If you’re asking yourself what is car detailing, then you’ve come to the right place. Here is your guide detailing your car at home.
Car detailing is a game-changer when it comes to making your car look its best. It’s easy to give your car a quick wash and vacuum, but detailing transforms your car from looking OK to virtually new. It’s all about attention to detail, no pun intended.
You can’t skip corners when it comes to car detailing. That means you need to cover off every area of your car, including your engine bay, tires and interior. It’s a step up from your regular car wash; you’ll need to introduce pre-washing, polishing, waxing and more. Below, we’ll detail each area you need to focus on and how detailing properly at home compares to automated car washes and professional detailers. We’ll also cover off some all important frequently asked questions.
Why is Car Detailing Important?
It’s not just about looks, though. Car detailing also helps protect your car’s surfaces from the elements, and from wear and tear.
Harsh grime and road salt can get trapped in the crevices of your car’s exterior, and if you allow all that muck to fester, it’ll eventually accumulate and start retaining water. From there, you’re staring at a slippery slope towards corrosion: the killer of cars.
So, if you want to keep your car looking and feeling like new, you’ve got to keep up with detailing to catch those finer areas which you might miss during a standard wash.
What areas should you clean on a car?
The days of using your grandparents’ hand me down cleaning kits are long gone. If you want your car looking spotless, you’ll want to cover off the following areas.
Exterior Car Detailing:
Wheels & Tires: This shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes. You’ll need a wheel cleaner product, brushes, a bucket, and a grit guard to catch the dirt. Spray the product on, let it eat away at the dirt, and then simply jet wash the product away afterwards. For tough dirt, you’ll need to use a wheel brush too.
Pre-wash: For the ultimate clean, you’ll want to use a clay bar in this stage. Be sure to check out our step-by-step guide to claying your car for advice. For regular car detailing, it’ll be the snow foam you’ll need. Apply the product via a snow foam lance and pressure washer, covering the whole car. Let it sit for a while (out of direct sunlight) and then wash away.
Washing the car: Using two buckets, grit guards and a wash mitt, apply the car shampoo to the car.
Drying: Often overlooked, a good drying towel makes your life a whole lot easier. You’ll need to dry off every area to avoid water streaks. This includes boot shuts, door shuts and not forgetting underneath the fuel panel (make sure your fuel cap is tight to avoid any moisture entering the fuel tank!)
Tire Shine: As it says on the tin. Applying tire shine to your rubber will help give it that new car look.
Engine Bay: Things get dirty under the bonnet. But a simple quick detailer spray and a microfiber cloth will remove that grime build up so you can show off your motor at shows.
Glass Cleaner: This doesn’t just apply to your exterior, the interior glass gets dirty too, especially with kids and fingerprints. On the exterior, glass cleaner uses hydrophobic properties, meaning rain won’t sit on the glass, and helping to disperse water from the windscreen.
Paint correction/Polishing: Polishing involves using an abrasive to buff out minor scratches in the paintwork. Usually applied via a machine buffer, there is a skill to applying the right amount of pressure without causing damage. Remember, the pads and the compounds used are abrasives, meaning you can cause damage. Our paint correction guide will help you apply the compound.
Waxing: Applying wax will give your car’s paintwork the shine you desire. Apply by hand or with a buffer, it offers a layer of protection to your paintwork to avoid light scratches.
Interior Car Detailing:
Vacuum: Your vacuum cleaner should be your best friend here. Make sure you have an attachment that allows you to suck up dirt in hard to reach areas. Vacuum the carpets outside of the car if they’re removeable and then vacuum in the footwell underneath where the mats were.
Interior Detailer: This is a quick detailing spray that allows your to properly clean plastic/carbon fiber and other surfaces. You’ll need a microfiber cloth to wipe away the product, too.
Shampoo Seats: If you’ve just bought a new used car, or haven’t cleaned your own seats in your years of ownership, then shampooing your seats can help transform the color and get rid of years of dirty. You’ll need a wet vacuum or something similar, you can apply the product and vacuum out the dirt from the wet seats.
DIY Car Detailing vs Hiring a Professional Detailer
Depending on the condition of your vehicle, if you’re keen to put the time in, you can get some fantastic results detailing your car at home. This is especially true if you’ve got your hands on the right products and equipment to get the job done. This means you’ll want products for each area of the car listed above, as well as things like microfiber cloths, two buckets, wash mitt, wheel brush, a drying towel and applicators for your wax/polish. This is the minimum if you want to do a good job at home, which means there are some initial costs. To take it to the next level, you’ll need a machine buffer for applying polish.
With that in mind, it all depends on the condition of your vehicles. If it’s relatively new, or has been maintained well over the years, then you should be able to deliver all you need from home. However, for cars that require more paint correction, hiring a detailing professional can bring your car up to showroom condition. That level of service doesn’t come cheap, however. The very basic detailing services will costs around $/£50, but this figure can quite easily climb to over $/£500 depending on the condition of the vehicle and the time taken for paint correction. This would usually be called restorative car detailing at this stage, as this is reserved for the very worst condition cars.
Remember, though, professional car detailers are not magicians, so you’ve got significant bodywork damage, no amount of polish will buff that out.
Automated Car Washes vs. Washing Your Car At Home
Now, before we properly get started, you might be wondering why we don’t suggest just using one of those automated car washes you see at the gas station. After all, the take the hassle out of the job, right?
True. But at what cost? Truth be told, if you want to clean your car well, a automated car wash is NOT the way to do it. There’s a ton of reasons for this. Firstly, those big spinning cloths that envelope the car as it passes through the automated tunnel aren’t exactly the gentlest of devices. As such, they’ll typically leave your car with swirl marks, and potentially paint chips too. Heck, we’ve even heard horror stories about those brutish spinners ripping of antennas or damaging bodywork trim. Though admittedly, modern automated car washes pose less of a risk of such dramatic results than they did when the technology was new.
Nowadays, there are also some automated car washes which use touchless water jets. This eradicates the potential harm caused by a massive spinning brush, but to make up for its potency, touchless car washes tend to utilize harsher chemicals in the shampoo that they use. As a one-off, or very infrequent solution, this is unlikely to do real damage. But, if you get lazy and repeatedly rely on these touchless systems in the long-term, don’t be surprised if you eventually notice your clear coat starting to peel away. On top of that, these facilities tend not to have drying equipment, which will leave you with a bunch of annoying water marks every time you detail your car.
Verdict
Ultimately, while an automated car wash may be tempting as a quick and easy solution, it’ll never be as thorough or gentle as a traditional hand wash at home. And trust us, even if you’re not a fan of manual labor, car detailing doesn’t have to be a nightmare.
Not only that, but automated car washes completely ignore your car’s interior. After all, you spend most of your time inside the car, so why shouldn’t that be detailed to as high a standard? Pick up your vacuum, some interior detailing spray and go to work with your microfiber cloth.
What is car detailing? FAQs answered!
We’ve already answered what is car detailing, but what else do people ask? Here, we’ll answer some of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to car detailing. Splitting myths from reality, and explaining why you need two buckets, not one.
Should you use two buckets or one bucket washing your car?
90-percent of swirl marks are inflicted during the washing process. Using two buckets allows you to have one bucket with the shampoo solution in and a separate rinse bucket with a grit guard at the bottom. This means the mitt is clean when it goes into solution and then on to the car, this drastically reduces the chance of swirl marks in the contact washing process.
What is clay barring? Isn’t this something best left to the professionals?
Claying is probably the best investment in time when it comes to preparing your car’s paintwork. Clay is basically a reset button for the upper surface of your paint. If your car feels rough to the touch after a wash, then clay is for you. It will remove all above-surface contaminants such as overspray, traffic film, wax, everything! Allowing you to assess the surface and then attack those swirls marks!
Apart from making your tires look like new, are there any other benefits to using tire shine?
This is always a hard topic as it’s personal preference. Some people don’t like them dressed, some like a high gloss finish and others are somewhere in the middle.
Can you use dish soap to wash your car?
No. Don’t do this. While it’s very good at removing food and grime from your dishes, it’s no good on your car. In fact, the same degreases eat away at any wax or sealant you have on the car, leaving your paintwork exposed to damage. Avoid the dish soap!
Can detailing your car too often damage the paintwork?
No. We’re not sure where this myth came from, but it’s certainly not true. In fact, the dirt and grime that builds up over the course of a week of driving is more damaging to your paintwork then cleaning it. This is provided you’re cleaning your car correctly, as incorrect methods can lead to paintwork damage such as swirl marks. Check out our article on how to detail a car for more advice.
Is it worth investing in a pressure washer?
If you like an easy life, yeah, I would. Car cleaning isn’t much fun without one and they tend to use far less water than a normal hose anyway.
Click here to browse some of the best on the market.
Is 100 percent carnauba the best wax I can buy?
Despite some manufacturers’ claims, no car wax is 100 per cent carnauba. You wouldn’t be able to use it – carnauba is about as solid as concrete in its natural form. Most car wax products have a natural wax content, like carnauba, and the rest is a mixture of solvents and other additives that make it possible to apply and enhance its properties. Of course, you can have a product that only contains carnauba and no other type of natural wax, as well as all the other stuff, and clever marketing could say that’s ‘100 percent carnauba’. But the wax will never be 100 percent of the whole product.
Here’s a guide to the best car waxes in 2023.
Are spray-on tire dressings better than paint-on ones?
There are good tire dressings and there are not so good ones. Silicone solvent-based shines are more suited to brush or sponge application, because you don’t want them misting all over your paint. Water-based dressings are better to spray on because they won’t smear on paint and are more easily absorbed into the tire. The thing to look out for is something that’s high shearing. This means it actually gets thicker as your wheels spin, so it’s less likely to splatter all up the side of your car. Low shear tire shines get thinner, and that’s not ideal.
What’s the best way to care for my vehicle wrap?
Mainly regular washing. Unlike paint, vinyl wraps won’t benefit from abrasive polishes. I suppose technically you could wax a gloss wrap, but that would depend on the solvents and other ingredients used in your wax. You can use quick detailers on both gloss and matt wraps along with matt paint surfaces, but always read the label on your product and, if in any doubt, ask first.
Is there actually a real difference between wax and polish?
A huge difference. A polish is an abrasive. Not an aggressive abrasive like a compound, but abrasive enough to clean and refine paintwork. It’s a preparation product, whereas a wax is a protectant. No true wax is abrasive, it’s just there as a sacrificial layer to protect your paint… along with all the hard work and preparation you’ve put in.
We’ve done a full guide on the differences between wax polish right here.
How often should I wax my car?
A good quality wax or sealant should last up to three months, but you shouldn’t wait that long to clean your car. Personally I’d recommend cleaning and waxing or sealing once a month, to build up a good barrier to the elements. After three or four applications you’ll hit a nice plateau of protection.
For more advice, check out our full guide on how often should you wax a car.
Do I need a special type of wheel cleaner for polished wheels?
It’s definitely important to check that your wheel cleaner is safe for your particular wheel finish. There are basically three types of wheel cleaner. Traditional acidic cleaners have plenty of power for melting away baked-on brake dust and can be used on the majority of painted and clear-coated rims. That said they are generally corrosive and not something you’d want to use all the time. Never use these on chrome, polished or other sensitive surfaces.
Check out our guide to the best alloy wheel cleaners.
What is an LSP in car detailing?
One of those annoying industry buzzwords. It means Last Stage Protection and refers to the waxes or sealants you apply in the last stage of car detailing. Your paint’s final barrier to the elements.
How do I use snow foam?
Snow foam is great stuff and can be used either through a foam lance on a pressure washer or even a cheap garden sprayer. The idea is that you spray the diluted foam all over your car, wait a few minutes while it breaks down and lifts off dirt, then rinse off, so you can go on with your sponge and shampoo. There’s two types to be aware of – alkaline and PH neutral snow foams. Alkaline foam is great for cleaning bug splats and fuel stains, but is pretty harsh and can damage wax or sealant layers. That’s why I’d only recommend those for professional use, or for the guys trying to get right back to the paint. PH neutral foams are a little milder and safer for continued use, like a nice dusting in the summer, and won’t strip waxes.
Check out our guide to using snow foam like a pro here.
What is a ‘non-stripping’ shampoo?
I suppose that means it claims it doesn’t strip wax or sealants. But then no shampoo should strip wax or sealants anyway. Technically speaking, every car shampoo should be ‘non-stripping’. But be sure you’re using the best, check out our guide to the best car shampoo.
What is a sealant?
A sealant is synthetic material developed to protect your paint, basically a man-made version of a wax. Waxes are a natural product, whereas a sealant will be a mixture of manufactured fortified polymers. Some prefer using sealants to waxes, some prefer waxes and some like to use both. As to which are best? It’s all down to personal preference. Neither is going to hurt.
How do I use an electric polisher?
They can be a minefield especially in the DIY market. If you must use one at home firstly only use a very mild compound, not an aggressive one. Secondly look at the type of polisher. I wouldn’t recommend a rotary polisher. Many on the market spin way too fast and it’s far too easy to melt the paint and rip the pad off if you don’t keep it moving – I’ve done it myself! You don’t have the same problems with a DA (dual action) polisher as you’ve got much more control, but they can be very expensive for a good one. Polishers are very effective if you know what you’re doing, but don’t forget you’ve only got the lacquer layer to work with. If you’re down to the paint that’s way too far.
Should I use a chamois leather on my car?
It’s much better to dry your car with a clean microfiber cloth. Dragging a chamois over the surface of your paint isn’t always the best. Many are treated with oils that can leave a nasty smear that you’ll have to buff off. Microfiber cloths are cheap enough and much easier to clean. Just remember to chuck them in the washing machine when you’re done.
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