Car Detailing Tips By tradition, middle class suburbanites would wash the car on Sunday morning before going for a drive with the family in the afternoon. Some individuals took this chore seriously, but for most it was twenty or thirty minutes washing and polishing the outside and five minutes with the vacuum cleaner inside. Nowadays a lot more drivers expect a good cleaning that in those days was reserved for the well-off. However, having your car detailed or valeted is still not inexpensive, typically costing $75 for an average job on an average sized car in average condition. When you start talking about a filthy SUV that has just been used to transport the school football team, detailing in the right manner at a decent firm can cost $300-$400. Not a great deal of people can afford to pay that out frequently, particularly with the cost of petrol being what it is, so here are a couple of car detailing pointers to help you do it yourself (or get the children to do it for you). i] Take out anything that can be removed and vacuum the carpets. Then wash the windows on the inside and clean the seats, upholstery and dash with an appropriate cleaner, particularly if the seats are covered in leather upholstery. Wash the items you removed, dry them and replace. Put a stick of slow-release air freshener in the glove compartment and close all the doors. 2] Hose your car down, especially in the wheel arches and under the bonnet to remove the worst of the muck and soften up anything that has gone rock-solid. Do not use a really strong power washer, ie one that is attached to a strong pump. These power washers can blast grit away so hard that it scratches the paintwork. A regular hose attached directly to the mains is good enough 3] Check the dirt under the wheel arch and blast it off with a slightly more powerful jet if yu have to. Do the wheels too, if they are bad. Once you can no longer see any build up of sludge, you can move on to the next stage. 4] Either mix a bucket of lukewarm soapy water or attach a soap dispenser to your hose pipe. It is worth investing in proper car cleaner, because kitchen detergent could be too harsh for your car's paintwork. Do not try to save money on the amount of detergent you use, follow the manufacturer's recommendations and apply it with a sponge or mitten. If you are using a bucket, be prepared to change the water a number of times - you do not want to start rubbing grit into your paintwork. Wash the car in sections starting with the roof and then rinse it off immediately. So, wash the roof, rinse it; wash a door panel, rinse it; move on and around your car until you get to the bottom - the bumpers and wheels.. You have to rinse immediately to prevent a film of soap drying onto the paintwork, especially on a hot day. Re-rinse the whole car in case you missed something. If you purchased a car wash with wax included, you are done, but if you would like the best finish, now is the time to wax on and then wax off.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently concerned with auto interior detailing. If you want aome tips on detailing cars come over to our website now at Detailing Car Interiors.