Getting Started

[robb]

Not all that often tbh but I washed it myself a few weeks back and it looks completely fine

[Brocky]

Just placed another order.

Chemical Guys - Wooly Mammoth Drying Towel
Gtechniq - L1 Leather Guard
Gtechniq C5 Wheel Armour
Bilt Hamber - Auto Clay Soft

Almost done now!

Pressure washer - Nilfisk C110 - £53.98
2x buckets - Ultimate Finish Two Bucket Set With Scratch Shields - £25.90
1x Wash mitt - Microfiber Madness Incredimitt - £14.00
Lots of MF cloths - Costco Kirkland Range 36pk - £16.99
1x MF drying towel - Chemical Guys - Wooly Mammoth - £17.95
Brushes - Envy Valeting Brushes 5pk - £6.99
1x Wax applicators - Autofinesse - Wax Mate - £3.50
1x Wheel brush - Wheel Woolies - £33.00
1x Polish applicator - Flexipads Tri-Foam Oval Applicator Pad - £3.50

1x Snowfoam - 5L Magifoam with lance - £61.00
1x DeTar - Tardis - £21.00
1x DeIron - CarPro Iron X - £9.95
1x Shampoo - Angel Wax Superior Automotive Shampoo - £5.99
1x Clay bar - Bilt Hamber Auto Clay Soft - £10.95
1x Wheel cleaner - Valet Pro Bilberry - £7.46
1x Wheel sealant - Gtechniq C5 Wheel Armour - £22.95
1x Paint cleaner / Polish / Glaze - Auto Finesse Tripple - £7.95
1x Exhaust Tips Polish Polish - Auto Finesse Mercury - £9.95
1x LSP wax - Angel Wax Desirable - £45.00
1x Quick Detailing Spray - Angel Wax QED - £6.49
1x Tyre dressing - Tuf Shine Tire Appearance Kit - $39.99 (shipped from Canada)
1x Glass cleaner - Angelwax Superior Automotive Glass Cleaner - £5.99
1x Glass sealant - Angelwax H2Go - £4.95
1x Leather cleaner - Angelwax Heaven for Leather - £5.75
1x Leather sealant - Gtechniq L1 Leather Guard - £5.95
1x All purpose / Interior trim cleaner - Autobrite FAB - £9.00
1x Bug & grime remover - Auto Finesse Citrus Power - £8.95

[uklee]

I'm sorry but all that strikes me as absolutely mad haha ...

Yeah but do you actually scratch it, it all seems a bit anal to me, like, it's a car ; it's gonna get weathered ... Fair enough for people who love puttin all their time into it but I pay £4 for a hand wash and the car looks perfect ?

You know when someone advertises their car as 'mint' , so you travel for miles to go and look at it , get there, see the car and think WTF ?
And they turn around and say "well - it looks okay to me " - You're one of them aren't you ? haha (sic)

You might think I'm absolutely mad , or even 'anal' about the way i choose to look after my car - I'd just say we have different standards...

[robb]

haah yeah fair enough mate don't get me wrong I'm not slagging anyone off for cleaning their car well, i just can't get my head around the idea of spending till on cleaning products and spending loads of my time cleaning haha

[robb]

and just as a little add on about the whole 'mint' advertisement if i were trying a private sale i would fork out for a company to detail it as id be annoyed too if the car was advertised as mint and the paint work was really shite

[Brocky]

You're missing part of the point, Rob.

I will only do a 'full detail' once every 4-6 months. Snowfoam, shampoo, body & wheels de-con, claybar, polish/glaze/cleaner, wax

I'll do an 'interim detail' whereby I'll snowfoam the car, shampoo, possibly de-con the wheels and re-apply wax to wheels and paint, every 4-6 weeks. Takes 2-3 hours.

And if need be, I can do a 'quick detail' whereby I'll just lightly snowfoam and rinse whenever the car looks dirty. Takes 15 minutes.

The point is; The quick detail & the interim detail are much easier to do because of the time spent on the full detail and because of the protection that the products used provide. I will get twice the finish in half the time, with half the effort and inflict significantly less damage cleaning a well maintained car, as opposed to a car that gets £4 spent on it every month.

And all the while I'm looking after, not ruining, my car's paint....or paying someone to do it for me.

[robb]

yeah but the way you talk about it is like someone pouring paint stripper over my car and it looks terrible but if you take a car that gets detailed as you do yours and mine to any , for lack of a better word, normal person they wouldn't have a clue that you'd spent hundreds of quid and hours of your time keeping it clean

[whiteDevil_170]

if you take a car that gets detailed as you do yours and mine to any , for lack of a better word, normal person they wouldn't have a clue that you'd spent hundreds of quid and hours of your time keeping it clean

Are u sure about that? Id beg to differ. Seems to be never ending discussion thats not getting through

Btw happy 1000th post to me!

[robb]

yeah,and obviously its not going to get through because i think its ridiculous, the only person who knows you've spent all that time and money is yourself unless you go blabbing about it to everyone, if you didn't mention it, no one would even notice

[Brocky]

Put the two cars side-by-side on a sunny day and anyone will notice the difference. Get both cars dirty and then give the same person the job of getting both clean with just a hose or pressure washer. I know which one will be easier to get clean.

And you talk about spending hundreds of pounds, but you pay the local hand wash guys every few weeks, after having to drive there, which costs....and then you will pay to have it detailed when you come to sell it....and all the while, you are driving round in a car, that you've spent a fortune on, that's looking maybe 70% as good as it should with scratched, swirled and marred paint.

As Lee said; It's about standards. Looking after the paint on my car holds the same level of importance as the type of fuel and type of oil I put in it, the tyres, brake pads, spark-plugs and quality of mods I buy for it.

And to go back to your original point; ask that 'normal' person if they think feel that me looking after my car is madness compared to you paying someone to ruin yours for you. You can dress it up all you like, but that's what you're doing.

[robb]

Put the two cars side-by-side on a sunny day and anyone will notice the difference. Get both cars dirty and then give the same person the job of getting both clean with just a hose or pressure washer. I know which one will be easier to get clean.

And you talk about spending hundreds of pounds, but you pay the local hand wash guys every few weeks, after having to drive there, which costs....and then you will pay to have it detailed when you come to sell it....and all the while, you are driving round in a car, that you've spent a fortune on, that's looking maybe 70% as good as it should with scratched, swirled and marred paint.

As Lee said; It's about standards. Looking after the paint on my car holds the same level of importance as the type of fuel and type of oil I put in it, the tyres, brake pads, spark-plugs and quality of mods I buy for it.

And to go back to your original point; ask that 'normal' person if they think feel that me looking after my car is madness compared to you paying someone to ruin yours for you. You can dress it up all you like, but that's what you're doing.

the car looks 100% pal your just treating it as something really special when all it is is a car it will get dirty, but will still look fine washed with a sponge, id only ever pay for it to be detailed if i was privately selling, which i probably wouldn't cos id never personally buy a privately sold car anyway, fair enough its about standards but is time and effort and hard earned cash to make a little bit of an improvement of something that no one will notice, as much as you like to say they will notice they just wouldn't, and even if they did i guarantee if you told them you spent £400 on cleaning gear they'd think you'd been had over

[Mark V]

Gentlemen, this is clearly a subject that focuses on peronal preferences - one mans 'clean' is another mans 'dirty' and so on.

As such there is no right or wrong answer and its really more about being personally satiisfied with how you are looking after your own car and respecting the fact that not everyone will have the same view or standards!

[Brocky]

Put the two cars side-by-side on a sunny day and anyone will notice the difference. Get both cars dirty and then give the same person the job of getting both clean with just a hose or pressure washer. I know which one will be easier to get clean.

And you talk about spending hundreds of pounds, but you pay the local hand wash guys every few weeks, after having to drive there, which costs....and then you will pay to have it detailed when you come to sell it....and all the while, you are driving round in a car, that you've spent a fortune on, that's looking maybe 70% as good as it should with scratched, swirled and marred paint.

As Lee said; It's about standards. Looking after the paint on my car holds the same level of importance as the type of fuel and type of oil I put in it, the tyres, brake pads, spark-plugs and quality of mods I buy for it.

And to go back to your original point; ask that 'normal' person if they think feel that me looking after my car is madness compared to you paying someone to ruin yours for you. You can dress it up all you like, but that's what you're doing.

the car looks 100% pal your just treating it as something really special when all it is is a car it will get dirty, but will still look fine washed with a sponge, id only ever pay for it to be detailed if i was privately selling, which i probably wouldn't cos id never personally buy a privately sold car anyway, fair enough its about standards but is time and effort and hard earned cash to make a little bit of an improvement of something that no one will notice, as much as you like to say they will notice they just wouldn't, and even if they did i guarantee if you told them you spent £400 on cleaning gear they'd think you'd been had over

Again, you've missed the point of the discussion. It's not about obsessively having a clean car. It's about cleaning and maintaining it in such a way that you don't ruin your paint. It's about protecting it so that the dirt, fallout and water that you inevitably (as you point out) get on your car doesn't ruin your paint and so that it's much easier to clean when it does get dirty. Yet, you have conveniently swerved any attempts I and others make to justify what we've said and offered nothing to back up your ideal.

That gear that I've spent money on will last me a good while. Not only can I use most of it for other purposes than just cleaning the car, it will also, in the long-run, save me money on things like wiper blades (as well as saving wear on the motors and components), air fressheners and stuff to remove jean stains from my leather seats. The money you spend on the local wash mounts up. But you keep swerving that.

Also, I guarantee that if you took two identical cars and over the course of a few years you maintained one using your methods and the other using mine, then put them side-by side on a forecourt, the difference would be easily noticable, mine would be sold first and I'd likely get more for it, which would outweigh the few hundred quid that I'd initially outlayed on gear.

Proof of how bad washing technique ruins your paint has previously been demonstrated by the pictures of the brand new car on the Miglior website. There is a side-by-side comparison showing the paint after a few washes by the dealer, when compared to after it had been corrected. The difference is huge and is clearly noticable....but you also failed to acknowledge that too and still maintain that local car washes are perfectly fine.

Anyway, I'm not trying to convert you or anything. It's your car and if you feel fine with how you treat your paint, then that's your call....but this thread is about detailing, after all.

I also still maintain that if you think that spending a little extra time on not ruining your car's paint is "Madness" when compared to paying someone to ruin it for you, then it's not me that isn't 'normal', tbh.

[robb]

You honestly need a reality check if you believe getting your car washed by someone else is ruining it

[Mark V]

Rob, it depends on who that 'someone else' is!

[robb]

Haha the Asian chap with his lovely wooly type mittens who washes my car, I'm just not gonna accept that's classed as ruining a car i understand some people have very high standards and do it all themselves but to say going to a hand car wash is 'ruining ' a car ; or paying for someone else to ruin it is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard ! I'm not aiming to cause offence I'm just stating my opinion, but referring to going to a hand wash as ruining a car is just bonkers

[Brocky]

You honestly need a reality check if you believe getting your car washed by someone else is ruining it

Do you know which products your local wash uses on your car? Is it a lubricated, PH neutral shampoo....or is it industrial detergant, that will actually do more harm to your paint than good?

Do you know how many cars they've washed with that sponge (which simply pushes dirt across your paint, marring it, btw) before yours and do you know how dirty the car before you was?

Do they use a different sponge/mitt for both the wheels and the lower half of your car and the upper half? Did they use the same bucket of black, grit-filled water to rinse off the mitt or sponge they just wiped over your paint?

Are you 100% sure that just before you pulled up, the guy now rubbing that sponge or mitt all over your paintwork didn't just drop it on the floor?

That chamois he just used to dry your car....rubbing leather over will marr it. That's fact, not opinion. In fact, I've seen an employee of a local hand-wash place drop his chomois on the ground and blast it with the pressure washer in an attempt to clean it and then proceed to use it on the next car that came thorugh!

Not using the right products and techniques will ruin your car's paint. It's a simple and easy to understand fact.

You are trying to state a case that a local £4 hand wash place filled with un-skilled workers totally negates the need for a mutli-million pound/dollar/euro industry, based on opinion and trying to pass it off as fact with little to no evidence.

And you think I'm mad?!

[Brocky]

Haha the Asian chap with his lovely wooly type mittens who washes my car, I'm just not gonna accept that's classed as ruining a car i understand some people have very high standards and do it all themselves but to say going to a hand car wash is 'ruining ' a car ; or paying for someone else to ruin it is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard ! I'm not aiming to cause offence I'm just stating my opinion, but referring to going to a hand wash as ruining a car is just bonkers

That post of yours says all I need to hear. This discussion is a complete excercise in futility.

[robb]

Hahahahhahahaaha embarassing lad

[Brocky]

Hahahahhahahaaha embarassing lad

No. Being a troll on an internet forum is embarrassing. This is the second thread that you've maintained that your opinion is law.

Not having the nouse to see that someone using proper techniques and products on a car's paint makes more sense than someone who gets the local hand-wash to do it with dirty, sub-par equipment and cheap, industrial grade chemicals....that's embarrassing

And, whilst we're getting personal, not knowing the slightest thing about how to use grammar, correct spelling and how to hold a conversation or debate without using 'hahahah' in it ....that's pretty embarrasing, too. Although, not as embarrassing as the fact that you, for some reason, felt that the race of your local car wash worker was relevant to the discussion...

You gave your opinion. You can't understand it. That's fine. See ya!