Current Ride, Mustang 5.0

D_Train · 08-06-2007, 04:48 PM

Detailing 101. The detailing section on our forum is the weakest shit i've ever seen. I'll try to do a write up here.

There are tons of different products and methods out there, and ultimately you have to find out the right one for you paint and your car. What works wonders for one person might not work so great for another.

in my opinion meguiars makes the best car detailing products. In this post i'll try to focus on the products for your car exterior.

The steps we will be covering are:
Wash
Clean
Polish
Wax

Sounds like a quick job, but it can take hours and hours to get show-room quality looking paint.

Here is a list of the products that i suggest you use:
Meguiars Gold Class car wash. There are different more expensive car wash soaps from them, but this one does a great job and theres really no need to go extreme, since the wash is just getting the preliminary dirt off of your car.

With the soap you want to make sure you get a microfiber mitt or a sheepskin mitt because you do not want to scratch your paint. These won't be scratches you can see just looking right at your car, but scratches that will show up in sunlight that look like little swirls. What you want to do with the soap is put it in a nice CLEAN bucket (Again, the more crap that you pick up on your mitt, the better chance you get scratches). The bottle will tell you how much to use, but you can be generous with how much you use. When the soap is in the bucket, use your garden hose with an attachment and spray the water into the bucket to make suds with the soap. Before you start applying the soap to the car, you want to make sure that you giveit a good soaking so that your car is nice and wet all over. Then just dip your mitt into the soap and get it all nice and soapy and run it over a section of your car. You will want to start from the top down and only do a section at a time (you could get away with an entire side of the car. I usually break it into front, left, right, back, but you can do smaller sections if you want). ****Edit: If you finish a section of your car with the mitt and notice that it is brown or dirty, take it away from the car and spray it with the highest pressure setting on your hose (again, away from teh car) so that the dirt gets washed away. The moral of the store is the less dirt touching your car the better, just watch out for it.**** IT is also a good idea to try and wash your car in the shade if you have any (like starting early in the morning) because when the sun is out it will dry the water very quickly and leave spots on your car. Once you soap up a side, make sure you rinse it off with your hose (i like the flat spray setting on most hose attachments, i wouldn't reccommend a pressure washer b/c after so many washes it will start to weaken your paint) and rinse from the top down. There is no need to dry your car off just yet. Just make sure that when you are cleaning the other sections of your car, keep the previously cleaned sections nice and wet to avoid spots again. Then when you have finished with the entire car, get out your microfiber cloths. http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html...sin=B000E48IUG

That link is an EXPENSIVE example. I've found ten packs at target for 5.99 before. You will need A LOT OF CLOTHS. I would recommend 40-50 cloths, but you can go a little less if you are not picky.

EDIT: I mentioned rims in the end of my next post, but now is a good time to clean the rims with the product i mention. This will just clean them up and you will be spraying them and scrubbing them so better do it now then when you car has all that nice product on it :-D

If you have chrome rims or special rims that need a different product just follow the directions on the bottle that you buy. I don't have anything but aluminum rims so thats all I can talk about really :-\

Take your cloths and dry off your car. You don't have to be picky in a drying method, just get all the water off and if you see and spots give it a quick spray with the hose and wipe it dry with a cloth. When you are all done drying the car, pull it into your garage. (the reason you pull it into the garage is b/c of the shade and hopefully b/c its a little cooler. The products will go on your paint better if it is not hot)

At this point you are ready to start babying your paint :-D It is a lot of hard work but definitly pays off in the end.

EDIT: USE YOUR WINDOWS TO LEAN YOUR WEIGHT ON AND TO PUT YOUR HANDS ON TO HOLD YOURSELF UP AND BALANCE YOURSELF. Try to avoid touching yoru paint alltogether, i found that the windows are a good substitute and can give you leverage for working on any part of the car. Plus, they are the last thing you will clean, so don't worry.

Cleaner
For the next step use the Mequiars Auto Detailing Clay Kit

With the kit you will get clay bars and some quick detailing spray. This part will prob. take you the longest out of all the steps. What you will want to do is take out your clay bar and kneed it in your hands while spraying the quick detailer on it. You want to keep the clay bar nice and wet as you are using it on your car. When the clay is nice and kneeded and moist, take the quick detailer and spray it on a section of your car. Then take your clay bar and work it into your paint. You can press hard with this stuff, but use your judgement. Theres no reason to go rambo on it, just give it a little force and rub up and down or in circles or side to side, it won't matter, essentially you are just picking up the little bits of dirt off the car that the soap couldn't get. Do a little section at a time (maybe a 1ft X 1ft section) and when you are done wipe it clean with a microfiber cloth. The reason you want so many cloths is so you NEVER use a dirty cloth on a part of the car. The dirt from the cloth can scratch your paint. Now just go throughout your entire car doing this. If you are picky it could take well over an hour, but trust me it is worth it. After you finish a section run your fingers over the paint, or the back of your hand on it. It will feel like you just got a new paint job. It won't look like it yet, but it will feel like it.

Another cleaner option is called Scratch-X

With this product, you want to make sure that you use an applicator pad.

you will put a decent amount of scratch-x onto the applicator pad and then rub it into your paint. AGain you want to pick a small section of your car to do this. Maybe a 3'X1' section. And you will rub with a good amount of force. You can use a circular motion for this application, but can also use side to side and back and forth motions. I feel the circular is a bit more effective though. After it has been applied and worked into the car, try not to let it dry. Take a clean microfiber cloth and in circles wipe the scratch-x off the car. Make sure all the scratch-x residue is off, and switch to a clean cloth whenver you feel necessary. This will take a long time again, but will be WELL worth it if you have ANY tiny scratches in your car. This product truly begins to show its benifit after 2-3 applications. Trust Me :-D

Also, Feel free to use both the clay bar kit AND the scratch-x one after another. They both clean you paint, but also have different benifits, so if you have the time, use both :-D.

I will post more later, my hands hurt :-D

08-06-2007, 04:48 PM	#14
D_Train 3" Exhaust Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 214	Detailing 101. The detailing section on our forum is the weakest shit i've ever seen. I'll try to do a write up here. There are tons of different products and methods out there, and ultimately you have to find out the right one for you paint and your car. What works wonders for one person might not work so great for another. in my opinion meguiars makes the best car detailing products. In this post i'll try to focus on the products for your car exterior. The steps we will be covering are: Wash Clean Polish Wax Sounds like a quick job, but it can take hours and hours to get show-room quality looking paint. Here is a list of the products that i suggest you use: Meguiars Gold Class car wash. There are different more expensive car wash soaps from them, but this one does a great job and theres really no need to go extreme, since the wash is just getting the preliminary dirt off of your car. With the soap you want to make sure you get a microfiber mitt or a sheepskin mitt because you do not want to scratch your paint. These won't be scratches you can see just looking right at your car, but scratches that will show up in sunlight that look like little swirls. What you want to do with the soap is put it in a nice CLEAN bucket (Again, the more crap that you pick up on your mitt, the better chance you get scratches). The bottle will tell you how much to use, but you can be generous with how much you use. When the soap is in the bucket, use your garden hose with an attachment and spray the water into the bucket to make suds with the soap. Before you start applying the soap to the car, you want to make sure that you giveit a good soaking so that your car is nice and wet all over. Then just dip your mitt into the soap and get it all nice and soapy and run it over a section of your car. You will want to start from the top down and only do a section at a time (you could get away with an entire side of the car. I usually break it into front, left, right, back, but you can do smaller sections if you want). **Edit: If you finish a section of your car with the mitt and notice that it is brown or dirty, take it away from the car and spray it with the highest pressure setting on your hose (again, away from teh car) so that the dirt gets washed away. The moral of the store is the less dirt touching your car the better, just watch out for it.** IT is also a good idea to try and wash your car in the shade if you have any (like starting early in the morning) because when the sun is out it will dry the water very quickly and leave spots on your car. Once you soap up a side, make sure you rinse it off with your hose (i like the flat spray setting on most hose attachments, i wouldn't reccommend a pressure washer b/c after so many washes it will start to weaken your paint) and rinse from the top down. There is no need to dry your car off just yet. Just make sure that when you are cleaning the other sections of your car, keep the previously cleaned sections nice and wet to avoid spots again. Then when you have finished with the entire car, get out your microfiber cloths. http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html...sin=B000E48IUG That link is an EXPENSIVE example. I've found ten packs at target for 5.99 before. You will need A LOT OF CLOTHS. I would recommend 40-50 cloths, but you can go a little less if you are not picky. EDIT: I mentioned rims in the end of my next post, but now is a good time to clean the rims with the product i mention. This will just clean them up and you will be spraying them and scrubbing them so better do it now then when you car has all that nice product on it :-D If you have chrome rims or special rims that need a different product just follow the directions on the bottle that you buy. I don't have anything but aluminum rims so thats all I can talk about really :-\ Take your cloths and dry off your car. You don't have to be picky in a drying method, just get all the water off and if you see and spots give it a quick spray with the hose and wipe it dry with a cloth. When you are all done drying the car, pull it into your garage. (the reason you pull it into the garage is b/c of the shade and hopefully b/c its a little cooler. The products will go on your paint better if it is not hot) At this point you are ready to start babying your paint :-D It is a lot of hard work but definitly pays off in the end. EDIT: USE YOUR WINDOWS TO LEAN YOUR WEIGHT ON AND TO PUT YOUR HANDS ON TO HOLD YOURSELF UP AND BALANCE YOURSELF. Try to avoid touching yoru paint alltogether, i found that the windows are a good substitute and can give you leverage for working on any part of the car. Plus, they are the last thing you will clean, so don't worry. Cleaner For the next step use the Mequiars Auto Detailing Clay Kit With the kit you will get clay bars and some quick detailing spray. This part will prob. take you the longest out of all the steps. What you will want to do is take out your clay bar and kneed it in your hands while spraying the quick detailer on it. You want to keep the clay bar nice and wet as you are using it on your car. When the clay is nice and kneeded and moist, take the quick detailer and spray it on a section of your car. Then take your clay bar and work it into your paint. You can press hard with this stuff, but use your judgement. Theres no reason to go rambo on it, just give it a little force and rub up and down or in circles or side to side, it won't matter, essentially you are just picking up the little bits of dirt off the car that the soap couldn't get. Do a little section at a time (maybe a 1ft X 1ft section) and when you are done wipe it clean with a microfiber cloth. The reason you want so many cloths is so you NEVER use a dirty cloth on a part of the car. The dirt from the cloth can scratch your paint. Now just go throughout your entire car doing this. If you are picky it could take well over an hour, but trust me it is worth it. After you finish a section run your fingers over the paint, or the back of your hand on it. It will feel like you just got a new paint job. It won't look like it yet, but it will feel like it. Another cleaner option is called Scratch-X With this product, you want to make sure that you use an applicator pad. you will put a decent amount of scratch-x onto the applicator pad and then rub it into your paint. AGain you want to pick a small section of your car to do this. Maybe a 3'X1' section. And you will rub with a good amount of force. You can use a circular motion for this application, but can also use side to side and back and forth motions. I feel the circular is a bit more effective though. After it has been applied and worked into the car, try not to let it dry. Take a clean microfiber cloth and in circles wipe the scratch-x off the car. Make sure all the scratch-x residue is off, and switch to a clean cloth whenver you feel necessary. This will take a long time again, but will be WELL worth it if you have ANY tiny scratches in your car. This product truly begins to show its benifit after 2-3 applications. Trust Me :-D Also, Feel free to use both the clay bar kit AND the scratch-x one after another. They both clean you paint, but also have different benifits, so if you have the time, use both :-D. I will post more later, my hands hurt :-D Last edited by D_Train; 08-07-2007 at 08:34 PM.