Set a pot of coffee on, this is gonna take a while.

I see there is no “how to” guide on car detailing, and since I’ve been working as a detailer for a Toyota/Lexus dealership for three years, I’d like to share my knowledge to help other member’s cars get as clean as mine. You may think your car is clean, but believe me after I started working in detailing my definition of “clean” changed greatly and I see a lot more things the average automotive owner doesn’t. I laugh at myself now at how I cleaned my car four years ago when I first got my Protégé, or back farther when I drove a Taurass. I currently own a 1994 Mazda Protégé SE and a 1990 Mazda 929S. I’ll try and cover every aspect and hopefully won’t forget anything, and if you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to ask.

Before we even get into car detailing, let’s talk about Prevention.

All cars, at one time, were brand spankin new and rolled out of a showroom for a once proud owner. I clean and detail all new (and used) Toyotas and Lexus’ that get sold (along with other make and model cleans), and have seen many owners drive away happily in their shiny, prefect automobile. Car care starts when a car is brand new: weather at five years if its going to look like it did when you bought it, or its gonna look like a hurricane blew through it. If you upkeep a car’s beauty right when you get it, it will age very slowly and if you ever decide to trade in or sell privately, you’ll get more money for the car for the mint shape its in. But the sad truth of the matter is, from my perspective, a large number of people don’t give two shits about their cars. Before I worked in detailing I thought everyone kept their car as clean as mine, and for as long as my mother has had any of her cars they never truly got that dirty. Oh, how horribly wrong I was. I’ve seen devastation and absolute pigs of cars, destroyed by careless owners. It really makes me really appreciate any car ten years old, or even five for that matter, that’s in a decent shape of condition, because I’ve seen two year old cars get traded in and they are killed. Sure, you can beat on the car inside and out and spend a day cleaning it to make it like new, but a lot of people don’t realize once you really ***k up a car’s interior and exterior, you can NEVER get it rightly back to showroom condition. I’ll never understand – if you bought a brand new car, why wouldn’t you upkeep it cosmetically as you do mechanically? Would you drive almost 40,000km’s without getting an oil change or other routine maintenance? I think not. But don’t laugh at that number of k’s – we had a sales guy who drove a Camry (or Highlander can’t remember now) demo to that amount of k’s and never got an oil change done, and he got in shit for it. I’ve seen horrors, never by a new demo-ed car no matter how good the price is.

A lot of the factors I’ll cover may not be helped, but it may open yours eyes to see how badly a car can get over time.

Kids: I don’t have any, and if I ever do I’ll make sure to get a beater. Most kids don’t sit perfectly still twiddling their thumbs as they sit in the car. This goes double for babies in car seats. Windows get smeared up with finger prints, crumbs and snacks end up on the seats and floor and in pocketed areas along with spilt drinks. I’ve seen crayons melted into door pockets, along with food, gum, candy, and other items mooshed into the carpet. Car sickness is another woe – no one wants stinky, acidity pure in their car. Baby seats destroy the car’s seats as they leave such a hard indentation as they are mostly never moved and with a baby’s weight get heavy; you can permanently damage cloth and leather seats. Kids can also, if sitting in the back, get their greasy little hands all over your vinyl and kick and scuff the back of your seats (if they in fact have vinyl backs and aren’t full cloth).

Prevention: Wear a condom. Lol, j/k. You more than likely won’t stop your kids from drawing cartoons on the windows when they get frosty, and since that can be remedied with a simple spray and wipe of glass cleaner its not a big deal – its just if you go a long time without cleaning the windows they look like garbage. Try not to let them have candy, gum, or other food products in the car until they are of age to handle them properly. Drink wise you can’t go wrong with water, if it spills its no big deal. Milk, pop, and other juices are, so don’t let them have any while in the car. Perhaps carry a small bag or bucket if your child gets sick a lot, as I’ve come across cars where the puke was so bad and didn’t get cleaned for so long, the smell never leaves the car. Make sure they don’t hide things in your car like crayons and other such items that could melt and do some damage to your interior on a hot day. You can buy specialty covers that save your seats from damage if you use a baby seat, but if you don’t wanna spend the cash a thick, wide towel would do the job. If your kids can listen, tell them not to go touching everything and not to kick the back of the seat for any reason to make it dirty.

Animals: Never had any real pets, just goldfish. Animals, like kids, can be devastative when it comes to your car. Dogs and cats are horrible. Dogs can slop up your windows like no tomorrow, and like cats if they roam around the back or front of your car long enough your seats get damaged. I’ve seen leather in cars destroyed by animals going wild in the back seats, or if you have a crossover type car like a Matrix with an all vinyl rear hatch area, the vinyl gets scraped and scratched beyond repair. If the animal rides up front the dash gets most of the damage. Another big factor is HAIR. If you have leather its not a big deal, but if you have cloth seats the hair sticks and gets everywhere on the floor and sometimes even on the headliner. It all depends how much your animals sheds, as certain types of hair are easy to vacuum out. But it also depends on the type of seat/floor material your car has – some are easy to vacuum free, and other sometimes cheaper materials hold the hair you so basically have to pick out each hair one by one with tweezers. The hair also gets all over the vinyl and into vents and cup holders. Animals can also drool, have accidents, and really smell up a car. I’ve smelt wet dog smell, and you can’t get that out once it’s really in there.

Prevention: Don’t have animals in your car; I can’t make it any simpler than that. If you are a pet owner I guess you have no choice. I hope you don’t own a real nice car cause it’s gonna get pwned by your shedding, dirty animals traipsing everywhere.

Smoking: This is one thing I can never wrap my head around. Doing this in your car ruins your entire interior. I’ve come across some real bad smoked out cars in my time, where I swear they smoked with the windows rolled up for years. If I even sit in them the smell is sometimes overpowering and I feel I’m getting lung cancer just by sitting in the car. Once you smoke in a car, its there forever! No matter how little you smoke, even if you do a full scrub down on the vinyl and heavily shampoo the seats, the smell is still gonna be there. Smoke ash gets everyone near the ash tray and all over the floors and seats if you’re not careful, and burn holes are common in cars like these. I use the term “nickatint” when cleaning smoker windows, and by the time I’m done doing them I’ve turned a complete white rag to yellow. Same goes for vinyl and headliners – I’ve soaked these things in cleaner just to watch the interior change color and have yellow drip down from everywhere. It’s not a pretty picture. I could clean the shit out of a smoker’s car, but it won’t ever really be clean ever again.

Prevention: Like animals, don’t smoke in your car. Not even once. And if you have passengers in your car and don’t want them to smoke, make sure to tell them that. I almost had a heart attack when I drove an old co-worker home, as he was just about going to casually light up in my car – at which point I said “Whoa, WTF are you doing!?” He just looked at me oddly, suffice to say he didn’t own a car and was a stoner, so he rode in many cars before where lighting up wasn’t a big deal.

Coffee & Drinks: There’s nothing like a hot cup of joe on the drive into work on a cold morning. There’s also nothing like a hot cup of joe spilling all over the place and staining your interior, and 99% of the time that’s what I’m trying to get out of cup holders and carpets. All cars have different cup holders, some having a better design than others. Some pull out as a tray, some flip out of the dash near the vents, and some are formed in the center console. No matter how good you think they can hold a cup of coffee, a full one could still spill or leak from the lid. I’ve seen some massive coffee catastrophes, where cup holders are completely covered in old, sticky coffee. It can sometimes make the entire car smell. It gets all over the center console and often drips down the sides, getting onto the carpet. In a way if you spill enough coffee you can ***k up the interior, because even if you clean all the coffee out, it still sits in very fine cracks in the vinyl, and in places the shampooer can’t reach. The only way of cleaning what you can’t see would be to take the center console off to get to all the crap that’s gotten in there, and if you have a hand e-brake a lot of shit settles in there. On drinks in general, never leave items full of liquid in your car when the temperate gets cold. Ever seen a can or bottle of pop explode in a car? I have a couple times, and it gets EVERYWHERE and is a bitch to clean. I recall an incident in the winter where a man left a jug of water in his Camry (those big things for water coolers) and it got so cold in the trunk, plus it moved around in there, it split and the water soaked everything, then froze. So when lifting the trunk carpet most of the spare tire and such were covered in ice. I had to take the spare out and clean everything with hot chemical, but at least it was just water and didn’t cause any major flood damage as it froze quickly after it escaped the jug.

Prevention: Don’t drink coffee in your car. If you do get one, try and hold off drinking and opening it until you get out of the car and to work. Also make note if the person behind the counter didn’t overfill the cup and/or put the lid on incorrectly, as a couple times I almost got coffee spots on my interior having a dipstick overfill it and it was dripping out of the cup and I wasn’t paying attention. If you don’t trust your cup holders with a full cup, hold it in your hand and take sips while driving. Once the coffee gets down to perhaps half way maybe then it’s safe to place in the cup holders. Of course if you drive 5-speed manual you rely on your cup holders more often than people with an automatic. If you don’t even wanna risk getting coffee in your cup holders, put the coffee on the front passenger floor (only if you have rubbers, or if the carpets are really dirty and it doesn’t matter if something spills). Lol, but this usually only works with the medium double-double I usually get, anything larger will tip over. Better yet, get a tray before you leave, set the tray on the passenger floor of the car and put the coffee in there. And if it still spills big time, it’s only the mats. And as stated, don’t leave any drinks freeze overnight in your car.

Eating: Same as above. Dry snacks are fine and just produce crumbs. If you’re trying to shove down a foot long meatball sub while driving, you could make a mess. Don’t leave foods that can spoil in your car, I’ve seen rotten fruit and other stuff like old timbits left under the seats, sometimes it stains the carpet or starts mold in the car. Make sure your passengers don’t stow anything away – minivans are the worst, because they have kids – and kids tend to get messy. I’ve seen pieces of junk food, wrappers, McD’s fries stuffed away in cup holders, storage areas, under seats, etc.

Prevention: If you can avoid it, then do so. The kids can eat when they get home.

Cargo: Some people don’t keep much in their cars, while others live in them. Bottles of stuff like washer fluid could leak and spill if they move around in your trunk or other areas, and if you transport large items or other things that need to go in the trunk or through the trunk, be careful as you could damage your vinyl and leather seats putting these items in and out. I’ve seen the tops of rear bumpers horribly marked up just because people don’t lift high enough when putting an item in and just push it across and into the trunk.

Prevention: If you have a cargo net, use it! There wasn’t one made for an area in my car, but I got one and hung it in my trunk where I could. This prevents stuff like washer fluid from flying around. When you have to load things into the trunk lift high enough as not to touch the bumper or the small piece of trunk vinyl in there. If your trunk is all vinyl and not carpet it runs the risk of getting marked up if you have a lot of sharp objects in it. If you need to transport something where it’s going through the car or needs to get in it in an award way, use blankets to cover up where it will be rubbing up on your vinyl/leather so it doesn’t get damaged.

Wheels: Get dirty due to the elements, combined with a lot brake dust. Add winter salts to that and you have a corrosion fest. If you go a long time without cleaning them and drive a lot, you can make them change color to black – moreover the front ones. After a while they start to corrode. For ones that have a shiny, polished finish the clearcoat starts to crack and peel away leaving the rim to get eaten away. For rims that have that other type of gritty finish, they start to get pitted. If they are painted or chromed, you start to get bubbles and eventually the paint/chrome flakes right off. Don’t pound hard on your brakes all the time – it just makes more dust. If you have crappy pads they will make more dust as well.

Prevention: Don’t use good wheels in winter unless you wanna hose them down everyday. Brake lightly in situations where you can, and buy a good set of pads. Some wheel cleaners can do more damage to already battered rims so your best bet is to clean with soapy water and an old wash mitt. When you spray tire dressing on the tires, make sure to wipe the rims clean afterwards so the dressing chemical doesn’t sit and dry on the wheel. Don’t go so long without cleaning your wheels, as if a wheel is always clean and spotless there will be no way it can corrode. Some are more complex to clean than others due to design.

Paint: Like your interior, you got one chance to keep your paint looking good – because the best buff job in the universe can’t make really bad paint look 100% new again. It can get marked up fast and easily without care (crappy chamois, old snow brush, outside elements), and soon you will have so many scratches and “spider webs” in the paint the metallic (the sparkles in the paint) will barley come through (unless it’s a flat color). You should wash your car once a month at least, perhaps every 1-2 weeks in winter (more on winter cleaning later on). Don’t use a carwash; it will scratch the hell out of your paint. Coin washes are better but those brushes are used on so many cars daily and you don’t know what dirt and rocks stay trapped in there. If you have access to a detailing center with a pressure washer and the proper accessories, do it there or in your driveway. Make sure you use a good chamois to dry the car to minimalize chamois scratches. Waxing is very important to a paints finish and it hides small imperfections, gets rid of water marks, and takes oxidation off the paint. You should wax your car at least 3-4 times a year, perhaps doing a full cut and buff job every one-two years. You can only buff so much though as after a while you won’t have any clearcoat left. Don’t use a hard bristled snow brush in winter – it’s the leading cause of making paintjobs, second only to car washes, look like shit.

Prevention: Wash and wax often, with a pressure washer, and make sure your soapy water, mitt and chamois are clean. Make sure you give the car a really good rinse before you wash. Use a good wax and or polish, use a snowbrush with soft tipped bristles, or try not using one at all if its minimal snow that will blow or melt off throughout driving. Flat white, red and yellow colors need extra care or they will die, as white fades to chalk, red fades to pink, and yellow turns to light chalky yellow. Same goes with dark colors like blue and green; black is the worst because it never looks good unless you wax it, and it shows marks and scratches more than any other color. Light colors are always your best bet – blue, sliver, green, orange, beige, (metallic) red, white and yellow, etc. If you are lucky enough to have a garage, use it – it will keep your car clean longer, and keep the sun and other elements from aging it faster.

Passengers: Will make your car dirty fast. No question. Moreover if you take a lot of them at many times and people are always getting in and out (like a car pool) – you will be consistently bringing in dirt from the outside. I have never had a lot of people in my car for the most part, I rarely get front seat passengers and I don’t think anyone has sat in the back for a year. Therefore, my car stays really clean because I’m the only person ever in it. But to those of you who have no choice, passengers can make your interior age rapidly.

Prevention: Heh, avoid them if you can. But if you can’t, set the rules. No smoking, no coffee and only bottled water; up to you if you allow bottled milk, pop or juice. Eating things like chips and chocolate bars are fine (dry snacks), but nothing messy – and make sure things don’t get rolled under the seat and forgotten about, or if they try to hide their garbage in a compartment. Hopefully they have clean clothes on and don’t stink (I’ve driven some people with bad body odor sometimes). Ask them not to scuff your doors or kick plates when entering/existing the vehicle. Hopefully they don’t get grubby fingerprints and other grime all over your windows and vinyl. Never allow anything to get placed on the dash – it’s the most noticeable part of the car and no one likes a dash full of crap on it with greasy marks and prints. If its winter, tell them they’d better get in “ass first” and that they kick their shoes/boots off, and not on the frame of the car but kicking them together. And make sure their feet stay on the mat and that they aren’t being sloppy and their feet are placed on the edge, allowing salt stains and other dirt to get under the mat and stain the floor.

Amount of usage: Of course, the more you drive a car, the more you’re running it down. This fact may not be helped depending on how far you travel. You can either be driving back and fourth to T.O. every day or just going to the grocery store. If you go in and out of your car a lot in different types of weather, the driver’s area of the car will get dirty pretty quickly with dust and other dirt flying in as soon as you open the door, getting the dash covered in crap. You always track in dirt and mud and other debris from your shoes which ends up on the floor mat. And depending how clean your clothes are you could be getting your seat very dirty as well. Never wear leather on leather seats because with them rubbing the dye from what you’re wearing (black jacket on a beige seat for example) will stain the seat and will not come off (also never get pen ink on leather seats, it’s the one thing I’ve never been able to get rid of). Door panels and kickplates as well also get beat in too as people don’t tend to lift their feet high and far enough when they get in and out of a vehicle. Newer/cheaper vinyl these days is easier to scuff and ruin faster. If your hands are dirty and greasy this will eventually start to eat away at the steering wheel finish and shifter knob as well, sometimes leaving brown or black patches on the vinyl. When its raining heavily and you open your door within five seconds it could get soaked, which therefore makes it filthy and it looks horrible when it dries – moreover if you have a product on it that makes it shiny, it can make it run or leave spots. This is a more notable problem on newer cars where less and even no carpet is used on the door panels and its all cheap vinyl. If you roll your windows up and down a lot when it’s raining or snowing the insides will get dirty quickly and have long water streaks and spots on them. If you leave the sunroof open when it’s raining you could permanently stain the head/sunroof liner. If you drive with your windows down a lot, you’ll get your interior dirty a lot faster as all the outside elements have a way to get in. Outside, stone chips around the tip of the hood, mirrors, and front bumper are your worst enemy.

Prevention: If you don’t drive much, like myself as my work is close by, you won’t get your as dirty as you’re not in it as much versus someone who practically lives in their car where they need for 24/7 for their job and family. Keep a microfiber cloth with you. While you don’t have the time to detail the entire car, wiping the dash and center console clean of dust once in a while will keep it clean. If you tend to track in a lot of crap on the drivers floor, it may warrant a quick vacuum every week or so to keep on top of it, as if you get too much dirt on and around the floor mat you’ll create a dirt ring on the floor itself which then would lead you to shampooing the floor. If you work in a place where you get dirty, and you have the option of showering someplace, do it – as its alot better getting into a clean car with clean clothes. If not, buy a seat cover but make sure your seats are cleaned before you put it on, or a blanket/towel will do the job as well. When entering and leaving your vehicle, make sure to open the door far enough where you won’t scuff your door vinyl or the kickplate – you can’t buff these marks out like in paint, this is vinyl/plastic. You got one shot at keeping them looking nice. Try and remember to have clean hands when driving, as to not cake up dirt on the things you touch most like the shifter or getting smudges all over your nice deck. Get a steering wheel cover to protect the wheel; I have one and it’s over three years old and looks horrible, which means it’s done its job as my wheel has a like new condition to it. When it’s raining hard, I’ll try and wait till it lets up before getting in and out. When I do I get in and out as fast as possible so as little rain falls onto my vinyl, although if there is a strong wind it could blow more into your car depending where the angle is coming from. I remember one time I wanted to go out for coffee, and it was raining and I just cleaned my entire car. I said ***k it and stayed home, I didn’t piss all those hours away for nothing. I don’t have a garage sadly, and that’s a BIG factor when protecting your car. If you don’t need to, don’t roll the windows up and down and opt for popping the sunroof (if you have one) so the insides stay cleaner longer. Overall try and drive with the windows up so dust and dirt don’t make your interior filthy – driving with the windows down anyway, like on the highway, just reduces fuel economy. Try and remember to close your sunroof when its raining – and don’t leave it popped when the car is parked for a long period of time, because the weather can change at the drop of a dime and you may not be there to close it (yes, this happened to me). Bug guards and 3M clear hood tape protectant are your best bets for preventing (although I’ve seen it yellow after a long time) stone chips, along with splashguards. If you don’t have those items, I hope you have a steady hand and a full touch up stick. To try and prevent them, don’t follow so close behind large vehicles on the highway; especially transport trucks and tractor trailers. If you need to drive through a gravel area do so at a low speed – as driving at a high speed will cause stones and rocks to fly up higher and faster and cause damage to the paint.

Service: If there is one thing I fear and cringe at when I have car problems – it’s bringing it to someone else and have someone else in my car. Most people don’t give a damn – mechanics, body shop workers, etc, work in this profession for a living and get in and out of many cars, and most of the time these cars are dirty to begin with. But if your car is super mint, like me you hate brining your car in for service anywhere, because these careless professionals can ruin everything. Like many of the points stated above – they track in dirt, leave grease marks, get the seats filthy, scuff vinyl, leave surfaces like the steering wheel and shifter sticky, and do many more things. On the outside they could leave scratches, deep marks, or even dents. Another factor is when your car has to go in for bodywork – it could be in a dirty shop for days (or even weeks) with lots of dust flying everywhere, or could sit outside in all types of weather. If a large section of the car is being repaired the whole interior may need to get ripped apart, doors and other outside pieces may need to get taken off. I’ve seen cars with almost nothing but a frame left – sitting in shops for weeks getting irreversibly dirty and dusty, and then sitting outside getting rained, snowed, or sun-beaten. Like I’ve said – if you really pig out a car’s inside, you will never get it like new “out of the showroom” again. Lastly – if they wash all cars that get serviced and run them though a carwash/autowash they have, your paint is going to get killed. On top of that, I’ve seen door trim ripped off, radio antennas broken, and license plates bent beyond repair.

Prevention: There’s never any harm in asking nicely to whoever services your car, if they can be extra careful about not getting it too dirty. Perhaps leave a note in the car not to get dirt or grease marks anywhere. When I first got my Protégé I got it oil sprayed at Ziebart, and my interior as usual was mint. Because I have an inbuilt sunroof it eliminates what little headroom the 1990-94 Protégé’s had, to the point where you are practically rubbing your head on the roof sometimes. Whoever got into my car that day must have had some grease on their hat – because when I got into my car afterwards I found not one, but three/four large circular grease marks on my headliner and sunroof liner. To this day I have never been able to get these out completely and if it weren’t for this incident, my headliner would still be as mint as the day I bought the car. Now every time I go in I tell them to be careful and leave a note on the dash – you need to get the message across. If they think you’re a weirdo, ***k ‘em. Don’t care what people think – you are just protecting your investment and passionate about your ride. When your car goes into a body shop I have one word – blankets. Get a set of old, but clean, blankets and cover everything. Seats, floors, the dash, console, etc. It will pay off later and save your interior from getting totally demolished and keep dust from getting into fine cracks in the vinyl. If some place offers a “free” wash, just say “no thanks”. But make sure to leave a note in the car, because the person working on your car may have not been told by the service advisor not to wash it. Bringing your car into service is all about covering your ass, because the people that work on your car are not going to care what happens to it (cosmetically) – I’m sure some of them barley care about their own.

Weather

Aside from the type of user, a car will age based on another factor – weather. If you live in Canada or the northern part of the US, salt is a big problem. It’s not hurting anything when its cold – when it’s freezing out the salt is stationary and doesn’t hurt the car. It’s the flexuation in temperature and dirt and salty sometimes muddy water getting on the car when it gets milder that leads the salt to start doing its job – which is to kill your body. Frequent washes are a way to fight back, but I’ll get into winter detailing later on. If you live where the temperature is always hot and the sun is blazing, you don’t have to worry about your underbody as it’s your “above” body that’s in trouble. It fades paint, the inside fades seats and vinyl – and for older cars cracked dashes and rear seat headrests are the main target. Extreme heat in the car can cause trim pieces to bubble or peel off. I can recommend using a blanket to cover the rear deck of your car to protect against the sun, and for everything else – garage it. If you’re in the country mud and dust are a big problem, and if you drive with your windows down alot the inside of your car will turn into a sandbox. If you live in a bad weather zone where hurricanes, floods, and other things are frequent – move. Sure, hail and other cosmetic stuff can be remedied, but if your car gets flooded or picked up and thrown a football field sized distance thanks to a tornado, it’s ***ked. The perfect place to live would be a nice, temperate place with no snow and ice, not too hot, not all that dusty and no mega storms. Does this place exist?

Tools & Chemicals

After all of that ranting, I guess you can rate on how you treat your car and what shape it’s in. Now that we have established effective ways on how to keep it clean, we can focus on detailing. I write this based on the fact I do all my stuff in a detailing shop. Here are the tools I use: pressure washer, buckets, bug sponge, wash mitt, chamois, green pad, clay bar, air gun (such an important tool), shampoo machine, bbq type scrub brush, normal sized scrub brush, small paintbrush, rags, diapers (we call them that, forget why – white towels, ticker than a terry towel with a different material), microfiber cloths, rubbing compound, polish, paste and liquid wax, wax pad, buffer, steel wool, vacuum. As for chemicals: soap, wheel acid (you can’t buy it, its wheel cleaner but very strong and is mixed with water), blue multi purpose cleaner (water mixed in a spay bottle for vinyl and other applications, used straight for shampooing), green glass cleaner, engine degreaser, tire dressing, prep-solv (for grease), rubbing alcohol.