Info for noobs new to detailing

[Coatingsarecrack]

So being a noob and after accumulating a good amount of products I decided to leave a review from a beginners perspective for noobs who catch the addiction. Theirs a lot of amazing info here and a ton of amazing people who will offer help when needed.

Presoak:

CG honeydew, Griots surface wash, optimums regular car wash, WG Uber in a pump sprayer.

Tried the CGHD, and some OTC car wash soap 1st and CGHD foamed way better. Did not feel it cleaned anything off and felt as if this step was just hype to sell products. Tried the WG Uber next in a 1gallon pump sprayer in hopes to encapsulate dirt to spray off again. Did it work maybe.... not so expensive I think this step is worth the cost. I then begin to think it was my foam cannon (sudsmagic had good reviews in the big A). Chose this cuz it was not the cheapest thing and also not MTM price.
CGHD half gone so tried something new.... griots foaming surface wash. This stuff worked awesome. Actually saw a difference on a car that had been rained and dusted on for 2 weeks. It was not touchless clean still did a bucket wash. Have high hopes in summer if maintained weekly with good LSP will be able to do touchless.

Conclusion:

not sure if this step is necessary but I will continue to do as I like the process. Buy a good foam cannon. I feel with the two cheaper versions I tried I would recommend getting the MTM or if using the Griots soaps the Griots cannon. For soap the CG’s foam soaps definetly foam up but nothing I’ve tried works like the Griots surface wash. Sure there are other great products out their but this one works real
well.

Bucket wash:

(2) Adam’s 3 1/2 gallon buckets, gamma seal lids, grit guards, HD orange bucket (wheels). 8 chenille MF wash media.

2 buckets, third for wheels, grit guards for all (seen recommendations for 2 each bucket, bucket dollies, stickers to label your buckets, padded seat tops, gamma seal lids. Wash mitts (50$ alpaca fur ones...jk). Just pointing out you can spend ALOT of money before getting water in the buckets. What I’ve seen mentioned here and on some YouTube videos which make most sense to me is fill your bucket with favorite soap. I like a grit guard in this one bucket just to keep media off bottom of bucket. Throw in your wash media (I like good quality MF chenille). I use 6-7. I use 2 for top of car and front and rear, then one top 40% of car on each side. Use 3 for bottom 60%. Do not but used ones back in wash bucket! You can figure out what works for you but I think is best way to induce less marring and scratching from one or 2 mitts that get dirt and stuff caught up in car. Used grit guard wash board to scrub and look through mitt and dirt particles still in mitt.

Conclusion:

Chose what you think is best. Feel it’s less up front cost for a bucket and a bunch of mitts. Safer for paint too. Save your money, you’ll find other detailing stuff to spend it on I promise. Wish I did as stuffs just sitting their.

Soap:

anything ph neutral or balanced. I like optimum as it’s good soap and priced well

Tires and rims:

I haven’t used much as what I have used worked well. Used to use just soap and water but just tried griots rubber cleaner and worked well. Have their foaming tire cleaner but feel I won’t need it as tires are not to dirty. To shine and protect use to use this mothers tire gel as it wasn’t to glossy. Wanted to switch to water base so now using car pros Perl. For wheels I use Meguiars ultimate wheel cleaner (has iron remover). Relatively cheap and cleans well. Make sure to get something to agitate as I haven’t found anything that is spray and rinse. I use a boars hair detail brush and just got some MF wheel mitts I like for my rims from Auto fiber. I use wheel Woolies to clean barrels as they don’t sling product in your face and with several different sizes get anywhere I need. I’ve tried several different brushes and the woolies are awesome and a set of boars hair detai brushes will be useful all over inside and out of your vehichle.

Conclusion:

don’t overlook the shoes. Make sure to clean tires as well as wheels. Use a good cleaner (McKee’s, Griots for example) and your tire shine will last longer. Use a water based coating or shine to avoid to much build up (I like gyeon express, Perl) theirs many good products review’d here. Last, get good brushes. A lot of people like the tuff shine for tires I went with the brush from AG for low profile tires and it’s amazing. Shaped perfectly to get my 30 series w/o touching the rims. Get above mentioned for rims (or speed master/EZ detail) and your set.

Drying:

some like using a blower which I have and use but doesn’t get 100% of the water. Their are a lot of great MF companies that make great towels (cobra guzzler, carpros dehydrate, rag company pluffles). Tried most and are good but by all means do yourself a favor and buy the Griots PFM. I felt the weed to expensive till I read all the reviews and tried myself. I can dry my mustang with 2 16x16 towels.


Conclusion: use a dedicate dryer (metro vac, McKee’s) or leaf blower if it floats your boat (the better the LSP the better they work). Invest in good MF drying towels. Seriously super impressed by the PFM’s.

Side note when towel drying It’s recommended by many here to use a drying aid. A quick Detailer or waterless wash with cleaning capabilities. I use carpros ech20 or elixir, and McKee’s n-914 both mixed at waterless wash ratio. This will giv towel some lubrication. Just a couple sprays per panel will do. Which leads into.....

Waterless/rinseless washes:

I’ve use waterless washes before (Dri-wash back in the 90’s) but always thought it was scratching the paint. If no access to water (winter/water restrictions). These work pretty well. Would still bucket wash if you can but I do use waterless a couple times a week. Alternating between bucket/rinseless in summer. A rinseless is a solution u mix in a bucket and wipe your car down, skip the rinse and just dry. Sounds sketchy but works well. I mainly use McKee’s 914 for this as it just cleans and leaves no waxes or polymers behind. Recommend spraying the car with the same solution first before wipe down. Their many techniques/methods won’t get into that but you’ll find them here and on the ol’ World Wide Web. Many solutions also (ONR, WG Uber, ultima, McKee’s 914, ech20...the list goes on but all are pretty good. Used in a few all seem to be good just settled on my favorites which most Geeks like (914, ech20). Same concentrates can mixed into a waterless. That is mixed in a bottle at a stronger dilution and sprayed on the car and wipe away. I use this as drying aid (see above), and I place of quick retailers (see below).

Conclusion:

Definetly handy and should have a bottle in your arsenal. Keep a bottle of WW in car for those quick wipe downs and bird poos.

Quick Detailer:

When first got into this hobby used these but now I just use the waterless wash. If you wanna give these a try Griots speed shine was my favorite (would by in gallons) and kenotek showroom shine also nice.


Polishing:

Haven’t actually polished yet will update when I do (March/April) but everything leads up to this. I’ve bought my polisher (Boss gg15). Lots of good choices. Some will recommend starting with a cheaper option such as a Griots gg6 or porter cable which are fine but I didn’t want to use for a couple of polishes and upgrade. I tried gg6, bought the harbor freights ( plugged in, took back immediately). Those didn’t work for me. Ordered a maxshine (made in China, bought off of amazon). It was alright better than those I tried before but I just felt like polishers, pads and polishes shouldn’t cut corners so sent back and got the gg15. Felt smooth running but again haven’t actually polished and their are tons of great reviews on that subject

Conclusions:

Hope I don’t f#€k up my paint!

Coatings:

Will be coating after polishing and chip repair (dr colorchip). No review but I did after research and recommendations from others here settle on Cquartz UK 3.0 as a coating and gyeon cancoat as a top coat. May be overkill don’t know.

Conclusion:

See conclusions from polishing.

Sealants/wax/ sio2 sealant:

Use to wax back in the day and I don’t think anything quite looks like wax but not my cup o tea anymore. Sure u can find a lot about them hear though. Never used a straight sealant went straight to sio2 sealant cuz more ingredients better? Lots of choices in the sio2/silica categories. I’ve personally used reload, hydrosilex, shine supply Clutch, polish angel cosmic spritz. Going to order kamikaze overcoat and IGL premier soon. And gyeon cure... so much sio2 so little time. All I’ve used have been great and work to top a ceramic coating or be used as a stand alone. Some are shinier, some last longer some are more hydrophobic. You’ll find reviews that are positive and negative on all . I’ve been using hydrosilex (1st bought) as a stand alone which I find extremely hydrophobic (beads well) but not as shiny. I’ve topped with cosmic spritz (awesome sauce but Uber plexpensive). And love it. I feel shine supply Clutch is also an amazing product but more work as no a wipe on wipe off.... needs time to bond/haze.

All in all remember chemicals are impotant but so are your tools. Get lots of Microfiber towels.... then get more. If polishing order a lot of pads. I have a little car and have ordered 6 or more of each. Get proper brushes to clean your rims and tires. Get ones for fender wells if you can see them. Try whatever floats your boat and enjoy. Remember this is MY process not yours. These are products I like... you may hate them. Try things out find what you like and use them. Just compacting things I found useful in the vast amounts of knowledge collected out their and hope it finds some noobies who find this confusing as I did.






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[Eldorado2k]

Get a Mothers Wheel Brush

[North1Star]

Thanks OP, lots of useful tips, I agree with most of what you said.

Regarding buckets+grit guard method. I decided to skip it after getting convinced that its not that practical and might lead to scratching your paint

So I just bought 6 mitts instead that I use once on each side for each wash. These are the sections I use for each one:
1x the hood and roof (one side for each)

1x front bumper lower half and upper half (one side for each)

2x Car fenders and doors upper half front to back (one side of the mitt), then the lower half (using the other side if the mitt). Repeat the same for the other side of the car

1x for the trunk and rear bumper (one side for each)

1x for the glass all over the car using both sides


Regarding bucket method, i only use it for the wheel woolies and tire brush

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, and please share with us some pictures of your arsenal once you have time

[Calendyr]

The one thing anyone who cares about his/her vehicle should do is get a pressure washer. By doing a pre-wash with just water, you can remove about 80% to 90% of the dirt, including the very heavy stuff like sand, salt and mud. Once that is done, doing the foam bath will soften anything that remains and make your wash very safe.

I think once you have done both of these steps, it makes no difference if you use :
- 2 Bucket method
- 1 bucket with multiple wash mits method
- Rinseless wash with either of those two methods

Also, if you coat the vehicle, you can get the initial pre-wash to remove up to 95% of the dirt in most cases. Since I have coated my car last summer, anytime I presure wash it, I can see no dirt left on it. So that, in my book, is the best thing you can do for your paint.

[North1Star]

The one thing anyone who cares about his/her vehicle should do is get a pressure washer. By doing a pre-wash with just water, you can remove about 80% to 90% of the dirt, including the very heavy stuff like sand, salt and mud. Once that is done, doing the foam bath will soften anything that remains and make your wash very safe.

I think once you have done both of these steps, it makes no difference if you use :
- 2 Bucket method
- 1 bucket with multiple wash mits method
- Rinseless wash with either of those two methods

Also, if you coat the vehicle, you can get the initial pre-wash to remove up to 95% of the dirt in most cases. Since I have coated my car last summer, anytime I presure wash it, I can see no dirt left on it. So that, in my book, is the best thing you can do for your paint.

I agree with the PW part, i rinse, follow it with foam cannon session using ph neutral soap. If I rinse it again at this point, i noticed that there is still about 30% dirt film that you cant see, but if you wipe the car body with your finger, you will get good amount of dirt on your hand.

So I guess it depends where you live. I live in a dusty, humid and industrial area, the cars collect dirt film within two days max even if not used. so by the end of the week you got a thick dirt film to deal with. Thanks

[Eldorado2k]

Also, if you coat the vehicle, you can get the initial pre-wash to remove up to 95% of the dirt in most cases. Since I have coated my car last summer, anytime I presure wash it, I can see no dirt left on it. So that, in my book, is the best thing you can do for your paint.

Do a waterless wash with light colored towels and see if there really is only 5% dirt on the vehicle. That’s the true test.

[Calendyr]

Do a waterless wash with light colored towels and see if there really is only 5% dirt on the vehicle. That’s the true test.

Yep, that is how I did it. Towel come out almost clean. The only part of the car that remains a little dirty for me is right behind each wheel. This may change from one vehicle to the next but for my personnal car, that is how it is.

Since it's winter here in Montreal, I only do pressure washing during this season, no hand wash at all. And the car is pretty much spotless doing just that. My car is silver so it can hide dirt and defects better than say a Black or white one, but when I am done, I cannot find any visible dirt anywhere. Curious to see how the decon will go this spring (if I still have the car, might sell it soon).

[UncleDavy]

Well you can't have a pressure washer and not get a foam cannon, and then you have to experiment with different soaps and dilution ratios to get just the right amount of suds. I can't say for sure if the foaming procedure is really necessary but it sure is fun.

[Eldorado2k]

Yep, that is how I did it. Towel come out almost clean. The only part of the car that remains a little dirty for me is right behind each wheel. This may change from one vehicle to the next but for my personnal car, that is how it is.

Since it's winter here in Montreal, I only do pressure washing during this season, no hand wash at all. And the car is pretty much spotless doing just that. My car is silver so it can hide dirt and defects better than say a Black or white one, but when I am done, I cannot find any visible dirt anywhere. Curious to see how the decon will go this spring (if I still have the car, might sell it soon).

That sounds exactly like my experience with my car last week after it had rained for a day. I think I wiped it down the day before and drove it around, then the next day it rained hard.

I did a waterless the day after it rained and my towels were nearly completely clean except behind the rear tires a little bit just like you described.

[jolo]

I like the 6+ wash mitt setup. Make more sense if you want to touch the paint with a "clean" wash mitt. DO NOT put the dirty mitt inside the wash bucket. :-)