Getting the Best from your Car for the Show Season

[DanSN117]

The show season is fast approaching us and i imagine a lot of members on here are looking at how to get their cars looking the best for the summer. Detailing is something i have been into for the past year, I've been looking after my cars since i first owned one, but i now realise i was probably doing more harm then good.

Detailing first became well known in the USA, but over the past couple of years it has spread across the pond and further into and around Europe.

Everyone has their own ideas, routes and techniques when it comes to detailing and i don't consider myself to be an expert in the subject, far from it. The idea of this thread is to show you how to prevent causing damage to your car whilst cleaning and to describe how i go about detailing or cleaning myself.

Wheels

Wheels are always the best place to start i find, although myth states that you should always start the wash process from the roof down, their is no point washing down all of your paint work to then splash diluted brake dust and grime back up your nice shiny wheel arch.

Grab yourself a soft wheel brush and a bottle of wheel cleaner, Valet Pro Bilberry is my product of choice, Autosmart Smart Wheels is very good, as is Dodo Juice Mellow Yellow.

Even before you have rinsed the car down, spray a generous helping of your Wheel Cleaner over the face of the wheel, leave it to dwell for about 30 seconds to a Minute and then aggitate with your soft wheel brush

The advantage of using a dedicated wheel cleaner is that it is designed to work away at brake dust and traffic film. Its possible to see the difference between a wheel that has been cleaned with wheel cleaner and one that someone has attacked with bodywork shampoo and a sponge. Once you have agitated all over the face of the wheel, rinse of with the hose or your pressure washer.

Leave the wheel to drip dry for five of so minutes (depending on ambient temps) and then grab a couple of Microfibres and dry your wheels. This is a stage that a lot of people forget but having water drops on a wheel can often look as bad as leaving them dirty, especially for cars on a show stand.

Sealing your wheels is more of a choice than a necessity, by giving your wheels a coat of wax you are protecting them from the buildup you have just removed with your wheel cleaner. It will not stop the brake dust and grime from settling on the face of the wheel, but it will make it a lot easier to remove it next time you come to clean your wheels. Rimwax or Swissvax Autobahn are both very good products and very widely used (Swissvax being the more expensive) but they both do the same job.

Take yourself a wheel at a time, and using a small applicator (i cut myself a corner off of a dish sponger) apply the wheel wax in much the same way that you would apply it to the body of the car, remember you don't have to apply a thick coat, the thinner the better (remember, you will buff 90% of what you apply off of the face of the wheel) but make sure you get the whole wheel covered. Leave the wax to cure for five or so minutes and then buff the wax off using a microfibre.

Wash

Washing is only the start of the whole process of cleaning your paint work, but it is the process where the most damage can be created. If you have ever looked at your car in direct sunlight and see lots of fine lines that look like spiders webbing, these are called swirl marks and are caused by the incorrect washing procedure.

Swirl marks themselves are impossible not to create, unfortunately you can never prevent them even with the upmost care, but you can attempt to limit their creation. They are caused by small particles of dirt, stone, grim being dragged across the paint work most of the time you wont be able to see them or feel them, but they will be causing small scratches across the face of your paintwork which cause 'Swirl Marks'

Swirl Marks

First step is to bin the sponge that you have had kicking around the floor of your garage for the past three years. Sponges are no good for cleaning cars, if you pick up any dirt or grim with a sponge, it stays on the face of the sponge and is dragged around the face of your paintwork until you reacquaint your sponge with the bucket of soapy water. Sponges are the number one cause of swirl marks, unfortunately they have been used for so long that no one knows any different.

Instead of a sponge, invest in a Wash Mitt or 'Glove'. These are usually made of Microfibre or Lambs Wool and come with an Elasticated Cuff to prevent it from slipping from your wrist. Both Microfibre and Lambs Wool are perfect to for the job, it just comes down to personal preference. Washmitts have a deeper pile than sponges, if you pick up any dirt or grime it is taken deep into the pile of the mitt so that it cant scratch your paint, it is then removed from your mitt when you next make contact with the bucket, which brings me nicely on to my next point.

Two Bucket Method or 2BM is a method of washing widely conceived to be the best and most effective. As the title suggests, it involves you having two buckets, one full with a wash solution and the other with clean water. When you have applied your wash solution to the panel, before you put it back in the soapy water, place the mitt in the cold water and agitate the face of it, this removes all the grime and dirt that you have picked up from washing that one panel and it prevents you from dragging it on the next panel. Repeat this process for each panel or each time that you want to refill your mitt with shampoo.

Whilst using a Mitt for the body panels, use a small detail brush to get in all the panel gaps, this includes door shuts and even your fuel filler cap. Detail brushes have soft enough bristles not to mark paintwork and can get into crevices that wash mitts cant. They can be used in and around door handles, window rubbers, door locks even around number plates and lights.

Wash on the Left, Rinse on the Right after a Subaru WRX

Drying

Once you have rinsed down your car after the wash stage, the next step is to dry it. If you leave it to dry naturally you will end up with water marks all over your car even in soft water areas. Using a plush drying towel, drag it across the panel from one end to the other. This is proven to be one of the best methods for drying a car, i couldn't give you a specific reason as to why, but it just seems to work better than any others.

Some people using products to aid drying. Many people use Meguiars Last Touch or Dodo Juice Time to Dry, 'Drying Detailers' are designed to assist towels in the soaking up of water, if you are drying a clean car, the water will tend to 'bead' over the surface. Drying detailers increase the surface area of the water, making it easier for the water to be soaked up by the towel. To use a drying detailer simply spray is sparingly over the wet panel, then using the drag method i mentioned earlier proceed to dry the panel.

Claying

Claying is the usually the next step taken when doing an advanced clean on a car and although i hate doing it, in my opinion it can give more of an improvement to paint work than the polishing stage. Claying involves rubbing what is essentially a large piece of blue tack over the surface of the paint, this removes such contamination as tree sap, bird lime, tar or anything else that cannot be removed by the traditional wash stage.

Claying is a very simple process to complete, you need three items to do it;

Clay

Lube

Microfibre

There are many different types of clay on the market, ranging from aggressive clay to gentle. For an average car you shouldn't need anything stronger from a medium clay, you can go more aggressive, but the more aggressive the clay the more chance you stand to marr your paint.

You can either purchase dedicated clay lube (such as Dodo Juice Born Slippy), or create some of your own with a weak car shampoo solution in a spray bottle, dedicated clay lube is always going to be better than making your own, but it can be quite expensive especially with larger cars.

To clay your car, first you need to ensure the panel is clean, tear a piece of clay from your large bar and flatten it so it is around 1cm thick and flatten it so it is slightly smaller than the size of your palm. Then spray a generous amount of lube over the panel (i prefer to do half a panel at a time, but it is personal preference) and begin to rub the clay over it, the clay should slide easily over the panel, if you feel it being to stick you should add more lube. Spend a couple of minutes working over the area of the panel you have lubed up, removing any small visual contamination. If you have never clayed the car before, you will be surprised at the amount of contamination you will remove from the paint. Make sure you fold the clay regularly onto a fresh side, you don't want to be dragging the contaminated side over your paint for too long otherwise you will being to mark it.

Once you have clayed, dry the panel off with a microfibre and run your hand down it, you will be stunned at how smooth your paint feels now.

Complete this process around the whole car, take care when claying the bottom half of the doors as this is where the most contamination is found.

Usual contamination from a wing or bonnet

Heavier contamination from lower doors.

Polishing

Polishing, this can be known also as Correction or Refining

Polishing is commonly used to make a car 'shine'. It involves cleansing and cutting down the paint work (typically the clear coat) to bring out a better shine and remove scratches. It can be done by hand or by Machine, typically Rotary or Dual Action, for this part of the guide i will only talk about Polishing by hand, to start Machine Polishing a car you need to spend a lot of £££ on pads and polishes. I will do a section on Machining once i have completed the whole write up.

By the time you have reached this stage of the cleaning process, your car will be looking pretty clean, the clay will have taken out most of the dirt from you paint, leaving you with only heavily ingrained dirt and imperfections in the paint. A polish differs from clay because it actually cuts away at the paint, where as the clay glides across the top, most, if not all polishes are designed to gently wear away at the clear coat to restore shine.

Clear coat is damaged in a number of ways; from scratches, stone chips, bird lime, UV rays amongst others, polishing can begin to remove these contaminants and begin to restore shine to your paint work.

To polish, you first need to ensure that you have clean and dry paint work, if you are doing this guide step by step, this shouldn't be a problem. Take a panel of your choice, for larger panels (such as the roof or bonnet) you might want to work at half the panel at a time. Equip yourself with a foam applicator pad (such as the Meguiars one, available from Halfords) and apply a pea sized amount of your polish to the Pad, for the purpose of this guide i will be describing Dodo Juice Lime Prime and using a Lupo Front Wing.

Using the Pad, dab the polish across the top of the wing, one at the light end, one in the middle and one at the A Pillar. Place your pad back at the light end, and using a circular motion, make your way towards the middle and right up to the A Pillar. then, keeping to the same line move back across the panel going over the bit you have just polished. Once your return to where you started, you should have enough polish remaining on your applicator to do another 'line' just below your first one, so repeating the steps before move you applicator from one end of the panel and then back again, on the same 'line'. Then repeat the whole process including re applying the polish to your applicator pad until the whole panel has been polished.

The reason i state to 'go back over' your polished area is because some polishes (Particularly Lime Prime) have diminishing abrasives in, this means that the more you work the polish, the smaller the abrasive particles within the polish get. Don't get me wrong, when you make your first pass the particles aren't big enough to scratch your paint work, but a better finish will be achieved with the more passes that you do. Its almost like sanding a piece of wood down to a finish, you would start with a course piece of sand paper to get the shape you desired, then move on to a smooth piece to smooth the piece of wood down to give it a good finish, except with a polish like Lime Prime you don't need to change your 'sandpaper' you just keep working the same product.

One you have applied and worked the polish to the whole panel, you can then buff if off immediately using a microfibre, polish, unlike wax, doesn't need to 'cure' or 'dry' to paint, your not trying to leave anything behind on the surface, the polish has done its cleansing so it can be removed. If you leave Polish on for too long, especially in summer it can 'cake on' and become increasingly difficult to remove.

Complete this process around the whole car, as i said earlier, for larger panels you may want to do it in half's, trying to polish a whole panel in one go can grow tiresome.

Tomorrow, Waxing.

Feel free to ask any questions as i go along,

Edited March 3, 2010 by DanSN117

[Taxi Adam]

Nice and easy to understand write up. I have been hovering around detailing world for a while now and find that a lot of information can be difficult to understand (to a novice like me) not to mention machine polishing. Will look forward to reading further posts!

[lupo pete]

would you use a drying blade?

good post to read

[HAIRBear]

I did, and it has deffinately scratched my paint! You have to be so careful, i use to wipe i pretty much every time i wiped it across the car and its still scratched.

I just use it on the windows now, a nice big drying towel is the way to go

[PaperWeight1]

Personally I'd say with a pre-foam/rinse before washing, drying is where most of the damage is done if you're using a method which requires direct contact (i.e. with a towel).

The water in the rinse bucket should be changed well before it gets to the stage you pictured.

[DanSN117]

Thanks for the comments gentlemen.

Richie, I would also and do start with a foam, the reason I didn't write it up in the first post was because it's considered no essential, and it also requires spending £50 odd on a foam lance and another £10 on foam, also, not everyone has a pressure washer.

I disagree with drying causing the most damage, if you have removed all that you can with a mitt and foam as you said, their shouldn't be a great deal to 'drag' around your paint, the only thing that should remain is imbedded dirt that will need a clay?

Like I said, what I have written isn't gospel, it's just how I do things

[DanSN117]

would you use a drying blade?

good post to read

Definately not, grab yourself a nice fluffy drying towl.

The problem with drying blades is that as you drag them across they scratch and 'marr' the paint

[lupo pete]

ok

i will save the blade for glass only from now on.

my mate as bought some auto glym high defintion wax he paid £30 for it

is it worth this amount of money.

and can some wax work better than others on silver cars?

i am total new to detailing..

[DanSN117]

Wax is quite a difficult creature to understand price wise, a lot of it is down to personal preference.

Like i said to HairBear in a PM just now, i have a pot of Dodo Juice Supernatural with comes in a £92.95, but i swear by it, i have yet to find anything that comes close to it in terms of shine, durability and beading.

Is it worth it? Im my opinion, yes, but in others, probably not.

You can pick up Meguiars 16 Wax which costs just over £10 and people rave about it, its considered to be one of the best waxes available today.

But the general rule of thumb is that its all in the preparation, no serious wax manufacturer will claim that you can have horrendous paintwork, slap some of their wax on it and it will become a thing of infinite shine and beading, if you don't have the best condition paint work to begin with an expensive wax really isnt worth it.

Another way of looking at it is that OK although that wax is expensive you will most likely get 100-150 layers of a whole car out of one pot, so if you look at it from a supernatural point of view, your getting 3-6 months protection for around 60-70p.

[pro3mark]

Excellent write up dude.

[PaperWeight1]

I disagree with drying causing the most damage, if you have removed all that you can with a mitt and foam as you said, their shouldn't be a great deal to 'drag' around your paint, the only thing that should remain is imbedded dirt that will need a clay?

Foaming isn't essential, but a pre-rinse is IMO

You're washing a car which has been pre-rinsed/foamed, then with a soft mitt with good lubrication and rinsing with water. Anytime you're touching the car you have lubrication. Compare that to drying you have nothing for 'lube' except the water on the car that you're sucking up. Add to that the fact that you're dragging a cloth along the car in an environment where dust can settle on the paintwork before it's wiped (i.e. outside) and you have an issue.

If your washing method is sound, then it's always going to be the drying that's more likely to cause the damage. I've been doing 'detailing' for ~4-5 years now and this is my experience anyway.

As for the waxes I've 'been there' and 'done that' and I think expensive waxes are nothing more than good marketing. I've spent up to £500 on a pot of wax over the years and I'm right back where I started using Zaino Z8 for weekly top ups and a simple sealant every 3 months. If you spend time on DW you'll see them ranting and raving about X product one month, saying it's the best thing even though it's £100. Next month another company will relese something, they'll go crazy, say it's even better than last month's but costs £110. People off there buy things not because they're better but because they're fashionable. After a while of buying 'good' products you'll see there's not that much difference between a £20 sealant and a £200 pot of wax. The other £180 could be better spent on the prep (more clay, different polish, different pads, PTG, machine polisher etc.)

[marcusgrant]

Good right up dude. surely the clean water shouldnt be allowed to get that dirty though?

richie.guy - as if you spent 500 quid on a pot of wax!!!! how can that be justified?!

[PaperWeight1]

richie.guy - as if you spent 500 quid on a pot of wax!!!! how can that be justified?!

It's not that much money considering it was sold on for £420 after a few uses.

[marcusgrant]

It's not that much money considering it was sold on for £420 after a few uses.

fair play, i just cant imagen how a pot of wax can ever be worth £500.

[PaperWeight1]

fair play, i just cant imagen how a pot of wax can ever be worth £500.

As with anything products are worth what people are willing to pay.

I was happy to try things as I knew if I didn't like them they'd still be in vogue on DW so they'd sell on easily.

Last expensive-ish was I tried was Best of Show (was around £150) which gets rave reviews on there, I did 2 panels and sold it on after a day!

If you do a side by side blind test with a few poeple on a perfectly machined panel with a £20 wax and a £1000 wax I bet no one would spot the difference.

[pro3mark]

They did that on detailing world with some black corsas, looked identical although they said there were differences.

[HAIRBear]

where do you find products at that price range richie?

[andyp]

Theres so much stuff out there its madness, basically its have a look and if you like stuff stick with it, I use megs gold class cause i like it, but i have been tempted to try some autosmart shampoo, two buckets etc, decent drying towel and then use some good polish and then go over it with some collinite 476 which is a very good buy and lasts ages.. everyone is going to have difference of opinions and some people are lucky to have machine polishers and extra stuff to others..

one thing is that dont use car washes as they will damage the car..

im no detailer and i like learning about stuff all the time as i do enjoy cleaning ( as most will vouch! ) so these sort of posts are handy for everyone to have a good read

[Emz]

Good write up, very interesting! As AndyP stated, I think it's a case of finding the products that you get on with and work well with the colour and texture of your car and then stick with these products. I'm still experimenting on different products, seeing what works best. At the moment I'm finding Zaino-PC show car wash is amazing, and Poor Boys Black hole is also a favourite! I'm just so happy that I have a pressure washer, just need a foam lance now

Edited March 1, 2010 by Emz

[Barnsley-Arosa]

I'm just so happy that I have a pressure washer, just need a foam lane now

A foam lane? is that like a lane you drive down and your car just get's covered in foam?

[PaperWeight1]

where do you find products at that price range richie?

Most sellers on DW sell high end waxes. Swissvax stuff you'll have to go through swissvax UK now though.

They did that on detailing world with some black corsas, looked identical although they said there were differences.

I know they did, but I bet if you didn't look at them under a microscope and looked at the paintwork as you normally would then there would be nothing in it.

There may be a very small difference but it's subjective not objective, i.e. it's someone's opinion.

Several people said there was no difference while others said a couple of the cars had something they couldn't put their finger on.

It's worth experimenting with products but there is a point of dimishing returns when it comes to a last step product. They aren't a magical fix. If you want an amazing finish then prep the paintwork properly and put your time and money into that. The LSP IMO adds very little to a well machined finish other than a slight gloss enhancement and, of course, some protection. You'll see gloss meter readings between LSP's differ if you measure them scientifically but to most people's eyes it's hard to spot. It's not obvious.

I've had Zymol Royale on a panel and a £20 sealant from chemicalguys, I asked my mates if they could spot a difference and not one of them could. Being 100% honest I couldn't see a difference either.

Edited March 1, 2010 by richie.guy

[DanSN117]

Claying stage added to first post.

[PaperWeight1]

Probably worth mentioning the clay should be kept warm and no pressure should be used.

I normally have a bucket of hot water and split the clay into 2.

Work a section, fold the clay, then swap with the other piece in the hot water.

[heartagram]

Excuse my ignorance but for the initial paint correction whats wrong with washing the car off with a sponge and a single bucket. Going over it with some G3 on a machine polisher removing all the scratches and then just sealing it with some wax? Then using the posher methods to keep on top of it. Loads of detailing people say this is wrong and you shouldn't do it but I've never had any issues with it. Obviously if you did it as part of your weekly clean ever week I could see a problem arising but if its a once every 8-12 month occurrence to keep on top of the paint work I can't see an issue to be honest.

[PaperWeight1]

Why make life harder for yourself by inflicting more damage before the correction?

You only have X amount of clearcoat to play with. The more damage you cause, the more clear needs to be removed to correct it.

Claying is necessary as the pad will pick up the bonded contamination and work it into the paint = holograms and bad marring.