Engine

The engine is often an overlooked part of the detailing process; most people don’t touch it for fear of cleaning it could damage something. This is true, but engines should be cleaned on a regular basis to maintain their showroom look. No one likes working and looking at a dirty engine, and if you leave it go for a long time eventually things get corroded and rusty from dust, dirt, spilt oil, and other elements.

First, if you have an intake, cover it up with a bag so it doesn’t get wet, and if you want to be extra careful cover the distributor as well – I had water get in there once and it wasn’t a fun driving experience. Pop your hood and take a look around – do you have that yellow factory rustproofing that’s sprayed everywhere? This makes cleaning the engine a pain in the butt as you have to be careful not to get any degreaser anywhere on it. When you spray it down, do it at all angles with short sprays being careful to not hit the rustproofing – some types come off more than others, it also depends how long it’s been on the car. Luckily if you have access to that stuff and do in fact take some off, just re-apply it and you’re golden. If you don’t have rustproofing sprayed everywhere, then grab your spray bottle of degreaser and spray away. Start by spraying the top edges of the hood and work your way down – try not to get anything on the liner (but if it doesn’t have one spray the entire inside of the hood). Then spray down the entire engine. Look at it from all angles and make sure you hit everything top to bottom and side to side. If the engine is really dirty I’d recommend waiting two minutes before spraying it off so it does its job well and soaks in. Turn on the pressure washer and start rinsing from the top down – if you have a liner don’t get it soaking wet, there have been times where it started to peel and fall off when I did older cars. Give the engine a good rinse making sure to get all the chemical off, blast hard to reach areas, and be careful of the warning areas I mentioned above. Let it air dry for a bit, and/or take a rag and wipe everything down. You can also use an air gun in this process to get water out of hard to reach places. For those who like the look of the engine “o natural”, that’s it. If you want it all shiny the simplest way is to grab a bottle of tire dressing and spray the entire engine down – when it dries it will leave a nice shine. But if you wanna be picky and only do hoses and whatnot, get a rag and spay it down with dressing and dress each part individually. This is more time consuming, but it’s your choice. Engines today have a lot more plastic coverings then older ones, so spraying everything is your best bet. I would not recommend shampooing an engine if it’s very old and it hasn’t been done regularly as there is more of a risk in damaging something. The oldest engine I ever did was an ’85 Trans Am, and we gave the owner fair warning about doing it. He said it would be fine – it was fine afterwards, but there is a risk evolved.

Wheels

Before you start washing, wheels come first. Usually, I’ll spray all the wheels with wheel acid, and while I’m rinsing the car off hose them down as I move along. For rims with a different finish (a lot of high end Lexus rims), it’s not safe for the acid to sit so I have to spray and rinse each one at a time. If the rims are pitted and haven’t been cleaned in a long time, I spray them with acid thoroughly, and take a green pad and scrub them down. Sometimes this takes off all the dirt, sometimes it just lessens it. I do that process one by one, and then I rinse them along with the car. Some people have expensive aftermarket rims which I would not recommend any harsh chemicals for. After washing the car, take the existing or older beat up wash mitt, and clean each rim by hand with soapy water. Then as rinsing the soap off the car rinse them in the process. For rims that have a lot of mud and brake dust inside them, make sure to get the pressure washer right into the spacing the rims have. Some rims have enough clearance you can stick your whole hand in them, and with a wash mitt you can practically clean the entire wheel and not just the outside of it. If you run on steelies with hubcaps, take the hubcaps right off and give the rims a good soap down, clean the hubcaps separately but leave them off for now.

Rinsing

A garden hose is no way to rinse a car – it has no power. A pressure washer is a vital tool in car cleaning because it moves most of the dirt so you don’t swirl it around in the washing process. Make sure all your windows are rolled up all the way! Start on the roof and work your way down. If you have door trim make sure to get close to it and blast out all the dirt that sits behind it – this is one main reason why on older cars it starts to peel off. If the car is extremely dirty pay special attention to where your body lines are and blast them, along with the lower part of the car and underside of the bumpers where a lot of stuff gets kicked up. A great deal of dirt sets itself on the rear of a car – this is more noticeable on hatchbacks, vans and SUV’s. Make sure to blast near the license plate, under the rear door handle, and near the taillights. In this process rinse the wheels down, and really get the washer into the wheel wells – something a lot of people don’t clean. You’d be surprised how much dirt and chunks of mud can fall out of there. If you have a bug guard/hood deflector on the hood, you must get in there with the pressure washer to blast out all the dirt and debris (like leaves) that tend to build up over time. You may have to take it off to clean and wax under it – but depending on how long it’s been on the car the clips that hold it to your hood could be brittle and snap and break off in the process. If the car is extremely dirty and muddy the rinse job alone could take 15 minutes, I recommend opening the doors and blasting the body that runs right next to where the kickplate sits, and the underside of the door, because it’s more than likely caked in dry mud. If you have a van with a sliding door it will be harder to do, but if you get the interior wet who cares – its gonna get cleaned anyway. If you are cleaning a truck, give the bed a good rinse to get any large amounts of mud and dirt out of it – it’s up to you if you want to wash it later on or just leave it air dry (this will depend if it has a bedliner or not).

Not so fast though. Is your car white, yellow, beige or a light sliver? Chances are you see very tiny rust spots all over the car. This is called “fallout”, and it’s caused mostly by brake dust. And while the other colors mentioned are bad for it, white is the worst culprit, and most fallout appears on the rear of a car and it’s more noticeable on vans, SUV’s and hatchbacks. To get rid of this one way is after the car is soaped up, run a clay bar over the entire car to remove it. The easiest way is after rising the car, spray wheel acid all over it – but be careful to avoid chromed pieces and focus on the body, not the windows. After a thorough soaking of acid, wash the car immediately as this stuff does its job quickly. After you wash and rinse the car you will find the rust spots gone, and if you missed any areas touch them up with clay. Some cars also suffer from rust lines (older Toyota’s near the door handles) and dirt lines (older Sunfires and Cavaliers near the mirrors) that stain the paint – the acid can remedy these as well along with polishing and waxing thereafter to get rid of them completely.

Washing

Is it spring/summer? Do you drive a lot? Then you more than likely got bugs galore on the bumper, hood, mirrors and windshield. That’s not good – they can be acidic and if left on long enough eat through the clearcoat. Personally I don’t get many bugs, but when I do I avoid using a bug sponge all together. Why? Because it can scratch the hell out of the paint. I did the hood of a ’99 dark green Civic once and in the shop’s lighting you could see scratches in the direction I was doing the bugs. But if you have caked bugs, you have no choice. If you don’t, a wash mitt could get them off. First, soak down with a bottle of multi (I also find the wheel acid to work well) the windshield, front bumper (all the way down), mirrors, and the lower part of the front doors and the rear bumper by the wheels (where bugs and road debris get kicked up). Take your bug sponge and start scrubbing, but don’t give so much pressure unless you have to.

Now you can start washing. I hope your soap is ready, and make sure to rinse the (unless it’s brand new) wash mitt with the pressure washer to make sure it’s clean. Never wash cars with a sponge, they hold dirt and are a harder fiber. Start on the roof, and then work your way down to the hood and do the entire hood first. When washing don’t use a swirl motion, use a straight back and forth motion. The hood is the most noticeable part on any car, and you don’t want to mark it up so clean it first, and then move over to the top of the trunk. The reason for cleaning all the top first is its cleaner than the sides of the car – if you look at a dirty car most of the dirt gets kicked up on the sides, more so (if you have door trim) below the door trim. You don’t want to wash the bottom of a door, and then bring the mitt up to wash the roof or hood – you’re taking all the extra dirt that was down there and spreading it all over a more noticeable surface causing very thin scratches. I did that after the first wash after someone buffed my car – the left side of the hood was the last part of the car I washed and the mitt had a light bit of dirt on it, and in the sunlight you could you the scratches I put into the paint. When washing the windows pay attention to any decals/stickers you have on them, and try to avoid the area and don’t rub or press hard on it with the wash mitt (or chamois when drying), as they could start to peel on the edges. After you’re done all the top area and windows, do all the sides of the car but only wash the doors to the half way mark, and clean the top part an upper side of the bumpers. Re-dip the mitt and now you can wash the dirtiest part of the car – do the entire front and rear bumpers right down to the bottom, wash the doors right now to the frame – you may really grease up the mitt in this process, so if that part of the car was really dirty before it could have been sprayed with engine degreaser. Something most people miss washing are the wheel well lips, and that right there is where most rust starts. Make sure those get clean.

Before you rinse the car, while it’s all soaped up you can consider using the clay bar to clean the paint. This is my personal opinion – I don’t believe you need to clay the car every time you want to polish and wax it. Personally my car never gets that bad where I really need to use it, as it gets washed a lot and polished/waxed more often than most cars. I’ve only ever once clayed it and that was before someone did an all out buff job on it for me. He did such a good job and used a really good wax that months later my paint is still smooth to the touch, and now if I keep up with frequent polishing/waxing, I won’t ever need to clay. I would think most cars don’t need it unless the paint is completely beat and gritty in areas, although other people say no matter what you will always pull off dirt with a clay bar and it should be done before waxing. Yes, a clay bar removes dirt and other imperfections in the paint as well as fallout. When I clayed my car it didn’t really take that much dirt off, because my paint was in good shape to begin with. If I did that every time I waxed my car it would take up too much time. I suppose its better suited for people that don’t wax as often as I do. Yes a clay bar is important, but it’s not always necessary – if you do choose to clay the entire car, I usually do with it soaped up, some like to do it after it’s rinsed.

If it’s really hot the soap will try quickly and you don’t want that, so either wash fast or wash slow but rinse as you’re doing it. After the car is all soaped up, start rinsing as you did before – from the top making your way down, and make sure to blast mirrors, door seals and the trunk seal by the rear window to get out all the suds. Depending on how strong the soap is, you could be rinsing for a while. For the few that have white walls, while the car is drip drying grab a scrub brush and some multi or engine degreaser, and spray the tires down. Scrub them, rinse them off with the washer, and they will indeed be white again.

Drying

If it’s not too hot you can let a lot of the excess water drip off. Grab a chamois (I’ll assume you know how to use it), and like the wash mitt if it’s used give it a good rinse with the pressure washer, then if needed rinse under hot tap water. A new chamois sucks to break in, a broken in one is way better as it does a good job of soaking up the water. Like washing, start from the roof, then chamois the hood first. If you did a good wash job, you don’t have to worry about bringing dirt up from a lower surface so you don’t have to only stop half way when drying and then do the rest after. But even with the cleanest chamois, every one leaves chamois scratches. Those are very thin lines you see more so when its dusk and dawn, and the sun hits the car at the right angle – see all those long thin lines that kinda have a long curve in them? That’s what a chamois does, and it’s more noticeable on dark colors as well. For some reason I have a terrible time trying to keep these things hidden on my car, and it’s not even that dark of a color. It also depends how good your clearcoat is – there is no way to wash Toyota black without it looking horrible, because its so soft – you can go over a brand new one with a clean rag and still put marks in the finish. After chamoing grab a rag – its time to clean the door jams (something I never used to do). Open the doors and wipe down the entire area, for the doors wipe the seals and the inner side and bottom of them as well. If you have that yellow rustproofing stuff or oil spray, just dab it or blow the water away with an air gun as not to remove any of it. It’s there for a reason – to protect against rust.

Shampooing

Now that the car is dry, time to start on the inside. Hopefully your car isn’t full of empty fast food containers, pizza boxes and Tim Horton’s cups. If the car is really a big pig you may have to vacuum it before you shampoo it, and this goes double if you have pet hair everywhere because trying to vacuum pet hair when its wet is ten times worse than trying to get it out when dry. Sometimes it’s taken me half an hour to vacuum a car, and while doing it I try to ball up the hair running my hands on the seats and floors. If the car isn’t that bad, take out the floor mats. Some like to shampoo front to back, I do back to front so I always start with the front seats fully forward.

But note the following: shampooing, by a personal standard, really isn’t needed if the car is all around clean. Sometimes you may just need to get the floor done, or sometimes just the driver’s seat. But if you can avoid doing it, do so. Because while it’s good to have a clean interior, you can actually damage a car’s seats with a shampooer if the material is cheap, moreover if its old and is loosened up, and if its really dirty and stained you must work spots extra hard. For the type of tweed-ish material my Protégé seats have, shampooing them would result in possible ripping up the fabric in some areas, even by just a little bit. You have to be careful with some fabrics. If the car is clean, and you want the seats clean but don’t wanna shampoo them – spray them down lightly with multi, then wipe them with a rag. You may be surprised how much surface dirt you’ll take off just by doing that. For floors, only the driver’s area really gets beat in. I don’t know how many of you newer Protégé owners notice, but the quality of carpet used for these cars changed for the 1995 body style, and all auto manufactures these days use this shit, very thin carpet that’s almost not even a carpet – more of a very thin fabric. I have nice quality carpet, but if you have this thin fabric one shampoo and/or vacuum and you’ve already started the ageing process. Toyota Corolla’s (except the 1998-02 models) have this type of carpet, and once you shampoo it and vacuum it for many years, it starts to resemble shag carpeting. It’s horrible because when it gets dirty, it holds the dirt, salt, and pet hair because everything gets tangled. I once shampooed a 2004 Mazda3, and the quality of the carpet (and vinyl for that matter) is so poor it was already ripping by the pedal area and you could see exposed insulation and some metal, and me shampooing the floor (which was caked in salt stains) ripped it even more, but there was nothing I could do because it had to get clean. My recommendation for you owners that have that type of low quality carpet is to keep it as clean as possible and vacuum it even less so it stays looking new. In general, another reason to avoid shampooing is that it makes a giant mess because it sprays everywhere, so if you only need to do certain areas and not the entire car, cover up vinyl areas with rags.

To start shampooing, set your machine up with a full bucket of hot water with a couple ‘clugs’ of straight multi (or whatever cleaner you use, I’ll assume it’s in a jug). Add it to the bucket while it’s filling up, don’t add too much because it foams up and that will result in the shampooer not working right. I’ll assume you know how this machine works – with the hot chemical it extracts filth not just from the surface but in the material as well. I start on the rear floor on either side of the car. I do one shampoo with spraying the chemical and getting it into the material, and then I go over it again just to suck up the excess. Simple. Make sure to do a good job of sucking up the chemical though – if you don’t you will see it leave white stains in areas when it dries, and it looks just like salt stains and I’m sure you don’t want your carpets to look worse. I don’t usually do the backs of the front seats because either a) its vinyl backed or b) they are clean. In a really dirty car they should get done along with the sides of the front seats. I then shampoo half of the rear seats, starting at the top and then doing the bottoms. I don’t usually do headrests, but again if the car is pigged you need to shampoo everything. Same goes for door fabric – if it’s really bad, shampoo it but be careful it doesn’t pull out, as I’ve had some Celicas and Siennas do that to me. I then move to the front, do the floor first, then the seat. If you have grease marks, spray a bit of prep-solv on them and they should come out. If you don’t have that chemical engine degreaser works too. For real bad and deep stains caused by soup or coffee or whatever, you may have to work the spot with the shampooer for a bit to get it all out. I one time shampooed a spot for five minutes straight on a seat because whatever was spilled, so much of it went very deep into the fabric and foam. Ink is something that never fully comes out of fabric. Out of all the areas the driver’s area will most likely be the worst. If you have salt stains, they must be soaked in hot chemical and than shampooed. For really tough floors a bbq style scrub brush will do the job and start to break down the salt and get in hard to reach areas. Shampoo the dead pedal and other pedals as needed. You may find when you shampoo the driver’s seat, moreover on the bottom part, a dirt line as you shampoo, like those lines you get when you mow the lawn. That means the shampooer is doing its job and getting rid of all that caked in dirt. If the car was really dirty, after shampooing wipe the seats with a cloth as you will more than likely still pick up some dirt as the shampooer brings things to the surface. In the most extreme cases you may have to shampoo parts or the whole car more than once. After you’re done, empty the sucked up water. Is it most likely a light to dark brown color – bet you didn’t know your car was that dirty, huh? Of course if you have leather seating shampooing will be quick.

Also note, for some of the worst cars I ever did, I grabbed a bucket, filled it up with some clugs of multi, and dumped a good portion on the driver’s and other floors. Like complete “this car must have been in a flood” soakage, as sometimes floors are just too bad to be attacked with the shampooer first. Once this is done, grab a normal sized scrub brush and other chemicals needed to clean that dirty floor. Vacuum out all the excess water you just dumped in there, and then continue with shampooing it.

Vinyl

Cleaning a car’s vinyl depends on if it’s really clean to begin with, and if its leather (which will take much longer to do moreover if the car is beat). If a car is super mint, like mine, all you need is an air gun and a microfiber cloth. If it’s a little dustier and dirtier a clean freshly rinsed and broken in chamois works as its damp and moving the dirt off the surface, coupled with an air gun. This method proves even better today, as most cars have cheaper vinyl plastics and dashboard and door trim is no longer soft to the touch as it once was, but rock hard and second-rate quality. There is also more vinyl in cars these days because door fabric is more expensive, and a simple chamois can pretty much clean the whole inside (this counts if its leather too).

Usually when I detail a customer car, for vinyl I use a bottle of multi, a green pad, two rags, a brush, and an air gun. But this can prove bad for some types of vinyl. First off, I’d never use a broken in green pad for my car, but for really pigged out cars I have no choice. But at the same time I’ve ***ked up vinyl in cars and taken the finish right off, sometimes with just the chemical alone and not even scrubbing it (or even rubbing it with a dry clean cloth without any chemical, no joke) – just spraying and wiping, and most of the time its a Echo, Yaris, Corolla or Matrix that have these problems, but some other makes I’ve done as well have this issue. Most of the time customers don’t notice, they just want the car clean. If you resort to using a green pad make sure its broken in and not brand new so you don’t make the vinyl worse – this can be attained by scrubbing two green pads together under hot water. Usually I’ll spray a section down, and then scrub it. Then I use one rag to dry it and get the tough spots with the brush (sometimes its better to use the brush before making the surface wet), and dry it with the other rag using the air gun. If I can get away with skipping the green pad and just spray and wipe the chemical, that’s what I do. Quick note – if you need to clean the headliner (most people don’t), do it before you start cleaning the vinyl. To clean the headliner, spray the surface with multi and wipe it dry – it may take you a while if it’s very dirty. Don’t ever shampoo it – because it could lead the headliner to become unglued and droop – and I’m sure you don’t want a droopy headliner like in a Chevette or some other 80’s GM automobile.

When doing vinyl, moreover on a dirty car, you must hit up everything. Again, I work back to front – I’ll start in the trunk and do any vinyl pieces in there, then I’ll move on to the rear doors. Door pockets and behind the door handles are areas where must stuff collects, blast out dirt from speaker grills with an air gun and a little bit of chemical. Make sure to get into all cracks where pieces fit together. Make sure to wipe “holy shit” handles as well, along with the vinyl pillars by the rear window. Another place for dirt is right up where the seatbelts come out of the central pillar, and make sure to clean it as well. If you have vinyl backed seats do those, along with the rear console and cup holders and/or vents if you have them, plus the bars the front seats slide on. Don’t forget to clean the kickplates front and rear as they get dirty fast, and unfortunately get scuffed by careless owners. Moving up front, there is a small piece of vinyl on sides of the seats. Usually the worst part of the car is the center console. This is where a brush is handy, but it can be abrasive so keep it away from wood trim or painted plastics and your deck/radio as well. If your vents are really dirty and don’t blow clean with an air gun, use the brush as well. Clean all radio and climate controls, ash trays, and other storage compartments. Don’t spray chemical directly on the radio, because sometimes this results in chemical getting up and behind the display. If you have really dirty cup holders they could take a while to get clean, so you may have to spray a lot of chemical in them, let it soak, then vacuum it out. On a really filthy car I’ll do the entire center console first because a lot of stuff will blow out of it getting everywhere else. Make sure to get the vinyl on the seatbelt inserter thingie (dunno the name), and vinyl that is directly beside the seats, most people miss that, along with the vinyl where the glovebox is and underneath the steering wheel. I don’t usually clean the seat belts themselves, but on really dirty cars they may warrant a wipe with a rag sprayed with multi. Make sure to clean the seat bolts and the small bar that adjusts the seats (unless its power seating). If you’re on the driver’s side, put the key on and if automatic, pull back the shifter and clean the groove the shifter sits in, and pull up the e-brake (if it’s located there) and clean that as well. Also clean the steering wheel during this process and you’ll be able to turn it and clean it from all angles. I usually get a rag and floss between the wheel and where it’s attached. Instrument clusters these days are more complex to clean; individually wrapped gauges are getting popular again so it may take a while to clean that area. I don’t ever use a green pad on the dash if I don’t have to, it’s such a noticeable part of the car and no one wants streaks on it. I usually dry wipe it with an air gun, or use very little chemical. Don’t forget to clean the windshield pillars as well. For people who have leather this process will take a while. Black and dark leathers tend to hide dirt more, whereas beige and white look dirty pretty quickly and may have to be cleaned more often depending how often the seats get used. If the seats aren’t bad I spray and wipe the multi with a rag, and if it’s any worse I scrub it with a broken in green pad and then wipe it. Make sure to clean the entire seat front/back, sides and headrest. The air gun is a key tool for blowing stuff out of the cracks in the leather. The driver’s seat will take the biggest hit in wear (more so on the left edge areas on the top and bottom), when you scrub it down be careful not to make it look worse, but in some cars there is no choice as the dirt has eaten away and it’s the only thing keeping it together. I’ve never owned a leather car (I don’t like them, too much up keep to make look nice, cloth is a lot simpler and ages better) so I don’t know anything about moisturizing products to apply after you clean leather to keep the surface from cracking. Lastly, make sure to re-wipe the door jams so they are free of any water spots and dirt you may have gotten on them in the process of cleaning the vinyl.

If you’re satisfied with this natural look, then you are done. But some people like shiny vinyl. It does make a car look good, but it’s a very time consuming process because it has to be done right. When I do my car, I do everything that’s vinyl – even the trunk. Never use tire dressing for this, it’s far too greasy and was not meant for interior use. Also, don’t use Armor All. I used it for years until I was told otherwise, and found it did more harm than good. It’s like giving your dash crack – because once you use the product your dash craves it, and if you stop it could start to dry out. However, with newer dashboard vinyl today this isn’t an issue because almost everyone uses hard plastic, so there is no need to ever use a shining product on the dash to really protect it. I’ve seen people shine up this type of vinyl, and it doesn’t look good at all. For newer cars a natural look is the way to go. But if you want to use something – use something from the Meguiar’s line of products. I tired their equivalent to Armor All and it’s far less greasy, smells a lot better, and leaves a perfect shine without too much glare. As I said, it’s a timely process to get everything. I used to do it twice a year, but then put it down to once a year. Don’t get it on anything that’s not vinyl, and make sure to spread the product evenly. While you’re not supposed to put any on the steering wheel or shifter, I do but I put it on sparingly and rub it in well so it leaves a shine without being slippery. Don’t be sloppy and get any on your vents because it doesn’t look good. Hopefully no bad weather is coming your way, because if rain gets on the vinyl soon after you put it on the water leaves spots – it’s the one downside to using a product like that.

Tires/Wheels

If you rolled down your windows in the process of doing vinyl, make sure they are all rolled up before moving on. Tires are simple, by this time they are gonna be dry. Get your tire dressing and start by spraying the wheel well first, and then spray the tire starting from the inside out. Do one round for the inner part of the tire, a second for the outer area. For those who have thinner performance tires one should be enough. Older tires don’t take dressing as well as newer tires, and they will keep sucking it up making the tires look as if you never sprayed them at all. You may have to re-spray the tries two/three times and really soak them with dressing until the surface stays shiny. Most of the time the wheels are already clean from the wash, but if dirt remains after spraying the tire dressing grab a rag and some multi and touch them up. If they are chrome, you can use a spray wax and a rag, or simply just glass cleaner. If you have hubcaps, now put them back on after you spayed the wheels. You always spray tire dressing before doing windows and wax, I can’t stress that enough. Tire dressing has silicone in it, and when you spray it, it flies up everywhere in a hard to see mist. You’ll notice after you have sprayed your tires there will be fine little spots all over the windows and paint. This isn’t harmful, but it’s the reason why tires get done first so you don’t have to redo anything else in the later process of cleaning the outside of your car.

Tire dressing isn’t just for tires – so while doing this step you can add it to other surfaces of the car, just spray the dressing on a rag and wipe it on. Door trim and door handles (if not painted), bumpers (sometimes the whole bumper if it’s not painted), the rubber lip that runs alongside the windows, the vinyl piece where the windshield wipers sit, and the splash guards/mud flaps (if you have them).

Wax On

Out of all the things I ever learned, I don’t know how to hi-speed buff. It’s a very hard job to learn, and we only have two real good buffers in our shop. Buff a car the wrong way and you could burn the paint and cause swirls, do this process the right way and you can make paint look almost brand new. It’s a time consuming process of cutting into the paint with compound, sleeking it, and then polishing it and finally, waxing it to keep everything sealed. If you know how, you can buff your own car. If you don’t, take it to a trusted source who knows what the ***k they are doing. Don’t take it to A1 Car Cleaning to get buffed – I saw a black Jetta in our shop come from there, and we had to repair the damage they caused because their buff job made the car look worse than when it came in. It goes without saying that black, dark blue, green, and sometimes gray and red are harder colors to work with. If your paint is a flat white, red, or yellow color and it’s dead, you can shine it up but it will wear off in a couple months. If its only half way to being dead it could still be saved. Hi-speed buffing is the only way to lessen and really hide chamois scratches, and some cars hide them better than others, while others if you do your first wash after your buff job has been done, everything comes through again.

I like to stay away from machinery; twice a year by hand I’ll polish my entire car, take it off, and then wax it. It’s very time consuming, but the wax goes on better when the paint is clean and smooth. Most of the time I’ll just polish it after I wash it as it gives me a quick shine to remove water spots and it protects the car for about a week or two. Sometimes I’ll use a cheaper liquid wax, but it tends to leave streaks, moreover on darker colors. We have this butter wax called Easy Off – and it’s anything but. Its good quality stuff, but you will snap your arm off trying to take it off once you apply it, plus it needs an extended drying time. Remember a polish just cleans the paint, and wax seals it. It’s all about the water beadage! Before you start however, go around the car with some rubbing compound and a pad and see if you can hand buff any small marks yourself. If streamlined into the vehicle’s contour, under the door handles are a bad spot for fine marks from keys and fingernails. I find door handles that protrude from the vehicle’s exterior surface are even worse for getting these scratches. Its personal opinion, but I never apply my polish or wax product in a circular motion – we are trying to lessen swirls marks, not make more. Like washing, I go back and forth in a straight motion to get the product into those long, curved chamois lines. If you car hasn’t been waxed in a while you may need some elbow grease to work the product in to the paint. I usually start on the hood first and work my way around and down the car. There will most likely still be water dripping out of areas on the vehicle, so make sure to wipe/air gun them down before rubbing your wax pad over the surface. It also goes without saying – do this in a cool, dry area, and I’ll assume you know how to apply wax to a wax pad.

If you think polish is just for paint, you’re wrong. Check your headlights – yellow or starting to get that way at the tops tips? This is caused by a lot of highway driving and the disintegration of what the headlight is made out of. If you polish/wax your lights when the car is new and before the problem starts happening, it’s a good start as headlights should be as waxed up and sealed up as a car’s paint is. If the process has already started you need a high grit compound to rub on the lights by hand, or a normal compound and use of a high speed buffer. Once applied, put on some polish or wax if you prefer. Leave it on until you take wax off, and you should find its lessened it or taken it away. It will start to come back later on, so it’s something you should do once in a while. I’ve done my taillights as well but they can be more complicated due to design and polish getting stuck in small grooved places – make sure you don’t cake it on. Using polish on emblems is a good way to make them shine, but again you must be careful and don’t use a lot of product. If they are corroding and flaking in areas I wouldn’t recommend doing them. I’ve also used polish on bug guards and vent visors to hide minimal scratches; it could also be used on instrument cluster plastic for the same reason. I also have used polish to clean the windshield as well as it acts like Rain-X, and used polish to clean up flat black that is used on door sills (don’t use wax because it makes a mess of them). Most cars today though use cheap plastics and avoid using paint in those areas. Polish can also be used for chromed surfaces (bumpers, door handles, exhaust tips) as well. It should be noted that if you have surface rust on chrome surfaces, make the surface wet with some glass cleaner and scrub it with some steel wool to get rid of the rust, then polish it (you can also buy special chrome polish as well, but I don’t think its necessary).

Windows

While letting the wax dry, you can do the windows. This is where I grab a diaper – one for wet and one for final drying. Don’t use paper towels because they suck for cleaning windows, and make sure to use some good quality glass cleaner and not some crappy no name stuff. Before doing the windows roll them down about half way and clean the lips as a dirt line usually forms there, then roll them up. I usually start off doing the whole outside first. Some windows will have more of a waxy build up on them than others (thanks to Rain-X or many trips to the coin wash using hot spray wax), and this will make it easier to clean them. My windows are so waxed I don’t even need to spray chemical, I just wipe them with a dry diaper (I don’t even need wipers on the highway when it lightly rains). When spraying down the windows you don’t need to soak them, but don’t spray too little – just enough to work the cleaner around and not to leave streaks. Some like to spray the diaper first and then apply it to the window. Make sure you don’t bring your diaper too far to the bottom lip of the window where water sits, as you will catch it and streak your window in the drying process. While doing the windshield clean the wiper blades with a rag sprayed with multi or a cleaner of your choice. As with the washing/drying process, be careful with any decals/stickers you have on the windows and don’t put pressure and rub hard on them, as they could start to peel in areas. Don’t forget to clean your outside mirrors as well. Inside windows can be horrible to clean if they haven’t been done in a while and if it’s a smoker’s car. The rear one is the worst because when you have your windows open while driving a lot of dirt gets back there, plus when you use your defogger it sometimes leaves water spots back there. I usually (make sure the front seats are forward) do the entire back window kneeling on the rear seats (if they fold down). Then I simply work my way up to the front of the car, don’t forget to do the visor mirrors and the sunroof if you have those. When doing the windshield make sure to take any stickers off, like your oil sticker, so you can clean everything. Clean the instrument cluster plastic as well but be careful – that stuff is very prone to scratching easily. If you can and if it’s clean don’t even touch it with a diaper or rag, just air gun it. If you do use a rag use it lightly. If your car has chrome door handles, painted areas, fiberglass dash kit, wood trim, etc, make sure to wipe them down with your damp diaper, and get the seat belts as well, to remove any spots.

Wax Off

The wax should be dry by now. Like putting it on, I go back and forth taking it off, starting from where I put it on first. I either use two diapers – one for taking it off and another one for going over the surface again making sure I haven’t missed anything. Or you can use a microfiber cloth as it traps all the dust the polish/wax makes when you take it off (some polishes/waxes leave more dust behind then others). Weather you have streaks in the paint will matter what type of product you used and how long you let it dry for, although some waxes work better for darker colors. No matter what product(s) you use, technique is important – some people skip steps and expect an expensive wax to work miracles, and it doesn’t work that way. The key is not to get your paint so bad where it needs an overhaul of a buff and wax job. Everything looks better in sunlight for the most part; shop lighting can make even the nicest looking car look bad. After you are done, take your air gun and go over the entire outside of the car with another cloth to blow out any dust and water still sitting in areas. Then open the doors and blow out all the dust in the jams, as they tend to build up a lot of it after taking off the polish/wax.

Vacuuming

Don’t even say dustbuster – you need a real shop vacuum to do it right. I work back to front, so pull the front seats forward and put the rear seats down if they do so, and start vacuuming the trunk. If you really want to get picky, take out the entire trunk carpet and clean the area where the spare tire and jack sits – as with the engine it’s also an overlooked part of the car cleaning process, and if left unattended can get really dirty after a while. Sometimes the trunk alone on a car will take 15 minutes depending how bad it is and what material the trunk carpet is made out of. Move up to the area between where the seats fold, and also do the rear deck where the speakers are if its fabric up there as well (some automakers cheap out and use vinyl there as well). Vacuum the seats (as with shampooing be careful with certain fabrics as not to rip them), and move down to the floors and make sure to get right under the drivers and passengers area and up on the sides where the seat is bolted in. Moving up to the front – do the seats, then floors and the sides of floor beside the seat. If you still have coffee or some other stains in between the seats you could not reach with the shampooer, take some multi and spray it in there, and suck it up with the vacuum until it’s gone – this is called spot shampooing. If you have small bits of stones and other dirt in hard to reach places or right against vinyl areas, take the air gun and blast these areas clean so the debris is freed up to vacuum. If you still have pet hair to deal with this could take a lot longer, but if you have leather it will be short. You always vacuum after you do windows, not before as the cloth you are using for the windows could leave fuzz balls behind. After you are done, give the dash and center console a final blow with the air gun to get rid of any extra fuzz and dust that could have fallen, if you have leather blow the seats as well.

Drying Interior

If the car is staying somewhere overnight, leave it with the windows cracked. If you have a sunroof crack that instead as it saves you from rolling down the windows and getting them dirty. Quick note – the less you roll your windows up and down, the less you will have to clean them. Try to avoid rolling them down when it’s raining or snowing, because it will make a mess of them. Leave them rolled up for the most part, but I know that’s hard in the summer because its “windows down, system up” time. If you have a big industrial blower like we have, you can place that in the car and it dries it in no time. Usually to dry a car, place it outside running and crack the driver’s window and/or sunroof. Place the direction setting on vents/floor or if its leather seating, floor. Crank the heat, turn the a/c on, crank the blowers full blast, and make sure it’s on “fresh air coming in” and not “recirculate air”. Depending on how soaked the interior is from the shampoo (if it was really dirty or not), and depending if its summer or winter, and the size of the car, van or SUV (and if its leather or cloth seating) – it could take anywhere from 30 minutes to four/five hours to get the car completely dry and have no moisture in it. Make sure you have a least a half tank of gas. Its during the drying time you’ll see how your shampoo job turned out – some stains you didn’t get all the way out the first time may be more visible now as they were brought up to the surface and then dried. In some cases you may need to spot shampoo the interior to get it prefect.

Floor Mats

After all is said and done I usually leave the floor mats until last, but you can do them at any time throughout the car cleaning process. It’s not necessary to have carpets and rubbers in a car – I hate when people do that. Leave the carpets for the spring/summer/fall, and use rubbers in the winter or all year round – don’t use both. To clean them, set them out of the floor. Like you were setting up the shampooer, grab a bucket and fill it with hot water and about one clug of multi as if you put in too much it gets foamy, and takes longer it rinse the mats. Poor the contents evenly all over the mats, you may need to fill up your bucket again for really dirty ones. Grab a scrub brush and start working out the dirt; carpets hold a lot of it. If you have salt stains it will take a while to break them down, and if you have grease on them use prep-solv or engine degreaser, if you have gum issues use prep-solv to break it down. Be careful and avoid hard scrubbing on glued or sowed emblems/logos if your floor mats have them as they could come off, and don’t scrub hard on the stitching around the edges of the mat because it could start to fray. Rubber mats are fairly easy to get clean; engine degreaser helps when dealing with lighter color rubbers. When you are done turn on the pressure washer and spray down the rubbers front and back, when doing carpets go in close with the washer to blast off all the dirt you scrubbed lose (if you have emblems/logos be careful and don’t put a lot of water pressure on them as they could come off). You may be rinsing for a while if the carpets were really dirty, and don’t forget to spray off the backs. If your carpets were never that bad in the first place, shampooing them would suffice. And never soak carpet mats that have a foam backing (like I see most Volkswagens have) because you will never get them dry in a day, just shampoo them the best you can. Rubber mats dry fine on their own, with the carpets after you are done rinsing them suck up the water with the shampooer or a vacuum. If the car is staying overnight hang them up somewhere, or if the car is already outside drying and the floor is already dry, put the carpet mats in so they can dry as well. Never put mats in until the floors are 100% dry. Doing so before hand and leaving moisture in between the floor carpet and mat could result in mold and a smelly “wet socks” type of odor, and also could discolor the floor to a yellow color.

Finale Take

Once the car is outside drying, take a really good look at everything to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything or missed a spot. Results may vary, but your car should be pretty damn clean by now. If you can leave everything dry overnight its even better, because then when you go driving the next day the dressed tires won’t kick up dressing spots all over your car, and water won’t drip out in areas running your wax job. Try not to roll down your windows until at least 24 hours after cleaning so they don’t get water-streaky again due to dampness inside the door panel. Some cars could take only two hours to clean, while others need 6-8 hours of full attention. This is why detailing shops are still around – because most people don’t have time to spend that much time on their cars. I make the time, and so should you. Why pay $100-$200 when you can do it yourself? Everyone likes looking at a clean car, it stands out. If you keep on top of your cleanings after a very big one, you won’t need to do a full out clean for a very long time. It’s all about keeping up on the fight against dirt. No matter how old or beat in your car(s) is, take pride in your ride.

Etc

Tree Sap: Use rubbing alcohol and a very soft cloth; don’t use paper towels because they are very abrasive. Soak the cloth in the alcohol and lightly rub/dab the spot of sap until it gets broken down. This can take a while depending how much and how big the spots are, and I know you don’t wanna kill your paint so it takes time to do it right. Any minor imperfections left can be fixed with a simple compounding and polish/wax.

Bird Droppings: Bird shit is bad news for paint, moreover that bluish purple stuff some birds somehow make. Rinse this off immediately, and again don’t use paper towels or a dry rag. This stuff will eat through your clearcoat very fast, and that process doubles when it’s a very hot day. For a while at work we had bird issues and all the new cars got hit. The worst was a brand new Lexus ES 350, of course everything got on the hood – a good 8-10 shit hits, and after we washed the car we found it had baked itself in the paint from extreme sunlight. Sometimes cutting hard with the buffer can get rid of this, but this one had to go to the body shop to get “baked” out with a process of using extreme heat (don’t ask me, I don’t do bodywork). All I can say is when you get it on your car – get it off asap.

Lime: We have had a few cases where cars are parked in underground garages and when it rains lime from the stone drips onto the car’s surface and stains it. What you don’t do is take a brillo pad to try and take if off, which is what this one lady did to the roof of her (yes, it was black) Subaru and massacred the paint (a good buffing made it better but the paint was still ***ked). CLR or another lime removal product can be used along with the bug sponge to take it off, hopefully this doesn’t mess up your paint too much – you may need to do a spot buff afterwards.

Hard Water: If your car is parked near a sprinkler system and gets rained on frequently, you could face getting hard water spots on your paint. Many brand new Lexus’ here got hard water damage from this during the summer as the water dries instantly on hot days. Drops of water act like miniature magnifying glasses in bright sunlight, therefore damaging the paint and leaving ugly spots. Sometimes not even the best buff can get rid of them, but only partially hide them. If there is a really skilled buffer out there that can get serious hard water spots out, all the power to him/her.

Stone Chips: If you drive a lot on the highway, you are gonna get them. You can protect against them, but if you don’t have those products on your car you are going to have to touch them up before they start to rust. Always do chips after waxing, because if done before could make the touch up paint smear. Unfortunately most touch up’s these days come in the form of a stick, which sucks to use. The older style of a “liquid paper” touch up bottle was much more effective and much better to put the paint on with. Chips are located on the hood, front bumper, mirrors, doors, the edges of the doors (you’ll have to open them to go down the edge), wheel well lips, sometimes on the trunk, and the body just above the windshield. Try and beat neat – I’ve seen some real “bingo dabber” touch ups and I don’t know what people were thinking. In all cases, start on the hood first, then work your way around to other areas of the car. Touch up paint is also handy for touching up very tiny rust spots before they get any worse and break into bigger problems later on, so while you are at it check the bottoms of your doors and your inner trunk lip as well.

And that pretty much covers all I know about detailing. I hope that coffee was good. I still have to make a “winter special” guide so stay tuned – give me time though, this guide alone took up a lot of my time to type. Remember that detailing at the end of the day comes down to one’s personal opinions and preferences. I typed this up as a guide to help others with tips and tricks on what I think is the best way to clean an automobile. If you have a different way to do something, do your thing. As long as the car is clean and you’re satisfied, that’s all that matters.