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After getting my first nice car almost 2 years ago i began reading up on detailing and spending countless hours and well over $500 on detailing poo poo: heres my advice, dont loving do it if you dont have a garage. Just give up. It is not worth doing. Maybe if you have access to someones garage where they have free space then go ahead. Ill explain... Washing your car outside is fine, but anything beyond that and i find myself going insane. First of all if you wash your car its probably relatively warm out, and you need to wait until evening where the suns lower. That way you arent dealing with extremely hot body panels that evaporate hard water onto your car before you have a chance to dry, also if the suns directly above your car it will evaporate the water even faster. You certainly cant wax when the sun is directly on your car, ive tried to do it, it doesnt work. So you start washing your car at 6pm in the summer like i do (so the body panels are cool to the touch), it takes me about 45-60 minutes to wash and dry a typical car depending on the amount of grime and how much time you take for your wheels. Now its 7pm, its getting dark out, and youre going to clay bar. Okay well that takes about 2-3 hours your first time so i hope you have work lights (a fuckin array, otherwise you will do what i did and left all sorts of wax all over the car for me to discover the next day). Lets say you finish at 9pm. You want to apply sealant, poo poo lasts about 6 months and does wonders for keeping random poo poo off your car, it takes about 1-2 hours to apply it then buff that poo poo off. Now if youre insane like me you also want to wax it if you have a nice deep paint job, unfortunately its probably 11pm and you havent even started cleaning up yet. Youre also tired as poo poo and people say you should let the sealant cure for at least half a day. Alright well if you come out the next evening and start waxing youre just grinding all the dust into your car, so you actually have to wait until a week or two and wash your car again so you dont put specs of dust into it. During all of this youve probably unknowingly crushed bugs into your paint because apparently your cars cool metal is just heaven for these stupid loving mosquitoes filled with pixie dust that blow up all over your perfect wax job. Basically you need a garage for lighting, for isolating you from the elements, and isolating your car from the elements as well. One pass of an orbital polisher over your whole car is going to take about 5-6 hours. Its loud as gently caress so you will want to do this inside a garage and doing it outside is just a general pain in the rear end. I dont have a garage and managed to do it but man it was a pain in the rear end coolskillrex remix fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 05:59
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hedge posted:Psst...a lot of Adam's stuff is made by these guys. Some of the products will sound familiar to you. I have attended some of Adam's instructional days; they are really knowledgable and helpful folks. I still buy some stuff from them just because of that. Seems like a nice option for those of us in states where they actually have made it against the law to wash your car in your drive way. I can still probably get away with it but i will probably just do this.
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Mar 26, 2012 10:38
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Realjones posted:What are you using for a pressure washer with the foam gun? Being able to wash the car without scrubbing it down is appealing. Seems like it would be good for winter when I want to get most of the salt off, but don't want to be freezing my hand off in 10 degree weather doing it. Buy whatever pressure washer fits your needs $10, worth a try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyvOxU6daLU
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Mar 31, 2012 00:24
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TECHNICAL Thug posted:
Clay bar, all purpose cleaner, goo gone, MAYBE last resort mr clean magic eraser... g-foam blaster is at home depot
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Mar 31, 2012 03:26
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TECHNICAL Thug posted:Thanks, I will probably pick one up in the morning. Can this only be used with a pressure washer, and if so, should I pony up for a gas one? $200 is prob the max id pay for one and electric should be fine. I think even a low powered one would displace a lot of the dirt on the first "rinse" cycle, then you would attach and spray the foamer, foam the car, let foam sit, then spray it off. I think that would do a pretty good job without ever having to really touch the car. Detailing theorizing usually never pans out, so do it and report back to us on how clean it does or doesnt get your car without ever taking a sponge to it.
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Mar 31, 2012 05:14
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Lowclock posted:Why's that? I'm looking to buy one soon. PC is typically thought of as being underpowered, dont think its truly dual action. Its impossible to damage your paint with it as a result. However if youre not an idiot and dont have razor thin paint (i think infiniti is notorious for that), then even with a GG you can go to town and unless you just hold the thing in place for 10 seconds can you actually burn through the paint. I have a PC, i probably wish i had just bought a meguiars/griot/whatever because i imagine i could do the job faster AND get more of the swirls out.
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Apr 6, 2012 23:56
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Hummer Driving human being posted:I clayed my car for the very first time today and it did what it was supposed to. Is the same type of clay available somewhere like an art supply place or something? I'd like to avoid paying a 10,000% markup on a supply if I could. Clay should last you a really long time, $20 clay from chemical guys should last you 2 years if you clayed your car every 3-4 months. Why bother loving around with finding a clay at some art store. Clay is the cheapest part of detailing by far already.
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Apr 18, 2012 23:39
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MrChips posted:Does anyone have a good method to remove dirty tire dressing? When I got my car back from the body shop in November, they put shiny tire dressing on my summer tires when they detailed the car. After being stored for a few months, the tires are all dull and brown, having picked up every last bit of dirt and dust in the air. I tried scrubbing the sidewalls with dish soap and a firm bristle brush, but it didn't make much of a difference. How old are your tires? The tire dressing probably wore off a long time ago, and the reason your tires look dull and brown is the same reason that 99% of tires look dull and brown, theyre old (as in not installed 1-2 months ago). Ive never heard of tire dressing that picks up dirt and then somehow embeds it into the tire on top of that. I use this stuff all the time and dont have a garage, my tires only look dull and brown several months after it wears off http://www.adamspolishes.com/p-512-adams-super-vrt-tire-trim-dressing.aspx ^^^ i find tire foams are completely useless. Almost all poo poo you can buy from autozone and stuff typically IS useless with the exception of meguiars.
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Apr 19, 2012 00:02
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Griots is better in every way except some people claim it has worse reliability or something.
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May 1, 2012 17:56
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War Bunny posted:
I already spent so much on clay.. UGH. Someone needs to buy that and then see if it holds up to the plastic bag test as well as a section done by true clay bar.
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Jun 9, 2012 22:00
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Etrips posted:So I just discovered a nice little paint chip on a practically brand new car. It's about the size of a tip of a ballpoint pen. What can I do to fix this? Have a bodyshop blend it then never drive your car again considering much bigger rock chips will happen.
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Jul 24, 2012 23:23
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thegasman2000 posted:I am looking at cleaning under the hood but using a pressure washer scares me. Is it ok to just spray on some cleaner, no idea which?, and blast that poo poo off? Hopefully you have a brush of some sort otherwise you wont really be getting any dirt off. Spray on all purpose cleaner brush if you want to be safe just get another heavy duty spray bottle and fill it with water then spray all the gunk off. The water is just rinsing it off, it shouldnt be agitating any dirt
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Jan 26, 2013 21:03
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Anyone use "clayblocks" or anything thats basically a synthetic clay bar? I know theres the claybar towels but reaaaally dont want to spend $60 on it..
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May 7, 2013 07:42
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Dont loving take a porter cable to the edge of a door sill youll take off a ton of paint 
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Sep 6, 2013 06:31
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ratbert90 posted:Yeah pretty much this. How on earth did you do that? Porter cables take off less than 4 microns of paint on high with megs 105. Your door paint must have been ultra mega thin. Open front driver side door, near where the vin number sticker is, use megs 105 with a yellow pad and watch as you take off the paint pretty effortlessly. rounded corners must have thin paint. Tried to buff out two scratches on a 2009 WRX and now when i have the doors closed and im looking at the cars profile i see a thin 1mm sliver of gray primer showing through.
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Sep 6, 2013 19:33
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meatpimp posted:If you are polishing the door jambs/side areas of the doors, always have the pad just touching the area of the car you're polishing (just a sliver of the pad on the vehicle, the rest of the pad in air). Never angle the buffer to that you are hitting the edge of the door while you're polishing a flatter part, that is going to localize the abrasive force and strip the edge of the door skin. The scratches were on the rear doors, in hindsight should have just kept the stupid driver side door closed. I didnt angle the buffer at all, i tried to stay away from the edge but enough of the pad was making contact that it hosed it over. Before the wrx i did my entire 99 mustang gt and did some pretty major scratch correction on that too. Just a warning to others, i saw the video of the porter cable being smashed on the hood of a corvette years ago, i understand exactly how hard it is to burn through paint on a flat surface, but take strong precautions when approaching edges of paint where it could be a lot thinner. I dont trust meg 105 for poo poo when approaching edges anymore, ill only use it on expansive flat surfaces.
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Sep 6, 2013 19:55
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JetsGuy posted:Hey y'all, I just recently bought a new car and want to take care of it considerably better than I did the old beater. I've read this thread cover to cover, but I still have some retard-questions. I want to thank those of y'all in the all-purpose thread who pointed me here with my initial questions. Your current process is kind of crazy. Optimum No Rinse 2 gallons water + 1 oz ONR in bucket Throw 5 plushy microfibers into bucket. Soak. Take 1 towel out and wash 20% of the car, then throw it in an empty bucket. Use waffle weave drying towels, dry off that 20% of the car. Repeat until cars done.
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Sep 17, 2013 19:29
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Chinatown posted:Protip on microfiber towels: I bought these like 3 years ago, unless theyve changed theyre the shittiest microfibers known to man. Somehow costco has inadvertently stumbled upon technology that absorbs ZERO water. It will just push water around on your car. I can even put these under a faucet and water will slide off of it like i just sprayed the loving things in rustoleum never-wet.
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Oct 20, 2013 20:52
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bull3964 posted:Never knew touchless washes were hard to find, they far outnumber the ones that touch your car around here. You can trip over a touchless wash every 2-3 miles. They are easier to maintain as a turnkey business since there are fewer moving parts so I would think they would be far more common than any other type.  Cool the only touchless near me does not fuckin get why touchless is good. Are you supposed to roll up and say "dont touch my car, also do not dry off my car" then just drive through it
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May 24, 2014 20:35
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 17:16 |
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Wait what? Did you get their insurance information? If not did you report it as a hit and run? No reason they should get away with an accident like that.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:17
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