips below to veiw a link that shows the type of pads that you do NOT want to use and some links to pads that are safe. colors of pads and their stiffness will vary, the ones I use are white and they are soft, just check the links.
18. wax applicator pads. for applying pre wax and wax.
19. a high pressure washer like the ones they have a the do it yourself car washes. these are awesome for blasting away dirt out of the cracks and getting bird shit off the car etc. I've had a lot of people tell me they don't use this type of pressure washer on their car because its blasted their paint off but in all my years of doing this I have blasted paint off a car once and it was because it was side view mirrors on a honda accord that had been repainted. i sprayed them and there went the paint, but I was really close to them. however, on newer cars you can hold the power washer right up to it and it won't do anything (at least no paint has ever blasted off for me in the case of a newer car). even my talon I will power wash and its fine.
washing and drying.
obviously first wash and dry the car. be thorough, rinse the car first. never wash the car in the direct sunlight, make sure the paint is cool to the touch. I always rinse off my wash mits first to get rid of any crap that may have been caught in there from the previous wash. rinse out the bucket etc and fill it with some soap, get it all sudsy. While washing the car try to not let the soap dry on the car, the soap will eat right through wax, wash a panel and rinse it right away. wheels. if you have a nice quality wheel or some upgraded brakes I don't suggest using a wheel cleaner on them. Especially wait til wheels and brakes are cool before getting soap on them. I had an upgraded brake kit on my old gsx, rolled up to the do it yourself car wash, got out, started sprayin down the rims with wheel cleaner, went to rinse and the wheel cleaner screwed my bad ass 4 pot calipers. With the baers, I don't even use a wheel cleaner anymore. I wait til they are cool if I've been driving the car, rinse them and use the car soap and wheel brush on the rim bein extremely careful not to get soap on the caliper or rotors. then later after I'm done washing the car I'll wash the rims and calipers with a designated wash mit, then rinse right away. rinse the car over a few times then dry it. pop the gas cap, hatch, doors and hood and dry in there too. if you have an air compressor make a pass or two over the car with your chamois in the other hand gettin all the water out of the cracks.
engine cleaning
I don't know many people that power wash their engine anymore and most of us would not be able to do that without covering up a lot of stuff with plastic first. if you have a stock car and don't have open filters and open areas (bov, eletronics) then clean and rinse your engine before you clean the entire car. If I'm working on a car that I can power spray the motor I do this before anything, even before interior. then I move to interior, then I do exterior. the only engines that I recomend power washing are stock.
so then here is my lenghty 4 step proccess I use to detail.
1. after the cars been washed and dried first start with your milwaukee and cut the paint with 3m finesse it II material. this stuff is slightly abrasive so you'll want to keep the buffer moving, don't let it sit in one spot too long, if you do, plan on visiting a body shop. Start slow on a chaep to repair panel (bumper) if you wanna try using a buffer. that or pick up a faded and oxidized fender from a junk yard, secure it so it doesn't move and the then go to town on it testing it and yourself. wipe off any eccess that you might have missed or spilled with a cotton towel
2. then polish over that with a product called ultrafinish by protector (the company that stocks this is in IL and called S&S products, I think in elk grove village). this stuff is cool, it smells like cake frosting (don't eat it though ok), its real smooth and great for polishing even if you aren't cutting the paint but want to shine it up. yu can use a machine with this or put it on by hand, but it is not used for protecting the paint, just polishing. wipe off any eccess that you might have missed or spilled with a cotton towel
3. then I will clean the paint with a pre wax cleaner like zymol hd cleanse. many times the prewax cleaner is formulated to work with the wax, helping the wax create a stronger bond over/on the paint so yes this step is neccessary. then wax over that with zymol paste wax (japon for dark colored cars, carbon for light colored cars). do not pick up that cheapie zymol wax/polish liquid at autozone or pep boys and think that it is the same as the paste wax that you get off of zymols site. Its not and you will have a weekend devoted to redoing this if you think you can cut corners. if you use the hd cleanse do not put it on in circles, just back and forth as this is a cleaner and has some abrasivness in it (much much less than the 3m material). remove with cotton towels again using only back and forth, side to side motions, no circles.
4. then wax over the fresh paint. wet the wax applicator and wring it out real good, you want it moist, not soaking. with waxes like zymol you can't let the stuff sit for too long (not more than a minute or two) or else you will be there the next 5-10 minutes rubbing just that section. it is now ok to rub the wax on in circular motions, massage the wax into the paint as if you were massaging your womans bewbies
then remove the wax with moms nice guest towels 
repeat thsi for the rest of the car. after yoru done 8 to 10 hours later, you can finally take a break and sit back to admire your work. hope you have a garage or mother nature, every bird, tree, or rain cloud is your enemy.
It is a huge proccess and sometimes takes me two days to finish but I have never had any better results and the car just shines nice and deep in every light. Lengthy proccess but for people who are anal about the appearance of their car and taking care of paint this is the best proccess for getting rid of old cantaniments in the paint and bringin out fresh paint cells.
Sometimes if the car is newer you don't even have to do the first step, the cutting is just for older neglected paint.
I have done this proccess on many different cars and had success, numerous mitsubishis, volvo t5r, gm paint (vette, bonneville), a couple of nissan 300zx, numerous hondas, toyota mr2, supra, numerous lexus cars, sc series, is, es, ls, etc, porsche, jaguar, blah blah.
some other tips and finishing up
i do the interior on the car first (except windows, i explain this down there). why? cause vacuums are much like your motor in which they need to inhale and exhale. when they exhale if you have already detailed your car your vacum is exhaling dust and particles all over your freshly waxed car. how fun, now go rinse the car and dry it. if you do the interior first, its done and out of the way this way when you open and close doors you are not getting fingerprints on them. if you do the exterior first and then the interior youre constantly moving around the car and have the potential of brushing up against it etc. if you detail the exterior first then do the interior not only do you have that problem with the vacuum spitting dirt all over your car but now you have to retrace your steps and wipe down the car again. do the interior first, then the exterior. the only thing on the int I do after the ext is the windows. why? because some cars windows don't have that great of a seal and water can get through there dripping down the inside of the windows, if you've done them already then you have to do them again. then last I will put tire dressing on. i do this last becasue if you do it before you wax the car you have the potential of dragging a towel accross the shiny tires and then that greasy stuff smears the paint as youre trying to wax it and it makes a mess and makes it harder for you. tire dressing goes on last. don't forget that if you plan to wax your spokes, wax them before you put tire dressing on so you are not smearing tire dressin all over the spokes. which leads me to this. do not put tire dressing on your spokes/rims. this is stupid, tire dressing is not a wheel dressing. tire dressing does not protect your wheels, it only causes dirt to stick to the spokes and then chemicals in tire dressing and the dirt it attracts only helps to break down the clear coat faster causing your wheels to look like shit much sooner than you'd like.
when cleaning floor mats if you can't afford to just buy new ones, then pic up some of your carpet cleaner, spray it directly on the spot (the bottle always tells you to test it first on an unconspicuous area, this is good to do) and scrub it with the brush. If you want to be anal about cleaning you mats then spray the cleaner on, scrub them with the brush, then power wash them from top to bottom and bottom to top several times til all the visible soap is finished rinsing from them. then take a flat edged object like a ruler or one of the vacuum attachments and squeegie all the water out of the mat. then vacuum over it a few times with the shop vac. hang to dry. oh yeah, the trunk, don't forget to vacuum this when you are doing the interior before you do the exterior.
if you use a wax that is white, find a really soft small fine haired brush and you can brush away the wax out of door handles and cracks after it has dried. i like the zymol and mirage because it goes on clear and does not leave white crap behind in the letters or cracks.
when looking for a proper buffing pad, DO NOT use one of these pads that looks like carpet! I tried one of these on a customers black es300, I started buffing the hood and a minute later it looks like I had ran steel wool over it
This was when I was first starting out, luckily our pro detail guy was still there and he fixed it for me.
these are the correct buffing pads to use, FOAM. Or HERE , this site explains the difference between their high to med to light cutting pads. Don't forget to get a backing plate that uses velcrow so you can attach the pad securely.
if you have wheels that have a clear coat over the spokes then yes, wax those too just like you would the paint, pre wax clean them, then wax over them. they will stay shinier and the clear coat will last longer. My rims are about 7 years old and although most of the clear coat on them is gone they still look decent (even though they've been through hell and back) because years ago I waxed them regularly. if your rims have a metal lip, use metal polish on that part to shine it up. this is an example of a wheel whose spokes CAN be waxed . See the shine on them, these look to be clearcoated, if I owned these wheels I would pre wax them and wax them everytime I waxed the car and I would definately spray them with touch up liquid wax every time I washed the car to keep the wax fresh and to keep them shining like new for a loing time. I'd hit up the lip with mothers to keep it mirror like.
I have used these steps and they have worked for me for years. everyone is different though and likes to use their own method but I've found that these work the best for me if I'm being really anal about my or customers cars.
heres some links to products.
3m finesse it II material
zymol
milwaukee buffer
milwaukee and other buffers
bad ass buffer, lightweight, spins fast
zaino bros
info on where carnauba wax comes from
just found this page , it has A LOT of good stuff on it. when I refer to liquid wax throughout this write up I am talking about stuff like this.
My opinion on these wax as you dry , wax while you eat, wax while you sit on the couch and watch tv spray on waxes for primary protection is that they suck. If you think you can just spray a wax on your car and have it last for months on end to protect your car from elements then you are in for a huge disappointment. These are great for something quick if youre in a hurry but there is that famous sayin of something like you get out of it what you put into it. Its quick and its low effort so expect they same type of results. this is true, "provides that just hand waxed look", it provides the look not the protection. wax on wax off daniel son
good luck
i can't find anything on protector stuff but they are in elk grove village, IL on larch ave S&S automotive i think.
my response to him:
thanks dude. I havn't even got real hardcore yet with detailing it. I have hand waxed just the middle part of the car, top of the doors, fenders, 1/4 panels and thats it. I still need to do the hood, roof and front and rear bumper and lower parts and run the buffer over it.
so i figured I'd share this info with others, if you are a fanatic and anal about your apint you can follow these steps, or you may have your own, either way, I used to detail cars and have found little tricks and methods that help make things go easier and make for a cleaner more meticulous detailed car.
first, philosophy
The first basic philosophy of a clean car is to be thorough. if you have rinsed the car after washing it and you still see soap dripping down the side out of the mirrors then you are not done rinsing it, leftover soap will streak the paint after you've dried it and it breaks down wax easier. I hand wash my car, 1 because its black, no machine washes should be brought near a black car and 2 because it is more thorough than a machine wash, you can get every square inch of the car with your hands and a wash mit because your hand can contour around the edges unlike a machine can. this thorough philosophy is applied throughout all of this.
some helpful tools for the job. Not all of us have boat loads of money to spend on just detailing supplies but if we did heres the tools we'd need to go get.
1. a strong shop vac with attachments
2. a chamois, not the kind at autozone, those suck, the kind that dealers have, they become all balled up and ratty after a few months of use, these kind are the best, I can make 2-3 passes over the car in less than a minute and most of my car is already dry. Plus it is easier on your paint than a cotton towel is at least I've noticed since I've been doing it. The chamois will dry the car and not leave those fine hair line scratches, some towels will. Many people claim that chamois strip wax. this may be true but I don't care since I keep up to date with waxing. I think the only people that bi*** about chamois stripping wax are the people who wax their car when they first get it and never wax it again in the next 5 or 10 years they own it. Also, dragging anything, a towel, a chamois, etc accross the paint will help to strip wax. I've had my chamois for almost 8 years.
3. nice soft wash mit, 2 of these, one for each hand or one designated just for rims.
4. glass cleaner (must be tinit safe, no amonia I think), car soap (NOT dish soap! dish soap is for dishes, not car paint), some liquid wax spray if you want to keep the wax fresh in between waxing.
5. cotton towels, for removing pre wax and wax. the best kinds of towels for this are your mothers guest bathroom hand towels, the triple weave kind (double weave aren't the prefered but will work), the ones that are for guests only and if she caught you just dryin your hands on she'd kick your ass! just don't let her catch you using them on your car! if you use them just for waxing and wash them right away she may never notice. do not use these for polishing exhaust tips or polished radiators
pick up some cheapie towels for this. you can get really soft cheap towels at autozone, usually in a pack of three6. a nice big air compressor tank with hose and air blower attachment. why? cause there is no better way to get the car completely dry than to blast the excess water out of all the cracks, out of the mirrors, out of where the bumpers meet the metal, the moldings etc. ever try to buff or wax a car with water dripping down the side of it? its a pita, can you say streaks?
7. a bucket
8. a wheel brush, a long one that can get in behind spokes.
9. numerous strong brissled brushes for scrubbing floor mats or carpet.
10. a general purpose cleaner that can clean the dash, door panels etc or the carpets, I use an armor all multi purpose cleaner.
11. bug and tar remover
12. stain remover for carpets. some products at the store are ok but for the bad ass products go to your local dealer and tell them you want the same can of stuff they use for removing stains from carpets. Some dealers have the miracle stuff. you put it on and rub it and the stain disappears.
13. you really anal about detailing? go get a box of q tips for the interior, in the vents etc.
14. wax and pre wax cleaner. my favorite is a mix of stuff but mostly the higher quality stuff. yeah its more expensive but you pay for what you get, zymol and meguirs resides on my shelf. Another wax that has recvd rave reveiws but that I have not yet trid, zaino bros. I also use a wax called mirage, but its really hard to find (and no I won't tell you where to find it), it gives great results, almost as good as zymol but much much easier to work worth. high quality waxes such as the aformentioned with high counts of carnuba need to be kept refridgerated so the oils don't seperate.
15. metal polish. mothers makes one of the best, eagle one the stuff you tear off out of the can is good but it is very strong more for use on exhaust tips rather than polished show quality metals like you'd find under the hood.
16. milwauke buffer or a similar buffer that spins/revolves at high revolution. milwaukee buffer is good but its a back breaker. theres lighter ones out there. those other buffers that just dance around on the paint suck ass! they don't do shit except create that 3 dimensional haze that plagues most vehicles that I've seen that have just been "detailed". if you finish detailing your car and you step back to take a look at it and you see that 3d haze you've done something wrong.
17. buffing pads. they have a few different kinds, the flat kind or the "egg crate" type and then they have different strengths too. Use the white ones that are softer, the yellow ones are for advanced detailers, if you get careless with the yellow pad plan on repainting the the panel. basically the yellow pads are stiffer/stronger than the softer mushier white pads that are more forgiving. see tips below to veiw a link that shows the type of pads that you do NOT want to use and some links to pads that are safe. colors of pads and their stiffness will vary, the ones I use are white and they are soft, just check the links.
18. wax applicator pads. for applying pre wax and wax.
19. a high pressure washer like the ones they have a the do it yourself car washes. these are awesome for blasting away dirt out of the cracks and getting bird shit off the car etc. I've had a lot of people tell me they don't use this type of pressure washer on their car because its blasted their paint off but in all my years of doing this I have blasted paint off a car once and it was because it was side view mirrors on a honda accord that had been repainted. i sprayed them and there went the paint, but I was really close to them. however, on newer cars you can hold the power washer right up to it and it won't do anything (at least no paint has ever blasted off for me in the case of a newer car). even my talon I will power wash and its fine.
washing and drying.
obviously first wash and dry the car. be thorough, rinse the car first. never wash the car in the direct sunlight, make sure the paint is cool to the touch. I always rinse off my wash mits first to get rid of any crap that may have been caught in there from the previous wash. rinse out the bucket etc and fill it with some soap, get it all sudsy. While washing the car try to not let the soap dry on the car, the soap will eat right through wax, wash a panel and rinse it right away. wheels. if you have a nice quality wheel or some upgraded brakes I don't suggest using a wheel cleaner on them. Especially wait til wheels and brakes are cool before getting soap on them. I had an upgraded brake kit on my old gsx, rolled up to the do it yourself car wash, got out, started sprayin down the rims with wheel cleaner, went to rinse and the wheel cleaner screwed my bad ass 4 pot calipers. With the baers, I don't even use a wheel cleaner anymore. I wait til they are cool if I've been driving the car, rinse them and use the car soap and wheel brush on the rim bein extremely careful not to get soap on the caliper or rotors. then later after I'm done washing the car I'll wash the rims and calipers with a designated wash mit, then rinse right away. rinse the car over a few times then dry it. pop the gas cap, hatch, doors and hood and dry in there too. if you have an air compressor make a pass or two over the car with your chamois in the other hand gettin all the water out of the cracks.
engine cleaning
I don't know many people that power wash their engine anymore and most of us would not be able to do that without covering up a lot of stuff with plastic first. if you have a stock car and don't have open filters and open areas (bov, eletronics) then clean and rinse your engine before you clean the entire car. If I'm working on a car that I can power spray the motor I do this before anything, even before interior. then I move to interior, then I do exterior. the only engines that I recomend power washing are stock.
so then here is my lenghty 4 step proccess I use to detail.
1. after the cars been washed and dried first start with your milwaukee and cut the paint with 3m finesse it II material. this stuff is slightly abrasive so you'll want to keep the buffer moving, don't let it sit in one spot too long, if you do, plan on visiting a body shop. Start slow on a chaep to repair panel (bumper) if you wanna try using a buffer. that or pick up a faded and oxidized fender from a junk yard, secure it so it doesn't move and the then go to town on it testing it and yourself. wipe off any eccess that you might have missed or spilled with a cotton towel
2. then polish over that with a product called ultrafinish by protector (the company that stocks this is in IL and called S&S products, I think in elk grove village). this stuff is cool, it smells like cake frosting (don't eat it though ok), its real smooth and great for polishing even if you aren't cutting the paint but want to shine it up. yu can use a machine with this or put it on by hand, but it is not used for protecting the paint, just polishing. wipe off any eccess that you might have missed or spilled with a cotton towel
3. then I will clean the paint with a pre wax cleaner like zymol hd cleanse. many times the prewax cleaner is formulated to work with the wax, helping the wax create a stronger bond over/on the paint so yes this step is neccessary. then wax over that with zymol paste wax (japon for dark colored cars, carbon for light colored cars). do not pick up that cheapie zymol wax/polish liquid at autozone or pep boys and think that it is the same as the paste wax that you get off of zymols site. Its not and you will have a weekend devoted to redoing this if you think you can cut corners. if you use the hd cleanse do not put it on in circles, just back and forth as this is a cleaner and has some abrasivness in it (much much less than the 3m material). remove with cotton towels again using only back and forth, side to side motions, no circles.
4. then wax over the fresh paint. wet the wax applicator and wring it out real good, you want it moist, not soaking. with waxes like zymol you can't let the stuff sit for too long (not more than a minute or two) or else you will be there the next 5-10 minutes rubbing just that section. it is now ok to rub the wax on in circular motions, massage the wax into the paint as if you were massaging your womans bewbies
then remove the wax with moms nice guest towels repeat thsi for the rest of the car. after yoru done 8 to 10 hours later, you can finally take a break and sit back to admire your work. hope you have a garage or mother nature, every bird, tree, or rain cloud is your enemy.It is a huge proccess and sometimes takes me two days to finish but I have never had any better results and the car just shines nice and deep in every light. Lengthy proccess but for people who are anal about the appearance of their car and taking care of paint this is the best proccess for getting rid of old cantaniments in the paint and bringin out fresh paint cells.
Sometimes if the car is newer you don't even have to do the first step, the cutting is just for older neglected paint.
I have done this proccess on many different cars and had success, numerous mitsubishis, volvo t5r, gm paint (vette, bonneville), a couple of nissan 300zx, numerous hondas, toyota mr2, supra, numerous lexus cars, sc series, is, es, ls, etc, porsche, jaguar, blah blah.
some other tips and finishing up
i do the interior on the car first (except windows, i explain this down there). why? cause vacuums are much like your motor in which they need to inhale and exhale. when they exhale if you have already detailed your car your vacum is exhaling dust and particles all over your freshly waxed car. how fun, now go rinse the car and dry it. if you do the interior first, its done and out of the way this way when you open and close doors you are not getting fingerprints on them. if you do the exterior first and then the interior youre constantly moving around the car and have the potential of brushing up against it etc. if you detail the exterior first then do the interior not only do you have that problem with the vacuum spitting dirt all over your car but now you have to retrace your steps and wipe down the car again. do the interior first, then the exterior. the only thing on the int I do after the ext is the windows. why? because some cars windows don't have that great of a seal and water can get through there dripping down the inside of the windows, if you've done them already then you have to do them again. then last I will put tire dressing on. i do this last becasue if you do it before you wax the car you have the potential of dragging a towel accross the shiny tires and then that greasy stuff smears the paint as youre trying to wax it and it makes a mess and makes it harder for you. tire dressing goes on last. don't forget that if you plan to wax your spokes, wax them before you put tire dressing on so you are not smearing tire dressin all over the spokes. which leads me to this. do not put tire dressing on your spokes/rims. this is stupid, tire dressing is not a wheel dressing. tire dressing does not protect your wheels, it only causes dirt to stick to the spokes and then chemicals in tire dressing and the dirt it attracts only helps to break down the clear coat faster causing your wheels to look like shit much sooner than you'd like.
when cleaning floor mats if you can't afford to just buy new ones, then pic up some of your carpet cleaner, spray it directly on the spot (the bottle always tells you to test it first on an unconspicuous area, this is good to do) and scrub it with the brush. If you want to be anal about cleaning you mats then spray the cleaner on, scrub them with the brush, then power wash them from top to bottom and bottom to top several times til all the visible soap is finished rinsing from them. then take a flat edged object like a ruler or one of the vacuum attachments and squeegie all the water out of the mat. then vacuum over it a few times with the shop vac. hang to dry. oh yeah, the trunk, don't forget to vacuum this when you are doing the interior before you do the exterior.
if you use a wax that is white, find a really soft small fine haired brush and you can brush away the wax out of door handles and cracks after it has dried. i like the zymol and mirage because it goes on clear and does not leave white crap behind in the letters or cracks.
when looking for a proper buffing pad, DO NOT use one of these pads that looks like carpet! I tried one of these on a customers black es300, I started buffing the hood and a minute later it looks like I had ran steel wool over it
This was when I was first starting out, luckily our pro detail guy was still there and he fixed it for me. these are the correct buffing pads to use, FOAM. Or HERE , this site explains the difference between their high to med to light cutting pads. Don't forget to get a backing plate that uses velcrow so you can attach the pad securely.
if you have wheels that have a clear coat over the spokes then yes, wax those too just like you would the paint, pre wax clean them, then wax over them. they will stay shinier and the clear coat will last longer. My rims are about 7 years old and although most of the clear coat on them is gone they still look decent (even though they've been through hell and back) because years ago I waxed them regularly. if your rims have a metal lip, use metal polish on that part to shine it up. this is an example of a wheel whose spokes CAN be waxed . See the shine on them, these look to be clearcoated, if I owned these wheels I would pre wax them and wax them everytime I waxed the car and I would definately spray them with touch up liquid wax every time I washed the car to keep the wax fresh and to keep them shining like new for a loing time. I'd hit up the lip with mothers to keep it mirror like.
I have used these steps and they have worked for me for years. everyone is different though and likes to use their own method but I've found that these work the best for me if I'm being really anal about my or customers cars.
heres some links to products.
3m finesse it II material
zymol
milwaukee buffer
milwaukee and other buffers
bad ass buffer, lightweight, spins fast
zaino bros
info on where carnauba wax comes from
just found this page , it has A LOT of good stuff on it. when I refer to liquid wax throughout this write up I am talking about stuff like this.
My opinion on these wax as you dry , wax while you eat, wax while you sit on the couch and watch tv spray on waxes for primary protection is that they suck. If you think you can just spray a wax on your car and have it last for months on end to protect your car from elements then you are in for a huge disappointment. These are great for something quick if youre in a hurry but there is that famous sayin of something like you get out of it what you put into it. Its quick and its low effort so expect they same type of results. this is true, "provides that just hand waxed look", it provides the look not the protection. wax on wax off daniel son
good luck
i can't find anything on protector stuff but they are in elk grove village, IL on larch ave S&S automotive i think.
