Auto Detailing General

/clay bar edition/

What are you doing to detail your car? How often do you clay bar/polish/wax? What is you interior cleaning regimen? Wheel care?

Every couple months. Clay bar is autism. I polish maybe once or twice a year. For the interior I just vacuum and use meguiar's ultimate leather balm. For wheels I use griot's garage heavy duty.

How is clay barring autism? Most detailing pages recommend it before polishing then waxing

It's shilled all the time but I rarely notice the benefit over simply washing and waxing. It seems like something that takes way more effort and money than it's worth.
>but muh embedded contaminants
Polishing once or twice a year is more than enough, combined with a good wax and nobody is going to put your paint under a microscope to check for contaminants

What do you use for polish/pads? There's a much info out there

I used meguiar's prep polish which worked pretty well except you have to be really careful or it can scuff so I'm thinking of trying something else. For pads I just use some foam ones from
o'reilly's, they're pretty good and cheap.

Do you use a machine to polish? I've got a constant speed ryobi random orbit at 2500 rpm

I do it by hand, it feels much more precise to me. Orbitals are nice because they save you a lot of time but you have to be even more careful so as to not damage your clearcoat

I claybar and wax every 3-4 months and wash every 1-2 weeks. I mainly use Mother’s products outside, and purple power to clean the interior.

What do you do to get the interior plastic pieces like new? What about exterior trim?

Car noob here. Here's what I do:

Engine bay:
>Since I'm basically the only fucking person who does it, it doesn't need much to look good
>Dust that shit
>Cover sensitive stuff
>Hose down with low pressure shit
>Scrub dust around the edges away; soapy water where necesary
>Wire brush on the metal components, very lightly, with a material weaker than the component's metal
>Use a general degreaser on areas that are being a real cunt
>Use trim detailer on plastic

Interior:
>Dust
>Vacuum
>Steam clean
>Foaming interior spray
>Scent neutraliser (previous owner was a smoker; bastard even lest some cigs in the car. It's starting to lesson, but still bad)
>Wipe down any consoles or shit I've missed

Exterior:
>I wash it with car wash chemical and a high pressure sprayer
>It's a shitbox, the interior being clean is more than anybody expects
How'd I do Veeky Forums?

I clean it with purple power and then apply a dash/trim protectant. Then I rub that in with a dry microfiber so it doesn’t look greasy.

>buying a used car owned by a smoker
You deserve it desu.

Brought it as a Summer project to lrn2car. Cost me $450, and while pretty much everything mechanically is fine, cosmetically and consumable wise it needs a little more work.


I definitely got what I paid for, but I find the challenge of making it a working car a lot of fun. The smoker smell has already dissipated somewhat. I knew going in that it was a shitbox.

$450? I take it back, good work.

Thanks user. Dude wanted $800 for it, but my absolute max I was willing to spend was $500.

Wrong, clay is handy when your whole door is covered in bee shit in the warm months.

Bee shit? I don't think I've ever had bee shit on my car

...

all this time i thought it was mustard.

seriously i thought it was bird pee.

Holy shit, I'm so fucking pissed. All this time I thought it was just some shit from the tree behind my car. Fucking fuck am I pissed man every day there's bee shit on my car. I mean I get it off with spray detailer but is that not enough?

What the fuck, that's bee piss?

How'd you get the extra $50?

I just waxed my car yesterday. I'm still learning how to buff out clearcoat scratches without fucking something up. I gonna learn before I place sealant on my car when I get ready to strip off my wax.

And I'm looking for good plastic trim restorer because the MOTHERS trim restorer is a big fat meme.


For my interior, I use a Hot Water Vac to get all that dirt and shit out, I don't use the hot water a lot, but it's a very hefty vac that gets the job done. For the dash, I use Meguiar's interior cleaner. And last, Swissvax Leather Cleaner for the seats, pretty expensive but it's worth the price.

Use chemical guys products, they have a good trim gel

will do, thanks.