Valeting / Detailing / two bucket wronguns

[purplebargeken]

Very few people lay on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time polishing their car.

 

I'd rather think that than, oh fuck I'm on the way ou..............

[purplebargeken]

Actually, having been pretty close to toast on at least 3 occasions, one of my lingering last'ish thoughts was thus (this is actually 100% true by the way).

 

Oh well, isn't this fucking great, killed in the fucking car park at fucking work by a fucking cheese sandwich. 

 

I kid you not.

[Lord Sterling]

On 5/12/2018 at 11:20 PM, Lord Sterling said:

During the weekend I gave the BMW a good wash and the Micra a good wipe over so it doesn't look neglected. I usually give both cars the Kosovan hand car-wash treatment. However, when finances are tight and I can't afford to treat the cars, I'll wash them myself on a budget (of £0) and usually get them looking pretty good...

During the good times, I'll have bought all the car cleaning potions and lotions so they'll last for years. I sometimes collected them from jobs I've had in the past. I don't go overboard like some here. A wash with warm water/foam cold water rinse down, water leather/bladed off and a polish is about as much as far as I'll go, I'd love to have the patience to do more but I just don't.

 

Car cleaning with a budget of £0...

It starts with me struggling a couple of hundred yards down the road to where the cars are parked carrying a bucket of hot water, a watering can of cold water and a plastic bag containing car cleaning potions, leather drying cloths, micro fibre cloths, other rags and some sponges. Once I get to the car(s) I'll start by splashing some Simoniz wash 'n' wax or some Sonax* car shampoo into the hot water bucket of hot water. The car will get covered with shampoo foam from top to bottom, rubbed down and rinsed with cold water, the water will then be leathered/bladed off and then a couple of micro fibre cloths to clean off any water marks. I may go even crazier and polish the car. It gets a serious polish once a year. If there is any water left, and there usually is, another car I have/am looking after will get washed, leathered and a micro-fibered wipe down.

Here they are looking a bit cleaner. Lanos also got a clean (at a Kosovan car wash in Birmingham) during the short period it was here with me:

 

20180430_163852.jpg

 

Cleaning in hot weather...

During the hot weather we had here on the recent bank holiday weekend, I made the mistake of cleaning the cars during the hot weather in direct sunlight, so the water dried up so quickly, literally after I applied the water it dried, so one panel at a times done, leathering off the water to leave water marks didn't bother me too much as water marks got taken off by the all wonderous micro-fibre cloths. The windows had a good dose of micro-fibre action too.

I also always do the door shuts, boot shut, slam panel and whatever else I can find needs doing.

 

Interior cleaning without a hoover...

Interior valeting can be a bit of a bastard if you have no money spare, no driveway and not long enough cable to stretch your hoover down to the car. A good tip then is to use a dustpan brush and collect all of the debris from the carpet and seats you get at. Collect them into one area where you can then brush them into the dustpan easily and get it all out.

I hate these greasy products you get for dash cleaner. A good wipe down with a damp cloth and dry with a micro fibre cloth is really all you need.

 

Tyres - To shine or not to shine...

Tyres are something that is important in making a car look good after a clean. There is no point in cleaning your car and wheels if your tyres are still brown/have road staining on after cleaning. Tyre shine can and does complement a nicely cleaned car. I always have tyre shine from the Kosovan car wash places but failing that; Black shoe polish and a very soft application brush can make your tyres look nice and fresh without looking too shiny.

More on this;

Interior cleaning on a budget

Now that I'm married and have 2 homes to pay for and a job that is a 45-minute commute by car, I have become a massive scrooge with money. I've never got any of it so every bastard thing is done on a budget.

After getting paid last month I'd decided to do a slightly unscrooge thing and get my car washed at an IMO car wash. I selected the most expensive wash (£11) and my car came out looking tops, although wheels were only just ok, they really could've done with a better wash. Also, I'd not dressed the tyres because;

1) they're shit and need changing,

2) they didn't look too bad on the sides

3) I can dress them with shoe polish anyway which is better, longer lasting and not so shiny.

4) I have access to an outside tap so can wash them later on.

But I was tired from work, wearing a suit and wanted to go home, so I left the wheels and tyres for another time.

The IMO wash also left the interior looking shit, I couldn't honestly be arsed to hoover it as it costs more money, is often shit and you have to do everything at a faster pace because of the time limit. Forget that.

Today, I wanted to wash the wheels as they'd not been washed properly for a good few months. Some old Simoniz wheel wash stuff and a few old cloths got them looking pretty how they did a few months back. However, owing to recently using some tyre inflator gunk from a can, some of it had got onto the alloy and stained it. So I'll have to sort this out later.

My attention then turned to the interior as it was still looking shit. The light Grey cloth seats were stained from rain water and generally let the interior down. I'd previously used some Mer Carpet and upholstery cleaner. Now Mer is a very good marque for exterior polish, but for cleaning my seats, it seemed very poor, it barely shifted the staining from the seats and generally left them looking pretty much the same. It did however easily shift a lot of small marks left in other cloth-covered trim oddly.

Lidl do some cleaning products called W5. Some years back, one of the items recommended to me was W5 Gel cleaner. I'd used it in Ma's Micra and it shifted years of ground in muck in the seats leaving the seats looking absolutely showroom fresh, unfortunately, W5 in their infinate wisdom decided to stop making the gel. Twats.

So I decided to use another household product: Persil non-bio in liquid form. I'd stuck a bit of Persil into a hand-sized container of warm water and used a cotton J-cloth to rub the solution into the seats. As it was sunny today the heat from sun shining down into the car got the seats dry within about 5 minutes. Any signs of staining were gone. Result! My interior was starting to look really nice and clean again.

Despite having proper fitted floor mats, tiny bits of debris would usually find themselves resting on the face and sides of the mats. I'd brought with me my dustpan and brush.......

Yep, you read right - dustpan and brush - I used to work in an IMO car wash some years back and used to dustpan/brush up big bits of debris before using the hoover. Personally, I've very rarely been able to use my hoover in my cars as I've never had a driveway or it would cause inconvenience. I live in a flat so there is no chance of me using a hoover in my cars the cable won't stretch that far and it'd have to be done on a busy pavement. This leaves me with the option of paying a few quid for the convenience of a petrol-station hoover or using my sisters cordless hoover.

The next best thing was the dustpan and brush. The brush seemed a lot better to use as it got to places that the hoover might have failed to. I'd brushed it all into a small pile and jettisoned the debris out of the car.

Before I knew it, the interior was looking a lot cleaner and more pleasant than before. So cleaner wheels and a cleaner interior all for £0.

[FakeConcern]

Some of you may have seen I have a new* Volvo C30 T5 ( http://autoshite.com/topic/33874-my-t5-not-scene/ ) One thing I've noticed is that around the chrome letters on boththe glass hatch and the plastic rear bumper is quite stained with what looks like water scale. I tried letting some snow foam stuff dwell on it for a while, then agitated it with a brush and it made no difference. Any ideas?

[oldcars]

I'm actually using snow foam from "Trotter's traders" a local fancy goods emporium.

99p actually works alright.

 

I won't mention this on Detailing world as I'll get burnt at the stake for heresy.

 

"Ooh you don't want to use that, it'll make your car melt"

 

"Ooh don't use that, it's not expensive enough"

 

Don't get me wrong, I've been a member on there about 12 years but some people need to chill their tits.

 

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

I need some of this for the Rialto 

[oldcars]

Some of you may have seen I have a new* Volvo C30 T5 ( http://autoshite.com/topic/33874-my-t5-not-scene/ ) One thing I've noticed is that around the chrome letters on boththe glass hatch and the plastic rear bumper is quite stained with what looks like water scale. I tried letting some snow foam stuff dwell on it for a while, then agitated it with a brush and it made no difference. Any ideas?

Could be etched if someone has used heavy tft on it. I would try something like Autoglym super resin polish. Its normally good with this kind of thing.

[face]

Some of you may have seen I have a new* Volvo C30 T5 ( http://autoshite.com/topic/33874-my-t5-not-scene/ ) One thing I've noticed is that around the chrome letters on boththe glass hatch and the plastic rear bumper is quite stained with what looks like water scale. I tried letting some snow foam stuff dwell on it for a while, then agitated it with a brush and it made no difference. Any ideas?

 

I had some success using a toothbrush, earbud and polish for such a thing.

[oldcars]

Gave the 75 a wash and used some of this. https://car-chem.com/store/CC301-hydro-seal

They had an offer on last week, only paid £5 for it. Good stuff, spray on, rinse off. Left a decent shine and good beading. Just needed to top the wax up a wee bit and this save loads of time in the winter.

[DVee8]

As the weather was little better this morning the buckets and jet wash came out.Some new better snow foam from Boyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andyrew]

I've just bought a lance, came with some mad cow cola snow foam. Made the Car smell of cola cubes.

 

It was a very thin and watery foam. Would like one that's a smidge thicker on application.

[Aston Martin]

Just watch, the bravest man in the world.

 

 

[Robson3022]

Thought I’d add this from yonks ago. Wish I’d bought and kept it! Ended up doing a Benidorm or bust type thing. Was very pink in the begining.

[Aston Martin]

That looks fantastic.

 

Theres a neighbour with a pink Alto, hoping he wants rid of it cheap at some point.

[DaveDorson]

So I need to buy a pressure washer.  The car is filthy and because I'm actually driving a car I like, I want to keep it in decent fettle.

 

 

The only way for me to do this realistically is to buy a pressure washer, because once you've used one properly, using a bucket or two and an assortment of "product" just won't cut it.

 

The kicker for me was using my mates one last week to do his civic.  Basically it went from a salt and grime addled mess to a gleaming delight (he's got one of the FN spaceship ones in that lovely metallic blue) in about 20 minutes, using just the pressure washer and a small amount of budget "snow foam" then giving it a once over with a leather to dry it.

 

Add to this my wife moaning about moss and slime on our pavement leading up to the house, and I think I've got good enough reason to add one to the "household" budget rather than using my own, which I run my chod fine automotive fleet from.

 

It's quite apparent, that I need one in my life.

 

Everyone seems to buy Karcher stuff, but I've been looking at Nilfisk items and buying the Karcher adaptors so I can use those accessories with them should I need to.

 

I used to work in industrial catering cleaning, in a previous life before qualifying to become an IT Chimp, and we always used them as they just trucked on for years.   The chap who bought them said that the important bits on them are metal, whereas others are not, and this means they don't have stupid failures that lesser washers do.

 

This is something someone else has echo'd when I asked on faceache last week.

 

Do any of us have such things in our arsenal, and what did we purchase with our hard earned?

 

I'll likely go full mingebag and buy a reconditioned or used item , but new ones I'm open to as well.

 

I think about 120psi would do, and the ability to run a number of accessories for cleaning the car, the gutters on the roof, and pavements.

 

 

[beko1987]

I used mine just yesterday, and fixed the leak it's had for the past 2 years with an o ring from a mechanical keyboard...

 

I've got a little Nilfisk 110. Plenty fine for me, and I bought a proper snowfoam lance too which only fits it.

 

This is my second. The first died of frostbite, so I spent £20 on a new unit only and kept my old hose and lance, although the hose has megasplit now, and the lance leaks after probably 7 years.

 

The whole thing is cheap though

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F153345180006

[DodgeRover]

I have a Nilfisk and 2 expensive Karchers, the Nilfisk is much better at less cost, only downside is it needs a decent incoming water pressure whereas the others will run from a water butt.

[LessThanEqual]

So I need to buy a pressure washer. The car is filthy and because I'm actually driving a car I like, I want to keep it in decent fettle.

 

 

The only way for me to do this realistically is to buy a pressure washer, because once you've used one properly, using a bucket or two and an assortment of "product" just won't cut it.

 

The kicker for me was using my mates one last week to do his civic. Basically it went from a salt and grime addled mess to a gleaming delight (he's got one of the FN spaceship ones in that lovely metallic blue) in about 20 minutes, using just the pressure washer and a small amount of budget "snow foam" then giving it a once over with a leather to dry it.

 

Add to this my wife moaning about moss and slime on our pavement leading up to the house, and I think I've got good enough reason to add one to the "household" budget rather than using my own, which I run my chod fine automotive fleet from.

 

It's quite apparent, that I need one in my life.

 

Everyone seems to buy Karcher stuff, but I've been looking at Nilfisk items and buying the Karcher adaptors so I can use those accessories with them should I need to.

 

I used to work in industrial catering cleaning, in a previous life before qualifying to become an IT Chimp, and we always used them as they just trucked on for years. The chap who bought them said that the important bits on them are metal, whereas others are not, and this means they don't have stupid failures that lesser washers do.

 

This is something someone else has echo'd when I asked on faceache last week.

 

Do any of us have such things in our arsenal, and what did we purchase with our hard earned?

 

I'll likely go full mingebag and buy a reconditioned or used item , but new ones I'm open to as well.

 

I think about 120psi would do, and the ability to run a number of accessories for cleaning the car, the gutters on the roof, and pavements.

If you have a homebase near you, they're doing Ryobi 1800w pressure washers for £59. I believe they take nilfisk attachments, not sure as mine is waiting in the box until I buy a house.

[Andyrew]

I'd be tempted to go for a nilfisk when my ancient karcher gives up but it must be nearing 18 years old now and still going good.

 

It was a hand me down from my dad who bought it when they came out , for washing his work van, a swanky LDV convoy high top in City link yellow and green!

 

Not sure if new karchers will last as long as this one now tho.

 

Two bucket wrong'un hat on but

 

Depending on the level of clean you want, The snow foam is better as a prewash product before the actual wash.

To remove as much dirt and reduce scratching the car.

 

Doing what your friend is doing will probably be marking the paint alot.

So he could probably achieve the same but just pressure washing then using a waterless wash product and some cloths.

 

Having a good coat of wax on the car makes life alot easier as the dirt struggles to stick so speed up washing and drying time hugely.

 

G3 supergloss paste wax is my go too now, for the simplicity of it, its fantastic and goes a very long way. doesn't need to be panel by panel either. I do the whole car and the windows in about 20-30mins.

I've got colonite wax aswell and it is a lovely wax but it takes ages to do a whole car. So I just don't use it anymore.

[FakeConcern]

I've had a Nilfisk for a couple of years I think it was recomended by Dollywobler in another thread, anyway it works well and the only issue I have is that the hose gets twisted up very easily

 

I'm not sure what model it is and only pic I can find is this and I'm not going out to the garage to look now!

 

[paulscavalier]

I’ve got a karcher, it was given to me when my friend upgraded his. It’s ok. I have the karcher snow foam bit and the bendy bit to go under wheel arch and sills. A great prewash but I must admit it don’t actually pressure wash the car, I would rather gently rinse it off. I don’t think my paint is good enough to do it on. I use the colonite on my cars it’s a good polish to use over the winter it lasts on the car

[Split_Pin]

Right, I have never owned a convertible until now so can anybody give me a few tips to help me with the following questions?

 

1) The hood has a few stains on it from sitting under trees so I plan to use Renovo on it - is this the best thing to use? Its quite dear on ebay, about £15 a bottle.

 

2) After that, what do I clean it with during a regular wash of the car (happens weekly)

[oldcars]

From what i have read once the hood is cleaned and sealed most folk wash it monthly with car shampoo. If like me you clean weekly then maybe leave the roof and only do once a month.

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

Just watch, the bravest man in the world.

 

 

 

 

It is astonishing to see orange peel like this on the Maybach. Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars come with a paint finish like glass.

[Dippy]

On an expensive car like this it should have had paint correction at the factory as standard.

 

Mass produced cars just get painted by robots and no attempt is made to correct orange peel, if you take a car to a paintshop for a proper respray this is how they finish the job to get that amazing paint finish.

 

Thing is it takes a lot of time and time is money.

 

The paint on my classic is now 7 years old and looked great when it was painted but I have decided its time for a machine polish, now I dont like paying people to do something if I can do it myself.

SomI did a bit of tinternet research and bought a cheapish rotary polisher and some quality hexlogic pads and sonax perfect finish paste.

I have only done a test area on the bonnet itwas pretty scary at first but once you have a go you can see that with resonable care you will not damage the paint. Very impressed with the results and now need to find time to do the whole car.

 

My classic get lots of love and constant cleaning but my daily 940 is lucky to get jetwashed every 6 months.

 

Heres a shot of the paintwork polished on the left and lots of tiny scrathes on the right which in fairness can only be seen very close up in bright light.

 

[purplebargeken]

Mate jet washes the hood of his wife's MGF with no issues whatsoever, then uses the Renovo stuff which is actually pretty good. I have used it myself on various MGF's and have been more than happy with the results. 

[purplebargeken]

The Maybach cost £350 plus vat per panel to do. 

 

Utter bargain I say. 

[rainagain]

If anyone is looking for a new Nilfisk there’s some deals on hotukdeals, yesterday I saw one with a rrp of £100 being sold by amazon with 40% off

[NorfolkNWeigh]

It is astonishing to see orange peel like this on the Maybach. Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars come with a paint finish like glass.

That's not really a Maybach, Merc lost £275,000 on every Maybach they sold before pulling the plug, safe to assume they had perfect paint.

This Is a Mercedes-Maybach and its just a trim level on the the top spec 600 and 600 Pullman, presumably painted in the same way as a S400d, probably the same as any other Merc.

 

Incidentally there is a noticeable difference between a Bentley Mulsanne' s paint quality compared to the mass produced VW Bentleys, ie Continental, Bentayga etc.

[Shirley Knott]

I used mine just yesterday, and fixed the leak it's had for the past 2 years with an o ring from a mechanical keyboard...

 

I've got a little Nilfisk 110. Plenty fine for me, and I bought a proper snowfoam lance too which only fits it.

 

This is my second. The first died of frostbite, so I spent £20 on a new unit only and kept my old hose and lance, although the hose has megasplit now, and the lance leaks after probably 7 years.

 

The whole thing is cheap though

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F153345180006

 

^That does seem cheap but it has to be the worst advert ever! I'm trying to work out if it's used/refurbished unit, none of which seems clear. I'm also struggling to see what attachments (If any) it comes with?

 

I'd entertain the idea of buying a pressure washer as I'm lazy and hate washing the 'fleet' using buckets/sponges in winter, but at the same time my laziness would probably also mean I'd struggle to find the enthusiasm to unravel the extension and drag the machine out of the shed...

 

Also, I'd have doubts about how effective a pressure wash alone (Sans sponges etc) would be and would probably end up breaking out the buckets and sponges anyway thus defeating the object of the exercise. How much salt/grime do these things actually remove by themselves?

[Disco Fever]

So I need to buy a pressure washer. The car is filthy and because I'm actually driving a car I like, I want to keep it in decent fettle.

This. I succumbed yesterday and bought Auto Glym’s 3 bottle ‘Polar’ range for use with jet washers. I’ve been a 2 bucket wrongun throughout car ownership but being 50 and the rigours of winter are taking their toll. It’s going to be more about vac’ing the cars out tbh as they contain the mud of many West Midlands Saturday and Sunday league football pitches. Argh.