New Car Detailing: Professional or DIY?
Discussion
xjay1337 said:
Depends on your experience.
If you want it done properly it is worth paying a professional. Especially if you want a coating.
I did it for a few years and as such have the skills now that I do friends and families cars now if the need arises, once you learn you never really forget.
If you haven't ever done it before then it makes little sense to do it on a new vehicle incase you risk burning through.
Where are you based? If you are local I don't mind popping over and doing it/showing you for a some pepsi and food.
Know how to wash cars properly i.e. rinse, foam, rinse, two bucket, claying etc just never done the whole polish, wax or coating thingIf you want it done properly it is worth paying a professional. Especially if you want a coating.
I did it for a few years and as such have the skills now that I do friends and families cars now if the need arises, once you learn you never really forget.
If you haven't ever done it before then it makes little sense to do it on a new vehicle incase you risk burning through.
Where are you based? If you are local I don't mind popping over and doing it/showing you for a some pepsi and food.
Based in Glasgow and going rate seems to be £250-400, which seems quite a lot when I believe I could do 70-80% of the process, this is lease car so more just looking for light protection and aesthetics.
Could I realistically get the dealership who supplied the car to pay some of the bill if it turns up with love/ swirl marks tomorrow?
InitialDave said:
I have to say, if using "normal" products and working by hand or with a DA machine, you'd have to do something remarkably aggressive to damage the paint.
Thanks. This gives me more confidence I think I may just give it a go. I have access to cars that are going to be scraped so I should be able to have a practice on a car i dont care about. rainmakerraw said:
I was in the exact same boat as you, and decided to learn for myself. I saved £250 on a detailer's services, and now own about £1,000 of power washer, foam lance, DA/hex pads/polishes, sealants, decontamination products, clays, foams, shampoos, brushes, mits and assorted bits. My wife had to buy a small shed to hold all my microfibre towels and wash buckets. I also spend a few hours a week keeping the family daily spotless, and admiring the beading. But hey, at least I saved £250... 
Being serious, it's worth doing if you can be bothered and don't want a ceramic coating. Don't expect to save money though, especially if you have to buy all the products, a DA polisher and a pressure washer etc. On the other hand, though, you own them forever and will make good use of them. Alternatively spend the £250 for it done 'right' with no effort, then just concentrate on easy maintenance.
My advice, if you do it yourself (it's fun) don't fall for the 'latest awesome must have Product X'. Find what works, keep it simple and save yourself as much time as possible. Is this anathema to detailing? Well maybe for purists, but there's no point wasting time for the sake of it. I spent two days prepping my car (I took delivery still in the transport wrap and went from there), and was obsessively spending hours a day spot cleaning and sprucing up with quick detailer. That got old, fast. Especially when I'm sick and have kids to run around after in between!
Now it's simple, effective, and enjoyable again. Grab a cheap K2 pressure washer (£45), an iron/fallout remover (BH Korrosol), tar remover (Gyeon Tar), clay (BH), sealant (Menzerna PowerLock) and Gyeon WetCoat to spray on during the big monthly wash to keep the sealant topped up (does glass, wheels and bodywork in seconds). For the interior get something like Gtechniq C6 Matte Dash protector, as it does leather, plastics, vinyl and everything else. That way you can seal your dash, doors, and even seats (leather or vinyl) out of one product/bottle to save a few quid. A spritz of fabric guard on the seats (if cloth or Alcantara) and you're done. Feel free to add G1 to the windscreen if you like, but WetCoat (or C2v3) on the side windows lasts months and is extremely good at keeping them clear.
Take your time, enjoy it, but don't work yourself sick. If you choose to do a polish before you seal (recommended) then it's time to watch some good YouTube tutorials (JunkMan, ChemicalGuys, whatever) and have a practice. You can't really do any harm with a DA, especially with a new-fangled diminishing one-step polish from Scholl or Sonax.
When you're done you can just do a weekly or so maintenance wash; a quick pressure wash, TBW with pH neutral shampoo, top up the sealant with a LSP like WetCoat, and give the interior a wipe down with Sonax Cockpit Cleaner followed by a quick hoover, then spray the tyres with CarPlan Tyre Slyk (£2 in Asda/Tesco, extremely good product) and clean the glass inside and out with Halfords Glass Cleaner (cheap, mildly abrasive and quick to flash off without streaks), and you're done. It sounds a lot written like that, but it's barely five cheap, effective products and an hour of your week max. Then maybe once a month spend a couple of hours doing it 'properly'. It's quite easy really.
Don't forget the initial expenses (the equipment, sealants like PowerLock, C6 etc) and the time spent applying them is a one time thing. It might take a day or so to get it all spot on, but after that it's time to reap the rewards with a car that looks decent and is quick and easy to wash. If you constantly have to spend hours and reams of expensive bottles of product fixing it up again, then you're doing it wrong imho (unless you're doing it to enjoy the process for its own sake, in which case knock yourself out). As a side note, if you do grab some WetCoat don't make the usual mistake of using tons (like half a bottle) on the whole car. You literally need 2 or maybe 3 sprays for a whole panel - even the bonnet or roof of a Skoda Superb as I have - and then power wash off. It goes a LONG way, and it's not worth wasting ££. People always 'intuitively' spray enough to literally wet the whole car with it. Nope, you let the pressure washer do that when you rinse - think of it as a concentrate that you dilute over the whole car as you're rinsing it off.
Have fun.
Thanks man thats some really sound advice.Being serious, it's worth doing if you can be bothered and don't want a ceramic coating. Don't expect to save money though, especially if you have to buy all the products, a DA polisher and a pressure washer etc. On the other hand, though, you own them forever and will make good use of them. Alternatively spend the £250 for it done 'right' with no effort, then just concentrate on easy maintenance.
My advice, if you do it yourself (it's fun) don't fall for the 'latest awesome must have Product X'. Find what works, keep it simple and save yourself as much time as possible. Is this anathema to detailing? Well maybe for purists, but there's no point wasting time for the sake of it. I spent two days prepping my car (I took delivery still in the transport wrap and went from there), and was obsessively spending hours a day spot cleaning and sprucing up with quick detailer. That got old, fast. Especially when I'm sick and have kids to run around after in between!
Now it's simple, effective, and enjoyable again. Grab a cheap K2 pressure washer (£45), an iron/fallout remover (BH Korrosol), tar remover (Gyeon Tar), clay (BH), sealant (Menzerna PowerLock) and Gyeon WetCoat to spray on during the big monthly wash to keep the sealant topped up (does glass, wheels and bodywork in seconds). For the interior get something like Gtechniq C6 Matte Dash protector, as it does leather, plastics, vinyl and everything else. That way you can seal your dash, doors, and even seats (leather or vinyl) out of one product/bottle to save a few quid. A spritz of fabric guard on the seats (if cloth or Alcantara) and you're done. Feel free to add G1 to the windscreen if you like, but WetCoat (or C2v3) on the side windows lasts months and is extremely good at keeping them clear.
Take your time, enjoy it, but don't work yourself sick. If you choose to do a polish before you seal (recommended) then it's time to watch some good YouTube tutorials (JunkMan, ChemicalGuys, whatever) and have a practice. You can't really do any harm with a DA, especially with a new-fangled diminishing one-step polish from Scholl or Sonax.
When you're done you can just do a weekly or so maintenance wash; a quick pressure wash, TBW with pH neutral shampoo, top up the sealant with a LSP like WetCoat, and give the interior a wipe down with Sonax Cockpit Cleaner followed by a quick hoover, then spray the tyres with CarPlan Tyre Slyk (£2 in Asda/Tesco, extremely good product) and clean the glass inside and out with Halfords Glass Cleaner (cheap, mildly abrasive and quick to flash off without streaks), and you're done. It sounds a lot written like that, but it's barely five cheap, effective products and an hour of your week max. Then maybe once a month spend a couple of hours doing it 'properly'. It's quite easy really.
Don't forget the initial expenses (the equipment, sealants like PowerLock, C6 etc) and the time spent applying them is a one time thing. It might take a day or so to get it all spot on, but after that it's time to reap the rewards with a car that looks decent and is quick and easy to wash. If you constantly have to spend hours and reams of expensive bottles of product fixing it up again, then you're doing it wrong imho (unless you're doing it to enjoy the process for its own sake, in which case knock yourself out). As a side note, if you do grab some WetCoat don't make the usual mistake of using tons (like half a bottle) on the whole car. You literally need 2 or maybe 3 sprays for a whole panel - even the bonnet or roof of a Skoda Superb as I have - and then power wash off. It goes a LONG way, and it's not worth wasting ££. People always 'intuitively' spray enough to literally wet the whole car with it. Nope, you let the pressure washer do that when you rinse - think of it as a concentrate that you dilute over the whole car as you're rinsing it off.
Have fun.
Think this is the right idea. Shouldn't cost me that much as my dad likes to wash his car so has pressure washer and number of boxes with lotions, postions, mitts, microfibre cloths etc
So only costs would be DA polisher associated materials and sealants.
like has been said I think these skills will be invaluable through life for my own cars as well as friends and family.
Going to enquire about some tuition as defined details here in Glasgow, just so I have a good grounding in the basics.
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