Car Detailing

[brasher]

Chris – mate, i have 2x dark coloured cars to wash every weekend. At first, i went abit over the top, have bought virtually all of the sprays Bowden’s make.

In hindsight – i had way too many steps / extra sprays to carry out maintenance washing. I have been rationalising the stuff i buy, and not repleneshing their sprays once i've finished them.

Start with the basics from below (buckets, MF'ers, 1x spray of your choice), and slowly build up your kit. Keep an eye out for SCA/Repco's 20-30% off sales
My exterior maintenance washing kit suggestion, that you can slowly build up would be:

• Decent pressure/lpm Pressure washer
• 2x buckets with grit guards ( i think repco's got some cheaper ones) & 1x wheel dedicated bucket(whatever bucket you have around the house)
• Bowdens snow cannon & snow job (note : only if you have a dark car or, are anal about not getting swirl marks in the paint. It’s not integral, but works for me)
• Gyeon Smoothie wash mitt (or shagtastic wash mitt if you can’t get it)
• Nanolicious Wash
• 2x Bowdens big green suckers (or better – 2x Gyeon Q2M drying towels if you can get them)
• 1x Boss gloss (only to lightly spray on the drying towels, to aid drying)
• Bowdens Naked Glass (find it’s the best glass cleaner)
• Big Softie (to spray the naked glass onto )
• Wheely Clean (if you get rampant brake dust like i do, it helps)
• Cheaper microfiber drying towels for the wheels / exhaust / brakes (i use the costco bulk pack ones)
• Wheel cleaning brush or seperate sponge for this process
• Meguiars Hot Shine tyre spray
• Bowden’s all sorts (great size for low profile tyres – spray tyre shine onto this, not directly onto tyres so it doesn’t flick off when you drive)
• Meguiars Hybrid Ceramic Wax spray (my experience – this is better than, and replaces all of the bowden’s sprays)
• Bowden’s happy ending & cannon for this (i use this as an end of wash sealer / drying aid, for periods in between applying the Meguiars spray)
• Down the track – invest in Bowden’s claying rubber + three way to clay your car once a year – it makes the paint feel like glass!
• Down the track – get yourself a microfiber cleaning solution, to clean the microfibres (i do it every 2^nd wash)
• At least a 6 pack of your favourite in the fridge in the garage.

Everyone does things their own way. My typical process if i have the time spare :

• Car in shelter or shade
• Spray Wheely clean on wheels / brakes / tires, sit for 30seconds / scrub wheels /brakes/tires with your sud solution from the wheel bucket & pressure wash off
• Scrub areas you don’t want your good mitt & main wash bucket touching, with the wheel bucket solution (i do exhaust tips / wheel arches, underside of bodykit)
• Snow foam the car & let it sit while the foam does its thing
• Pressure wash foam off, take a decent amount of to wash the whole car down – the foam is like a template to make sure you’ve washed all of the car off
• Carry out the wash / wash off process, incrementally rinsing the wash mitt in the rinse bucket, and re-dipping it into the suds (ie : half the roof - rinse, half the bonnet- rise, split the side of the car into thirds)
• Once it’s washed – apply your sealer
• If using the Meg’s spray, the first time application is a spray on, and microfibre dry off – this is important to give it a really decent first coat layer.
• The follow up applications of the meg’s are just a spray on, and rinse off
• I use the Meg’s spray every third or fourth wash. It’s water beading properties is better than any Bowden’s spray, but importantly – it’s gloss levels are better than Bowden’s.
• Next - i spray the car with happy ending cannon/bottle. I find this adds an extra layer of sealant / aids in drying
• Once HE is applied - take the hose off the pressure washer, and take the end off the hose so you have a solid unpressurized stream coming out the hose
• Wash the solution off with this solid stream, and use the hose stream to wash / chase the water beads away.
• Take the car for a very quick squirt out the driveway, to get rid of any further water (for me it’s the wheels – as there’s a valley behind the spokes the water sits)
• I then use my Milwaukee blower with fine end attachment, to blow water out of the crevasses (side mirrors, wheels, grilles, gaps for doors/hatch etc)
• Dry the car with your chosen quality microfiber – light spritzing spray of boss gloss incrementally onto the drying MF.
• Dry the wheels / exhaust tips etc with the cheapo MF.
• Clean the glass with naked glass – sprayed onto the MF, not directly onto the glass
• Apply tire shine – spraying it onto your applicator, not directly onto tyres (the Bowden’s all sorts are perfect width for low profile tyres).
• You’re done ....and the last beer of the 6 pack is empty – time to open the next 6 pack.

Thanks heaps G! great post.. It's a black WRX and she's got some swirls. I need to get Craig to work his magic on it.

I don't know if I'm ready for snow foam. I'd need an attachment for my Gerni I presume. Would putting some carwash in a pump sprayer suffice? Coat the car and leave for a few mins and rinse off?

So I'm thinking the following:

2 x buckets with guards (already have another bucket for wheels)
Bowdens Nanolicious wash
Love Glove Wash mitt
wheely clean
Boss Gloss
2 x large drying towels (saw some on facebook $25 each, huge)
Tyre shine

anything else? A spray on wax?

[Luke352]

Replace the Bowden's Snow foam with Bilt Hamber Auto foam. No comparison the BH product works far better! Same with wheel cleaners, I recently got a couple bottles of Bowden's Wheely clean on a 2 for 1 sale recently and was shocked how poorly it worked in comparison to the Bilt products. I used to use the Bowden's product in the past and thought it was good stuff but maybe they've changed the formula because it is nowhere as good as I remember and definitely not as good as the Bilt wheel cleaner and also the Korrosol which is a fallout remover for paint but also works great on wheels.


You can apply the Bilt Auto Foam using a $10 hand pump pressure sprayer from Bunnings instead of buying a foaming gun for your gurni, it won't foam up but works almost as well. TBH the Bilt product isn't a super foamy product anyway like the Bowden's so if you want the foam porn then the Bilt product isn't for you.

[36Chambers]

Thanks heaps G! great post.. It's a black WRX and she's got some swirls. I need to get Craig to work his magic on it.

I don't know if I'm ready for snow foam. I'd need an attachment for my Gerni I presume. Would putting some carwash in a pump sprayer suffice? Coat the car and leave for a few mins and rinse off?

So I'm thinking the following:

2 x buckets with guards (already have another bucket for wheels)
Bowdens Nanolicious wash
Love Glove Wash mitt
wheely clean
Boss Gloss
2 x large drying towels (saw some on facebook $25 each, huge)
Tyre shine

anything else? A spray on wax?

No worries. Your list is good. Don't be too worried about the snow foam, for the interim you could try the pressure pump.

It's just all about softening up the dirt, and getting rid of as much of it off the paint as you can - before the wash mitt touches the paint.

For spray wax - If you can get it on special, i would give this a crack for your first one : https://www.supercheapauto.com.au/p/...=en_AU&start=3

[itsnotagsr]

Interior suggestions? Dash, seats, carpets?

[kabab]

kabab can you help a brother out?

https://automotivesuperstore.com.au/meguiars-g418252b

I can do you a PF price on this..

[LINCOLN]

Thanks for the suggestions about the new spray to try.... I am stuck on Fully Slick at the moment.

Keen to hear about interior products as well.

For interior I like this as it is not shiney;

https://www.meguiars.com.au/product/...ne-protectant/

And for leather you cannot go past;

https://www.oakwoodproducts.com/prod.../#.X9mseNgzaUk

I have just started using this on exterior plastics and good results so far;

https://www.meguiars.com.au/product/...te-protectant/

[LINCOLN]

Seats and carpets get yourself a Bissel Little Green Machine wet vac.... I have never had any good results with seat/carpet cleaners in a can.

[Reax]

I havent heard of Bowdens before...is it an Oz specific brand?

Im a sucker for sticking to one brand, even if I know there are potentially better products out there on the market.

Australian owned and made. decent products, lots of overlap though.

But for a spray on instead of boss gloss . https://detailingshed.com.au/collect...e-edgeless-500

[Aaron]

Beadmaker is nice, been using it on commercial work and definitely a good change for the business, streamlined it into being a drying aid and also a LSP after any other work.

I’ve used Bowdens Bead Machine on our MX5 after I clarified the paintwork recently - the car lives in the garage mostly - and it works wonderfully, but then all of the new crop of “nano ceramic blah blah blah” products really do give similar results, some are shit to work with compared to others.

Wheely clean is definitely piss weak compared to a lot of the commercial/trade chemicals. I use Autosmart Red7 and aside from stripping rattle-can paint it’s good. Also use it and Fallout as a pre-clay or pre-machining wash.

I tend to pump the Bowdens because it’s Australian Made/Owned and generally works but for the most part won’t do harm if mis-used. Anyone who’s seen what some of the trade APC products do to paint, trim and plastics when used straight, or allowed to dry in the sun etc will understand.

I guess a chemical that can literally dissolve baked in bug guts before your eyes isn’t going to be “mild” on any surface.

A minor digression though, I was going to also stick the general disclaimer of every car, owner and location bring different variables to the washing process. What some people like in terms of product application, or feel (I can’t stand wash mitts, horrible things in my view) isn’t always what works for others. Likewise product layering can be a hit and miss affair, some products will have a chemical base that will dissolve others for example, others simply won’t bond so near enough wash off!

[craveae86]

Anyone on here know of a headlight restorer in Sydney. Looking for someone that could bring back some scratched tailamps and foglights

[FLI355]

I can do it.

[craveae86]

I can do it.

Cheers mate, noticed that your just around the corner from me

[23Kev]

Thinking of grabbing this from super cheap, 20% off at the moment. https://www.supercheapauto.com.au/p/...PO7219109.html
This is the right starter pack to go with? Need to get better prepped for when the GR Yaris arrives in Feb, so don’t mind waiting for it to come in.

Just read the last couple of pages, looks like it’s decent, just need some more cloths and an extra bucket or two.

I do have a Karcher snow foam attachment, can I use the Nanolicious wash in the snow foam attachment?

[Aaron]

It’s a good way to “switch over” to the brand Kev as it gives you enough product to use and work out what you do and don’t like.

Buy a bunch of cheap microfibres for wheels/engine bay/jambs/etc and another colour of relatively cheap cloths for interior trim.

Consider for a Yaris sized car a single good cloth per exterior product application/removal plus one spare (dropping it, picking up excess moisture from around a badge or under mirrors etc). Plus you drying cloth.

So you may have a Big Green Sucker or similar (drying) and 4 Big Softies or similar for product and like 20 40x40cm cheap cloths for dirty jobs and less sensitive areas.

Cheap cloths kept clean etc are fine on interiors, after a while you get a lifecycle of the cheap cloths where they start doing glass, then trim or jambs, then interior spot cleaning, then wheels then engine bay, then they’re the spill cloths for the garage and finally the bin.

Nano won’t be great in a foam gun, in fact most Bowdens stuff doesn’t foam much so stick to a snow foam product if you want that.

Don’t over think too much up front, and knowing how much you’ve wanted/waited for the car consider a proper Ceramic - either get a pro to do it or do a simple CQuartz or GTechniq yourself. It will be worth it for the ease of cleaning. Bowdens Bead Machine, or a prepped and cured coat of BeadMaker (or any other of the spray and wipe pseudo coatings) will give a similar affect but on a daily will need more attention than a true ceramic over 1-2 year period.

[mizone]

Whoever it was that suggested the bulk pack of Costco microfibre towels. Thank you!

Best microfibre towels I've used for car washing.