How to Clean your car (properly)

arbee · Friday 16th June 2006, 13:45

A quick tip for touching in chips - when the chip is very small - use a tooth pick! basically put a tiny amount of paint on the end of the pick, then gently put it into the chip and the paint will transfer to the car. takes longer but means you wont go over the edge of the surrounding paint with these chips. those brushes may be fine but are rarely fine enough!

**adriancole** · Friday 16th June 2006, 13:53

thank you.......looks like i will be bent over the bonnet for a while.......

**Wobbly Dave** · Friday 16th June 2006, 16:16

Bitten by the bug quite bad. I find myself taking pics of my own cleaning stuff

Is this the beginning of the end of my sanity?

Just got and extremely please to have bought

Megs NXT TechWax
Megs ClearCoat Body Scrub
Megs Applicators
Megs Terry Towels
Megs Microfibre Towels (not sure what the difference is)
Megs Microfibre WM

to put with a whole load of other stuff.

**S40xs** · Friday 16th June 2006, 16:46

VPCUK is proud to present Wobbley's Volvo cleaning service.

Blimey Dave bet your wallet is feeling the strain for all that, must hand it too you thats the way im slowly going......

**Wobbly Dave** · Friday 16th June 2006, 16:49

It's WOBBLY

and the term is "detailing"

WDVDS (Wobbly Dave's Volvo Detailing Service) - catchy eh?

Go stand over there and give me 100 lines...

"I must spell the moderator's username correctly or else be chastised."

Dunno about 75 quid on "products" (gulp)

**BigShrek** · Friday 16th June 2006, 16:58

I used to do valeting (as a side job) and still got contacts with Autoglym the ultra gloss is some cracking stuff

**S40xs** · Friday 16th June 2006, 17:01

Originally Posted by Wobbly Dave

It's WOBBLY

and the term is "detailing"

WDVDS (Wobbly Dave's Volvo Detailing Service) - catchy eh?

Go stand over there and give me 100 lines...

"I must spell the moderator's username correctly or else be chastised."

Dunno about 75 quid on "products" (gulp)

I choose to be chastised. Thats an awful lot of slapping your handing out there "Wobbly"

**Wobbly Dave** · Friday 16th June 2006, 17:02

There are now about 4 or 5 levels in my cleaning system for a full detail (paint work alone)

**Wobbly Dave** · Friday 16th June 2006, 17:03

I choose to be chastised. Thats an awful lot of slapping your handing out there "Wobbly"

I forgive you - so long as I have the lines by tea time (and none of this copy and paste malarky) #finger wag#

**S40xs** · Friday 16th June 2006, 17:05

Originally Posted by Wobbly Dave

I forgive you - so long as I have the lines by tea time (and none of this copy and paste malarky) #finger wag#

Monday tea time ok? Busy weekend and all....

**Wobbly Dave** · Friday 16th June 2006, 17:06

Sorry - cant stop - got car to wash (damn!)

**S40xs** · Friday 16th June 2006, 17:17

Runs out to purchase a cd for Wobbly.........

Enjoy......!

1. Carwash
2. Six O'clock DJ (Let's Rock)
3. I Wanna Get Next To You
4. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
5. Zig Zag
6. You're On My Mind
7. Mid Day DJ Theme
8. Born To Love You
9. Daddy Rich
10. You Gotta Believe
11. I'm Going Down
12. Yo Yo
13. Sunrise
14. Righteous Rhythm
15. Water
16. Crying
17. Doin' What Comes Naturally
18. Keep On Keepin' On

**nealer** · Friday 16th June 2006, 17:34

Not bloody fair ... been travelling - car minging from sitting in the airport carpark.. get home ... big package with my clay bar, new mitt, towels, wax etc. sitting waiting for me ... and its feking started to rain!!!

Ah well ...

**adriancole** · Friday 16th June 2006, 20:44

my favourite is the real sheepskin buffing mit.....

**st1t5** · Friday 16th June 2006, 23:45

Iv got tons of Autoglym in my garage but im going to be spending a small fortune when i get back on clay bars etc etc etc ..

I wish i had never seen this thread ... its costing me a fortune ...

**adriancole** · Friday 16th June 2006, 23:46

snap, total cost of all polish and mits and micro-fibre cloth about £70 so far, though car is looking fab.....must get some pics in the gallery

**nealer** · Saturday 17th June 2006, 02:02

Originally Posted by st1t5

Iv got tons of Autoglym in my garage but im going to be spending a small fortune when i get back on clay bars etc etc etc ..

I wish i had never seen this thread ... its costing me a fortune ...

me too ... A few years back I had bought a car from Gmund Cars that had been preped by Swissol.. the finish was unbelievable - so of course I wanted to maintain it - bought one of their kits .. and ... fek'd the finish up completely and had to get the professionals in again. After that I (read as wifey) swore (read: wifey swore lots at me) I'd never spend the money on these products again (read: wasn't allowed to

).

I know similar links have been posted on the previous pages ... but thought the video on this page was good.

http://www.swissol.co.uk/webpage/how_to_use.asp

**Daz T5** · Sunday 18th June 2006, 00:03

Interesting thread this, car valeting & product development has come a long way since i used to do it for a living a few moons ago! Having said that, there are much cheaper ways to achieve results than shelling out on these products. The approach to cleaning your own car will invariably be different to how you approach it commercially, but the below list used to be the valeters exterior survival kit!
TFR (traffic film remover)
Tar, wax & glue remover (sounds like performs similar task to clay bar?)
T Cut
UCP (polish with a slight cut)
Carnuba wax (no cut, purely for finishing)
Glass cleaner (found that liquid forms are the best - tip - fine wire wool is good for removing stubborn foreign bodies)
Vinyl gel
Wheel acid (be careful with this!)
Tyre dressing

Interior is another matter, used to specialise in these!

Oh, and on the topic of touching in, the brushes in the kits are normally too big, get a small artists pure bristle brush, and clean it out after with celly thinners. build up the coats in the chip, cut it back with T cut then apply laquer, and then cut that back level, jobs a goodun!!

Long & short of it is, chemicals used in the right order

**Wobbly Dave** · Monday 19th June 2006, 00:36

Spent pretty much the whole weekend detailing the C70 (all by hand). Had to start late-ish afternoon to avoid the heat/Sun on Sat.
After the wash (Megs Soft wash) - 2 bucket method with my new Megs microfibre wash mit - I dryed the car. Found the terry towels harder to work with than the chammy but they say chamois can scratch?
The car had already been clayed the weekend before so decided to skip and use paint cleaner instead.
Then set to with scratch X and Megs DC #1 paint cleaner to clean the paint. Many scratches were self inflicted with my now binned hydrofoil (only used on glass)
Paint cleaning - about 1.5 hrs. Used the new megs applicators which are really good.
Next was the Megs NXT Tech Wax with foam applicator (supplied in box) - another 1.5 hrs. Quite tough to apply and buff - used the new microfibre towels and terry towels.
Final coat - Presta Fast Wax - Megs applicator - nice and quick to go on. Took effort to get up to a sheen but the towels make it a lot easier.
SUNDAY
Started to detail the wheels by removing them and messing with all kinds of sprays and stuff, including mer wheel wax and long life tyre dressing but got really miffed with it. You cant really see the inside of my rims anyway.
Re-washed the car and dried it again - did another coat of presta. This is the only time I have seen my car shiny with the drying wax still on the car.

Detailied the cockpit - vac-ed floor and polished dash.

Shoulders and arms ache like never before but the car is looking fab.

Weather was not kind and the sun didnt shine on Sunday eve. This is about the best shot