Automotive Academy

We are often facing the question of what is the best way to achieve maximum results to detail a car. To start your detail job, you want to make sure your car is not in direct sunlight and that the surfaces on the outside aren’t hot, de-tailing a car in hot weather will just create bad results.

Vehicle surface evaluation is one of the most important aspects of a successful detail job. This evaluation will allow us to prepare ourselves with the correct products and steps, things like light scratches, swirl marks and other paint imperfections can be evaluated at this time, from here we will have a plan of what products are needed and in what order.

Begin with a pre-wash by rinsing all the loose debris from the top of the car working downwards. You want to make sure to get all of the loose grime off of the surface so you don’t have to use your wash mitt. Using this process we can avoid causing swirl marks, at least to a certain point.

Do not use the same wash water or tools on the paint as you did your wheels. Prepare your wash materials and get started doing the wheels, tires and wheel wells one by one. Don’t do all of them at once, you don’t want any of these cleaners to dry. Use the detail brush first to get to the backside of my wheels and get all that brake dust out of there. When you are done with each wheel, rinse the wheel and make sure the entire cleaner is off the wheel.

After the tires and wheels have been done and before wetting the paint, you will want to prepare your wash bucket and tools for the paint in this step you will use a Car Shampoo that is highly lubricated formula with unique foaming quality and quick rinse characteristics.

The use of the wrong shampoo that doesn’t remove the grime and dirt combine with a low quality sponge/applicator will eventually leave swirl marks in your paint surface something that all of us try to avoid.

When you are done rinsing the car of all the soap, you need to dry your car. Make sure if you see a spot of dirt you missed, or loose debris on the car, don’t touch it with your drying towel, re-wash the area and then dry. A great tool is the chamois and we can go as far as using leaf blowers to completely remove all the water from all the tight spaces and trim.

The next step will be a tutorial guiding you how to complete your de-tailing process by waxing your car, come back tomorrow for the next tutorial! 

Do not impair the quality of your driving with dirty windows. Here are a few tips on how to clean those car windows.

Always choose a cleaner that does not contain ammonia, most ammonia based products, like household cleaners are not safe for any type of tinted glass, are not healthy to breathe in and some can leave streaks on your windows. The best cloth to use is a microfiber cloth or towel. Clean windows after doing the rest of your car so you don’t mess it up again while working on other areas.

Wipe up and down and side to side with long strokes giving special attention to the windshield since that is the glass you will be using the most.

Roll down windows to get at the top edges of the glass – if you leave dirt in these areas when you put your windows down it will just smear over your clean windows.  

Clean the mirrors and headlights too whilst you are doing this.

Maintain clean windows by keeping your windscreen wipers clean and in good condition. You might also want to use a windshield washing additive to the wiper fluid to help clear any dirt from the windows.