car care... how do you do yours?

just wondering, has anyone got any suggestions on care care?
cleaning my car usually takes me about 2 hours from start to finish and thats inside and out. my method follows:

1:pressure wash the whole car to remove all loose dirt/grit from the car
2:turlewax shampoo/wax with a sponge
3: wheel silk (smells like caustic soda) all over the alloys/calipers/discs
4: have a cuppa tea and a smoke
5:pressure wash all the soap off the car/wheels
6:let it dry whislt i hoover the inside
7:dry any excess water with a micro fibre towel
8:autoglym super resin polish (wax on wax off stylie)...
9:autoglym glass cleaner and turltlewax 'nanotech' wet look tyre gel.

i've tried a few waxes now and none seem to be able to give it the same gloss/wet look as the super resin polish, anyone recommend one? just seeing a few methods would be nice....

Dont use a sponge...they scratch and leave swirls!!!!!

I start by hosing the car with water to loosen the dirt.
Then using a noodle I wash the car with normal car shampoo... leaving the alloys till last.
Rinse with plenty of water then take for a spin to get all the water out of the little crevices.
Leave to dry and have a cuppa and a smoke.
Then its either Auto Glym Super Resin Polish and Collinites 911 or Techwax or Megs Quick Wax applied with a cotton cloth a panel at a time...and polished off with a microfibre cloth.
Then I use Auto Glym Bumper Care for the scuttle panel plastic and Megs Tyre Gel...smells like bubblegum
Window cleaner applied with jay cloth and removed with a mirror cloth...best results I know.
And I like the Megs Gold Care Leather Cleaner for the interior.
Any dirt on the inside plastic I wipe with a damp cloth.



Oh yeah super resin polish is a polish not a wax....it has mild abrasive properties kinda like T-cut.
Really you would want to wax over the top of your polishing to protect all the hard work of polishing.
I would only super resin once every few months and the rest keep to waxing.

well i start with a drive to the magic rounderbout and pay them poles to do mine..!! easy. na some times do it myself. cherry snow foam leave on for a few minutes then wash off then cherry glaze wax smells so so good. and shiny shiny

i dont!!- i've only washed my daily driver once in 5,000 miles!! hahaha!

with a brillo pad and a rag + the teachings of the dread

like it!

Dash,

Firstly bin all the Turtlewax stuff... especially the wash&wax (puke) there's much better out there for same/not much more...

For shampoo I've used Megs Goldclass (good) and now Chemical guys Maxi-suds (better)
Dry immediately...
Then Clay the paint (you can buy a megs kit for £25 in halfords, or Elite do Bilt-Hambler clay that works with water for about £12!).. this removes all the bonded tree sap, tar, salt etc... Run your hand over clean paint (use clingflim to magnify the effect) and if it feels gritty then the car needs claying.
Once clayed wash again to remove all the clay residue.
Dry Thoroughly...
Then you can move on to Polishing...
I'd go for Megs stage 1 (Halfords) on a proper sponge pad... and remove with a clean microfibre. do this as many times as you can be bothered, this will removed any minor swirls, as well as produce a good base "shine"
Once done, as you have dark paint go for Autoglym UDS (Ultra deep shine) as it's formulated for dark paint. do this a couple times. If you stay with the SRP, then add the EGP - extra gloss protection (Gold label) on top to seal it before waxing. (Warning if you do use the UDS, the EGP will not bond to it so is a wasted step).
Then either a glaze (see Elite's site for these) or a good quality wax, I use Colinite 915 hard wax, lasts for months (corrado was done in oct and still beads!)

This alone should take a good 5hrs work.

With all this done you'll find it's easy to keep on top of... you should only need to do all the above full paint prep/finish about twice a year (Spring and Late Autumn) and in between times just top off by washing and waxing, or maybe polish/glaze/wax once a month if you feel the need.

Remember any polish will remove wax and when you clay the car this will completely remove all protection (should appear as a pale yellow on the clay) so you'll need to put it all back.

On top of this use the Autoglym bumper care (green snot) on all extrenal black trims, and I use Armour-all tyre foam because I'm lazy... I top off the windows outside with Rain-x about once a month, awsome stuff... and addictive to start driving down the m-way without wipers!

Just remember when using any products, use a little and build up lots of thin layers rather then just slapping loads on. Use the right tools too... foam applcator pads to put on and a clean microfibres to remove. And remember Tea/coffe and fags...

I hope that's not bored you!

If you do feel the need to get truely anal, have a look at teh deatiling section on ED38 or even detailingworld.. for some absolute loons that makes all that above look like childs play!

Also check out Elite Car Care's website for all things to make the car shiny, and remember there's an edition discount available (see the ED forum for how to claim).

I'm a bit wierd and find this cleaning business quite theraputic...

'I'm a bit wierd and find this cleaning business quite theraputic...'

I do too, is that wierd? cheers deviant ill give it ago soon!!!

Here are a few pics of my old Black Clio after a detailing sesh...










Sorry if i burnt anyones eyes

smoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth..... Im definatly gonna give my car a goooooood clean at the weekend....

Don't forget the Autosol. Everyone needs a tube - and avoid the watery Autoglym copy, stick to the ORIGINAL AND BEST

yup... well ahead of you on that one

right, I bought a megs claying kit today and wow.... what a difference. I honestly thought that claying a car was only worth doing to older cars that have seen better days.
one going over of the whole car with the 'quik detailer' and rubbing the clay bar, it looked like glass. I hadnt even touched it with the SRP yet and i was amaized!
anyway... after a couple of rounds of SRP and a final coat of megs wax finish im well impressed... never seen my car so shiny!!!
thanks for the help peeps!

I would stick a picture up but it started raining just as i finished the last panel

day off today and my car wasnt looking very nice at the last meet... got my machine polisher a couple of days ago aswell as some poorboys medium and fine abrasive and some poorboys black hole glaze. comments good or bad welcome

Very clean..good job old chap!

Nice.. what polisher did you get Dash?

i got the kestral orbital polisher...

im thinking about valeting cars for a bit of cash on the side now

hahaha good luck with that..!! haha me and my brother had our our business but was run out by all the car park ones.!

LMAO!! I thought ' thats not very clean'.....
then realised I have a dirty laptop screen

Dash how does it look under "artifical" Lights (try the sodium ones in your local garage)

Did you get all the swirl marks and cobwebbing out the paint?

still needs to be 'corrected' properly just waiting for a decent day when i can spend a long time doing it
it takes a long time... everytime i have a day off it rains.... or its not very nice.
need about 2 days i think to sort it out propery

I know this thread is well old but i only use fairy liquid. Its well cheap and really polishes up well after a wash

fairy liquid is good tbh, but you need to dilute it massively otherwise you can damage the laquer on your paintwork
i know alot of people who use it with good results, im just too much of a detailing whore to have a bottle of fairy liquid in my collection

nout wrong with a bitta fairy, it wont damage ur laqaur, i use it highly consentrated all the time on my lupo, anyone care to show me my damage??

And dash black is the hardest couler to polish up, so you should be the nuts by now!!

I was always told that if you use it concentrated all the time, after a while it can cause damage to the laquer.
Ive never seen it tbh and your lup is tasty mr.musto.

just going on what ive been told just dont fancy having a go on my car lol

Im getting better musto, using course pads with abrasive polishes on my car is a little scary though, but the results are mind blowing when i get i right. Im only just getting out of the habit of using fillers and spending the time correcting the paint work

I had forgotten i had posted in here.

Ive used it on mine for years and not had any problems but if i had heard it was bad it probably would have put me off using it from the start but i cant see any damage to my paintwork?

I began using it because its so so cheap and breaks down dirt really well before appying the wax. If my car was a show car i wouldnt use it.

The only downside to using it is that i always leave it with the car cleaning stuff in the garage so with it comes to washing a few bits up im like, wheres the fai..........DOH! lol