Cleaning & Detailing: what did you do to your motor today?

[trickstargee]

On 28/03/2021 at 20:35, nutters_uclan said:

Yikes! Hell of a shift there! Was there much swirling to work out?

 

Car looks great. How easy were the sealants to apply? Did you do them with the DA?

 

Ive just ordered some Menzerna Power Lock Ultimate Protection - i know im sounding quite sad staying with the brand, ive got some Tardis coming as well so hopefully i'll have some pictures to add to this thread soon.

 

 

I know its a manufacturers video so of course will look good and easy to use...will let you know how i get on!

 

Would people advise going against just doing a section at a time (with weeks apart) or try and get the whole car in one hit? Might struggle for time thats all.

[steved83]

There's no harm in doing a section/panel at a time. I plan on doing the wife's car like this.

I'll wash as normal and decon say the offside doors and front wing, clay then polish and protect. 

Only advice I would give is on doing the next panels (a week or two later) be sure to tape the edge of the panel you did previously.

More manageable this way.

[trickstargee]

I'll see how the weather treats me 🤣

[trickstargee]

Well just to update - sadly no pictures as they are pointless.

 

Spent a good few hours yesterday:-

Snowfoamed (AS Ultra Mousse)

Washed (Autowash opposed to usual duet)

Attempted to de-tar (Tardis) and fallout remove (Red 7)

Rinsed off

Clay barred (Bilt Hamber soft clay)

Re-washed again

 

Sun shining still, relatively warm and still so attempted to use my DA for the first time on my car. Started with Menzerna Heavy Cut 400 Compound with a medium hex-logic type pad on the bonnet..heres where it goes wrong, the sun still shining strongly i could hardly see where ive been, never mind the swirls i was attempting to correct. Its a silver car...so i gave in!

 

I attempted to seal with that Powerlock mentioned above with a soft pad...but again couldnt see where i'd been!

 

So thats that packed away until another day when i can sort a garage out and work under lighting instead.

[bigman1976]

Like many, I haven’t visited this part of the site for a while. A now 3 year old somewhat put paid to detailing for a while (except a quick maintenance wash) but my car got some TOC a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I’d add it to this thread to help build some momentum!

 

My process was:

 

Snowfoam using Garage Therapy Decon

Clean wheels using  Bilt Hamber Auto Wheels and Bilt Hamber Surfex HD

Rinse 

2 bucket wash with Harage Therapy Decon

Dry

Decontamination using Bilt Hamber  Korrosol and Auto Finesse Tardis

Clay using AMDetails clay
 

Single stage polish using Carbon Collective Hex 15 polisher using Sonax 04-06 compound on greenHex Logic pads

Wipe down using Car Pro Eraser

 

Coated using 2 coats of Gyeon Can Coat

Wheels coated with Carbon Collective Platinum Wheels

Tyres dressed using Gyeon Tyre

Wheels coated with H2Go

 

 

 

 

[bigman1976]

I’ve since topped off the paint using Garage Therapy Sigma. The gloss levels and slickness of the paint are obscene!

 

 

[trickstargee]

Looks amazing @bigman1976 ! Do you have trouble seeing where you have been with the products? Also, being new to DA/machine polishing - how many pads in total did you use to do above?

 

When i had a go, i was using one pad, it looked pretty gunked up (loaded i think the correct term is?) attempted to clean using a toothbrush but that appeared to be doing nothing! So my next plan was to use maybe couple or three times (4 pea sized blobs, do your passes, repeat again or maybe twice depending on appearance of pad) then into a bucket of water, manually wash trying to get product out, rinse and spin up to get it half dry - then repeat the above?

But this adds quite a bit of time in between each changing of pads.

[bigman1976]

I used 2x 5.5” pads and 2x 3” pads. To be honest, I reckon I should have cleaned the pads more frequently or used the smaller pads whilst the larger ones were drying and vice versa. I found washing in water with washing up liquid worked well to clean.

 

As for applying the products, the Sigma flashes off quickly so application is a doddle.  CanCoat is a bit more challenging and I have spotted two places where I didn’t quite remove it completely. It doesn’t show unless you’re really looking for it but I should have use a light source when removing it. Sadly, my errors were down to me being exhausted after a almost 2 days of polishing and washing and having my wife in my ear. She doesn’t understand the appeal of detailing!

[steved83]

@bigman1976I was going to say gloss levels were amazing looking at the first post but certainly up'd it again with the Sigma. Awesome work. 

 

Funny how many in this thread mention kids! 

 

I think Can Coat is brilliant for gloss but like you I did end up missing a few spots when removing. I used this to top mine up before I re-did it recently. I've split the wife's Qashqai into three sessions so far. One more to go, makes it easier on back and shoulders too! 

[trickstargee]

Thanks @bigman1976 i'll have another go with the revised method.

 

Neighbours think im silly when they see me still 'washing' the car 5 hours later (snow, initial wash, de-tar, fallout remove, wash again, then clay etc)

[nutters_uclan]

Glad to see some new contributors to the thread, and some lovely looking motors!

 

It's been a few weeks for me as I've been stupidly busy with work, but I've done a few things to the motor this past weekend. 

 

• New 18" OEM Vega alloys with Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5s all round. I got a bit of a bargain on the wheels, so I'm super happy there. 4 x new tyres has made an incredible difference to all aspects of the car's performance too, which is wonderful. 

 

Anyway, this is a detailing thread! I've applied 2 layers of Gyeon G2 Rim ceramic coating to the alloys, so fingers crossed it holds up as well as the reviews suggest. It was super easy to work with; almost too easy, which makes me wonder if I was doing it wrong! haha. Once the wheels were installed, I took advantage of each corner being lifted by applying an even coat of Autoglym performance dressing gel to the tyres.

 

 

The day before, I'd given the car a good clean after quite a bit of driving over the previous fortnight (bugs galore!).

 

Process (& products);

• Alloy clean (Autoglym Magma - first time using it and it was quite impressive)
• Jet wash to loosen dirt up on the body and blast off the magma from the wheels
• Snow foam (AD purple velvet)
• 2 bucket method wash (Sonax gloss, using hog hair brushes to get into the crevices). I did this in steps, as it was so hot - contact wash, pressure wash and dry a section before going on to avoid water stains).
• Dry (woolly mammoth towel & a cheaper Kent towel to assist)

Here it is, clean and with new shoes;

 

 

 

 

[JohnnyJohnBoy]

HI all

 

New here.

 

As someone who knows nothing about cleaning and detailing can I jump on this thread and ask the following.

 

If you use a pressure washer do you need to carefull around the front grille in case you damage the fins on the radiator and/or aircon condenser?

 

I went to a drive through hand car wash () the other day and it occoured to me that they seem to take it quite close.

 

Cheers John

[mandp]

I've been using one for years and never had a concern.

Just keep the jet moving and if you feel a bit worried don't get ultra close and you'll be fine.

[nutters_uclan]

It's been quite a few weeks since my last post, but fear not, I've been detailing aplenty. In fact, I've now got two Octys to stay on top of!

 

Alongside the mk3 warrior, I also have a mk1 vRS in lemon yellow that I recently acquired. It's in need of some TLC, but it'll be a beaut when I'm done getting it up to spec (feel free to comment in my project log!).

 

I'll tell you now, getting 19 years of grot out of a white/light grey interior is no easy task! This was probably the cleanest seat of all;

 

 

A leak in the boot meant I had to take out the liner and floor out, so I figured I'd go the whole hog and take the carpet and interior out to give it a thorough clean. I can't imagine how hard it would be to do that in situ, and the underlay would become soaked from vaxing the carpet over and over again.

 

 

Fabric/carpet process;

• Spray bottle: spread Screwfix No Nosense carpet cleaner to affected areas
• Work in to the fabric/carpet with a hogs hair detail brush
• Spray bottle: very warm water to help the cleaner flow
• Vax to draw up the dirt, spraying warm water as I go to help draw up as much as possible.
• Repeat, many times! 
• For the worst stains, I used oxy action white stain remover (for clothing) and worked it in to the fabric/carpet as outlined above.

Leather;

• A bit of a lazy 1-step wipe clean and condition with Turtle Wax luxe leather

 

 

Here's how fabric looks during the first cleaning pass;

 

Just one of the many filth chambers I emptied doing the interior. Disgusting!

 

Even after several passes, the stains on the front carpet wells were still evident!

A bit of a tidy up and wipe down of the floor was in order. No point putting a clean interior down on a mucky surface!

 

And here it is, back together and looking lovely.

 

Thanks for reading

 

[JohnnyJohnBoy]

Now, that is thorough...

 

I'm completely new to car cleaning and detailing so have no idea what I'm doing.

 

My first venture made me realise just how much work is actually involved in geting a car to look really nice.

 

I was wanting to fit mud flaps and thought I might as well clean the brake caliper while the wheel was off. I had a go over two seperate days, a few hours each day...

 

First time ever buying car care products I got myself some Meguiars Ultimate All Wheel cleaner plus I had some Auto Finesse Iron Out. 

 

This is how it started off

 

 

 

After many goes over a few days I managed to get it to this. I started to clean the wheel arch and thought...hmmm...maybe I should be taking out the arch liner first and do it properly....I can see all this cleaning malarky could be very time consuming.

 

 

Edited 2 June, 2021 by JohnnyJohnBoy
Typos

[nutters_uclan]

On 02/06/2021 at 16:15, JohnnyJohnBoy said:

properly....I can see all this cleaning malarky could be very time consuming.

You're not wrong there matey!

[WolfyWesty]

Gave the interior a good clean this week:

Hoovered throughout - Boot included

Cleaned the interior plastic/trim with Autoglym Vinyl & Rubber cleaner

Cleaned the leather steeringwheel, handbrake etc with Autogrlym Leather Cleaner

Applied Autoglym Leather Care Balm to the above (makes the car smell fantastic)

Cleaned the front 2 seats with Autoglym Interior Cleaner - Water wasn't too bad, but still went a sandy opaque colour, yuck! 

Cleaned the interior windows with Autoglym Fast glass and 'Minky' window cloth

Replaced Cabin Pollen Filter 

Cleaned the AC using one of those spray cans (where you set it off and run the AC for 10 minutes). Stopped the slightly musty smell when you first turn it on after the car sits for a while. 

 

I have noticed whenever I use Fast Glass on the windscreen I end up with a greasy looking haze on the inside, no matter how much I buff it. Any suggestions? Cleaned the cloth and tried other cloths, but always end up with this haze. 

 

 

[nutters_uclan]

Just my regular wash cycle yesterday, but reapplied some Autoglym performance tyre dressing too.

 

Thought the car looked lovely, so I took a snap! 

[gribzy]

There's been some great, very clean, cars posted on here and this forum has inspired me to start having a go at "detailing".  Bought this Octy in March this year, had an Octy vRS two years ago in Rallye Green and (stupidly) traded it in for a 1.0 Focus, but couldn't stay away so had to get this one!

 

Only basic stuff, but it's really good fun and seeing the before/after difference is incredibly satisfying. and this is where I ended up and I am quite proud of it.  My process is;

 

- Pressure wash rinse

- Snow foam (Dodojuice apple iFoam)

- Rinse

- Shampoo wash (Dodojuice Born to be Mild), 2 bucket method

- Rinse

- Dry (couple of large Kent microfibre towels)

 

And i've also just discovered the G3 Pro Deep Clean Clay Mitt for decon, using G3 Pro Rapid Detailer (came as a pack) and wow, I never knew the difference a "clay" decon could do, can't stop touching the car now! 

 

There's probably loads of bits I will see eventually to sort out, but just getting started at the minute.  One question;  what is the best way to deal with pain chips that someone has already attempted to touch up (badly), bit worried about taking any paint off!

 

 

[nutters_uclan]

On 02/06/2021 at 16:15, JohnnyJohnBoy said:

 

 

 

Really good job, here, btw. I'm going to tackle this on "General Custard" soon, so this was useful to read.

 

You're just up the road from me too, I see.

[Wardy]

I don't know about anyone else, but it's been really annoying here with dusty rain! We've not had much rain here recently, but any there has been seems to have picked up some of the Sahara!

So both the Tig and Eunos washed - let's see how long they stay dust free.....

 

Edited 8 June, 2021 by Wardy

[nutters_uclan]

Started to clean the engine bay of general custard today...it was absolutely filthy! I just used Screwfix's No nonsense degreaser from a spray bottle, applying to a microfibre towel rather than the bonnet directly. I also used a hog's hair detailing brush to work the degreaser into more awkward areas.

 

Beginning of the clean;

 

 

Half way through;

 

 

The end (for now!);

 

 

Sorry about the blurry final pic!

[WolfyWesty]

Both cars washed this weekend in the evenings when they aren't bathed in sunlight.

 

Both had the same treatment:

2 Bucket Method

Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo 

Rinse

Dry with micofibre cloth

DemonShine 'Spray on Shine' n buff

Simoniz Ultrcare Alloy Cleaner On wheels

Rinse

DemonShine 'Wet look' tyre dressing

 

 

Just now, WolfyWesty said:

Both cars washed this weekend in the evenings when they aren't bathed in sunlight.

 

Both had the same treatment:

2 Bucket Method

Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo 

Rinse

Dry with micofibre cloth

DemonShine 'Spray on Shine' n buff

Simoniz Ultrcare Alloy Cleaner On wheels

Rinse

DemonShine 'Wet look' tyre dressing

 

 

 

[nutters_uclan]

16 hours ago, WolfyWesty said:

 

Black cars are a bugger to keep clean, but when they are....the reflection and shine is difficult to beat! Lovely job.

[WolfyWesty]

1 hour ago, nutters_uclan said:

Black cars are a bugger to keep clean, but when they are....the reflection and shine is difficult to beat! Lovely job.

 

I don't miss having a black metallic car, but I'm somewhat jealous of how well they shine up (especially compared to my white gloss).