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Detailing - Keeping your car looking amazing
Basics
Keeping your car looking amazing is fairly simple and doesn't take too much time but it's important to understand why paying the guys at the supermarket £5 to give it a quick wash with a dirty sponge once a month will ruin your paint
Key things to remember are:
It's a lot quicker to put scratches in your paintwork than it is to get them out
A bit of wax every now and then won't hide months of neglect
The steps are as follows:
- As often as possible
- Wash
- Every 3-12 months depending on season
- Clay - deep clean of the paint, leaving a spotless (but completely unprotected) finish
- Polish - remove light scratches and put the shine back into the paint
- Wax/Sealant - builds the shine and provides the paint with protection from the elements
- As necessary
- QD (Quick Detailng spray) - use it to remove bird droppings etc and give the car a quick polish
Washing
The key to washing your car is to remove dirt, grime and salt without creating a lot of scratches in the paint. Done correctly this is the most important point to keeping your car looking good and the no. 1 rule is:
Do not use a sponge to wash your car
Claying
Courtesy of RRUK - full thread here
The clay bar process involves 2 items, a soft putty like clay and a lubricating spray.
You spray a small part of the body panel with the lube spray and then glide the clay over the surface back and forth, then across back and forth. It's the easiest thing to do ever.
What happens is that your paintwork gets contaminants bonded in the paint surface that washing and polishing cannot remove, such as tree sap, insect residue, traffic film, tar etc. You can't generally see it, but trust me, its there. While the contaminants are there, your paint is never truly clean and your polishing and waxing is flawed. The clay picks it up off the surface.
When you look at the clay afterwards you can see it all. If you put a small sandwich bag on your finger and run it over the freshly washed paint you will feel tiny bumps, its these that the clay removes. You can also use it on glass and your alloys.
And after RRUK has pulled the invisible dirt out of his paint
Polishing
Hand
Machine
Equipment used for Waxing/ Polishing (Every 3-12 months depending on season)
Meguiars Clay bar (£12) Meguiars 3 stage paint system 3 bottles all for (£24) Meguiars Gold Class Clear coat liquid wax (£13) Meguiars Gold Class Trim detailer (for all the black stuff inside and out , engine bay, wiper arms, boot shut area etc) (£6 ) Meguiars Gold Class Leather cleaner and conditioner (£7 ) Meguiars applicator pads (£3) Cheap 100% Cotton towels (x3) (£10?) Microfibre cloths (got a bulk pack in Costco for £14 for 36) Porter Cable Random Orbital Polisher See below for prices (Shipped from USA) Sonus pad kit for PC-ROP see below (Also from USA) Rainex (£6) Halfords
About every 6 months I will clay bar the car to make the paint smooth as glass, I also do the windscreen. Using the Random Orbital Polisher I apply the Stage 1 Paint cleaner to get the dirt out of the paint. Then I'll apply the Stage 2 Paint polish to bring out the colour depth. Then I apply either the Stage 3 Carnauba Wax or the Gold class liquid wax.
At each stage I use the machine to apply the product then wipe/polish off with a clean cotton towel, then final buff using the microfibre cloth. (Without the machine you'd use the foam applicator pads but it takes longer) I apply Rainex to all the windows as it makes a phenomenal difference in the rain and winter months. I apply wax polish to the alloys as this helps prevent brake dust build up and makes cleaning much easier
If you wish to buy all the kit I bought then here's how:
www.meguiars.co.uk
Some Meguiars stuff can be bought from Halfords in the UK now, but its a limited range - use the Meguiars forum from the website to hear about the best ways to use products etc. I have heard the new product called NXT Tech Wax range is good too.
Porter Cable Random Orbital Polisher 7424 (The Random orbital Polisher is NOT the same as those cheap ones in B&Q -they are not random orbital, they simply spin, which WILL cause scratching and can also burn the paint as they build up too much heat)
Web site:
www.autopia.com
the polishing kit with the pads and polisher you need are here:
http://www.autopia-carcare.com/son-daspol-kit.html
Cost £99 plus shipping (mine was $68
Then, from Screwfix (UK only) you'll need the 110V power transformer and a 110V extension. The product codes are:
www.screwfix.com
16691 - 14mtr 110V extension cable £9.95
16158 - 3KvA 110V transformer £53.42
19947 - 110V plug to attach to the polisher £1.20
Total cost £ 64.57 (delivery free over £50!)
Total cost of the project is £ 200.
Meguiars now seem to have cottoned on that buying all the power transformer etc is a bit of a pain and so they now do their own UK version of the Porter Cable power polisher and it retails for about £150, the cost overall is therefore about the same but much less faffing about.
Meguiars DA Polishing Machine
The results are very much worth it and saves so much time.
