Premium Auto Detailing – Can You REALLY Get It From That Car Wash?

Alright, let’s talk about CAR WASHES.

Your big industrial-like car washes are… well, they’re like an assembly line where they send them through an automatic system, pretty simple process… Experience the spa treatment with car detailing Port Melbourne service.

Usually, to start, they’ll pull up to a vacuum area, where, how well you get your car vacuumed out pretty much depends on which minimum-wage guy you get, and what kind of mood he’s in that day. Let’s just tell the truth about it here. Sometimes you get a good deal. Other times, well, you’ve taken your car to these washes. You know just what I’m talking about here.

Then they pull them around to the next stage where a crew will spray them off, and they might add any cleaners (that are way too STRONG) to your tires or wheels… usually they’ve got a really strong degreaser, or a really strong bug remover, something like that, and then they pressure wash the vehicle off really quickly and just send it through, where they’re usually put on a track system…

This system… it’s an automatic thing. They’ll put your car in neutral, and the track system grabs on to it, takes over… and starts pulling your car through this long tunnel.

In the tunnel, it gets sprayed with a bunch of recycled water from all the other vehicles, all the contaminants, that have already been through there, a sometimes they’re hit by brush, sometimes they are touchless… either way it’s the same. Either they’re blasted or they’re hit with a lot of these rubber-felt things that are pretty rough, as it’s coming out of that end. Better than keeping your car dirty all the time, for sure… but really not all that good for the long-term health of your paint job.

So it gets through the tunnel, where it practically gets beat up with these strips that are supposed to scrub it… which works by rotating at high speeds, and basically slapping your car a whole lot as they come around. So your car is essentially grabbed at the front end, pulled through this tunnel where it gets slapped around a bunch (probably wondering what it did that would make you so mad at it that you would punish it this way. I mean, think about it… to you, you’re washing your car, trying to clean it up, make it look pretty. To your car, you’re pretty much sending it in there to get spanked, beat up, abused… it might come out a little bit shinier, what passes for clean–if you really don’t know CLEAN–but I imagine you probably hurt its feelings pretty good…)

Okay, anyway, so at the other end of the tunnel, usually there’ll be a guy that jumps in it, who’s going to make a quick pass at your console, then you’ll have guys who will wipe down your inside windows pretty quickly, and the guy that jumps in your front driver’s seat, he’ll wipe down your dash, your front console, your window, that kind of thing…

There are usually three or four guys there. One guy gets the back driver’s window, the other guy gets the two on the other side, and they’ll dry the vehicle down really quickly as it’s coming out of the end of the tunnel and there’s some air blowing there too that helps that process out. The front end driver pulls it out, a few guys come out, wipe down the door jambs, maybe finish drying it off if it needs that.

At some of them, they might upsell you a little bit to it by adding dressing to your tires, things like that.
And they might pull it out of there and put some wax on, which is usually a BAD idea at this point for several reasons…

Is your car REALLY clean? Really? There are still a lot of contaminants in your paint if you haven’t treated it with a clay bar, and by waxing, you’re just sealing them in, making sure the sun really wears on them really well, and doing long-term damage to your paint.

And what kind of wax are they using? What’s in it? What does it do? What does it mean? Some things to think about.

So it’s bad enough, with the waxing, when it’s just a hand application (you know, the squirt on a little pad, run the pad over the car, wait a minute or two, then wipe if off kind of thing.)

By the way, can you believe this passes for “PREMIUM” treatment at most places? Something else to think about. Once you know more about this stuff (and I’ll be posting quite a few articles dealing with the different levels of service and their process, explaining a lot about waxes and paint correction, that sort of thing… so stay tuned) it should be enough to make you really squirm next time you see some “Car Wash” place try to upsell you on a “Premium Detail Service” when you realize what it actually is you’re getting.

So, what I just described is the process you’ll run into at most of your commercial car washes. Bad enough, right? It gets worse…

See, you REALLY get into problems when someone puts a buffer on it who doesn’t know what they are doing (and if they are buffing, or “polishing” your car, as they call it, without having done a clay bar treatment to remove the contaminants in the paint, I promise you they DON’T know what they are doing) because what happens at this point is the machine takes all these contaminants and swirls them around and grinds them into your paint. The buffing pad becomes the equivalent of sandpaper, and you can really destroy a paint job here. Of course, just that kind of thing is done every single day at a lot of these large, industrial car-washes.

And that’s about it… that’s your standard car wash…

I mean, look, if you have an old car that isn’t worth all that much, just some beater you use to get around town, yeah, take it to a car wash. I’m not trying to put them down. They do their thing, and there’s value in it for a lot of folks. It’s WAY better than just letting dirt and contaminants continue to accumulate and never wash it at all… that’s the WORST thing you can do. And that’s fine for a lot of folks.

But what I’m doing here in this series of articles is going through the different levels of care and maintenance for your car, showing the difference between the levels that, of course, none of them are going to tell you, if they even KNOW it, because, well, it’s not all that good for their business to admit a lot of this stuff to you.

But this article series is about… trying to educate you a little about all this, show the difference, so that when you make a decision about which level you’re going to choose for the long-term care and maintenance for your car, it’s an INFORMED decision… that you have the facts about what you’re dealing with… how it fits together.

So yeah, the car wash, which is basically what I’d call “Level 1” is fine for a lot of folks. Not trying to put them down here. They get dirt off cars, might make them smell good for a little while, that kind of thing. And they provide a lot of jobs for high school kids. There is that. And I guess that’s a good thing. Nothing against the car wash.

The car wash is great for a Kia… not so much for your Porsche, or Jag, or Bentley, or Rolls…

If you’ve got a nicer car, something that’s pricy, or a classic or, whatever, you really want to think about the long-term care, and understand the difference between the different levels of service, and how that plays in long-term with preserving and enhancing your car’s value and it’s beauty…

Jimmy Hoss is author of “How To Make Love to Your Car… And Get the Neighbors BEGGING for Pictures.”

He is a lifelong car enthusiast, a Master Detailer, and owner of Hoss Detailing Systems, LLC, a Premier Specialty Detailing shop in Shreveport, Louisiana, dealing in many high-end luxury and sports cars. Jimmy is an expert in Paint Correction.

Jimmy likes to have a good time. His blog is filled with useful advice about detailing, and just a lot of fun stuff from life in general. You can see that at their website, just click here.

You can also visit his company at [http://HossDetailingSystems.com] or call (877) 799-HOSS.

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3 Steps For Detailing Your Own Car

You don’t need that clean car smell, but it’s so nice to have a freshly washed car that’s been vacuumed and detailed. Except who wants to spend $150-250 to get that done? Car detailing companies involves cleaning a car’s exterior and interiors thoroughly.

First, gather up the equipment. You will need a bucket, a good cleaning solution, a very soft, natural sponge, a squeegee, cotton swabs, a high quality liquid synthetic wax, cotton swabs, a vacuum cleaner, dust clothes, and lots of either all cotton cloths or microfiber. You don’t want anything with polyester in it as that will scratch the paint. Chamois cloths can also be used but tend to be a bit more expensive. If you have leather or vinyl seats, get a cleanser just for that, otherwise, use a spray on, vacuum off cleaner for cloth seats.

Some people use two or even three buckets for washing their car. In the three bucket method, one bucket is just water for rinsing off the sponge. The second bucket has a soapy solution for washing off the sponge to remove grit and dirt. The third bucket is another soapy solution for using to wash the car. So for each pass on the vehicle, you would get soaped up, wash a section of the car, rinse off the sponge, wash the sponge by dipping a few times and squeezing out the dirt, and then getting more good soapy suds and wash another part of the car. The two bucket method is similar but it’s just water for cleaning the dirt and grit off of the sponge before getting more suds.

Park your car in the shade or at least as shady as you can get. Set up your boom box and get the tunes playing. Open up the hood and clean out the leaves that accumulated. If you have a trunk, you’ll do this as well. A good shop vac will take care of this quickly, otherwise, carefully use your hands.

Secondly, starting from the front and working backwards, hose down the car and get to work washing. Pay special attention to removing bugs from the grill and headlights, and any sap that might have fallen on the top of the car. Rinse really well getting underneath the car as best you can. Rub your hand over the paint. If it feels smooth, then start squeegeeing the windows. If it doesn’t, you may want to wash again, and invest in some detailer’s clay to remove everything before you put on a coat of wax.

The first thing you want to dry are the mirrors and the windows since they dry the fastest. When drying the body of the vehicle, try to use a blotting motion rather then rubbing. This saves on your paint job. Change towels frequently so you’re not rubbing dirt onto paint. And make sure you use a separate towel just for the wheels. They tend to be the dirtiest and you don’t want that grease back on your nice clean car!

Third is the actual detailing! You need to make sure that the car is completely dry before you put on the wax. So at this point, you could wash the insides of the windows and the rear view mirror, and vacuum out the floor and mats. Then if you have cloth seats, spray them down with the cleaner. Using a very soft cloth and following the directions, apply the liquid synthetic wax to the car from front to back. Make absolutely certain you avoid anything plastic, metal, or any of the trim. It could take hours to get it off, so be careful up front. Synthetic waxes last long, and liquid waxes are much easier to apply. While it’s drying, you can vacuum off the cloth seats or you can treat the leather or vinyl seats. Using your crevice attachment, vacuum out all the little areas around the seats and any storage areas. Wash down and dry any spills in these areas. Taking the duster, dust down the dashboard. There are special conditioners for dashboards that keep the material soft. It’s your call if you wish to use them. Use the cotton swabs for cleaning out the vents. Using a damn cloth, wipe down the steering wheel and the steering column. A lot of dust gets trapped here.

When the wax is all dry, it’s time to buff. Start in the front, use a back and forth motion with a very soft cloth. Do not use the circular motion as it will cause abrasions in the paint surface.

Now sit back and admire your work. Great job! Do this at least once a month to keep your car in perfect condition. If you have external problems like sap, salt, leaves, and messy birds, you may wish to do this every other week.

If you did this to sell your car, you can keep it looking great by parking it carefully and wiping it down with a soft microfiber cloth before you take it out for a test drive. And I’ll leave it up to you whether you use New Car Smell scent. Before you choose your detailer, click here.

Lara J Fabans

Keeping you and your car happy and healthy without breaking the bank

[http://www.selling-my-car-online.com/]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Lara_Fabans/125421

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Choosing the Best Car Surface Protection

Paint protection Adelaide for autos is the very best feasible kind of finish for your motor vehicle s area due to the fact that not simply does it keep the luster of your paintwork gleaming as though it has actually just left the display room, however it is also self-cleaning.

The process behind it is remarkable and is based on something from attributes. It is called the lotus result given that it was found that the lotus flower has self-cleaning residential properties on its leaves. This additionally applies to a few other plants such as walking cane, nasturtium and irritable pear. Additionally, some pests such as specific butterflies and dragonflies have the exact same capability.

When Was The Lotus Result Discovered?
Researchers first began to learn this sensation in 1964, and the work was more developed by Barthlott and Ehler in 1977; it was they that first created the term the lotus impact. The fallen leaves of the lotus flower have a very high water repellent property which is called super-hydrophobicity. When it rains, water droplets roll throughout the leaves and get filth, eliminating it from the surface area, thus making it possible for the plant to remain clean and the leaves to perform their feature of photosynthesis to make it possible for the plant to expand.

The higher area tension of a water droplet implies that it tends to minimize its area in an undertaking to obtain a form which is as near a round as possible. On reaching a surface, forces of attachment reason the surface to end up being damp. The surface could end up being partially moist or entirely damp and this will certainly depend upon the liquid tension of the water droplet and the sticky nature of the surface area.

The much less of the water droplet that is in contact with the surface area, the greater that area s hydrophobicity is stated to be. This hydrophobicity can be determined by the get in touch with angle of the water droplet on the surface area. The lesser the get in touch with angle, the lesser the hydrophobicity and vice versa. If a call angle on a certain surface area is much less compared to 90 levels the surface is referred to as hydrophilic. More than 90 levels it is hydrophobic.

Some plants have a contact angle of as long as 160 degrees therefores that only around 2 % of the water droplet touches with the area. When it come to lotus leaves, the get in touch with angle is as higher as 170 levels. These areas are claimed to be super-hydrophobic. The surface of a water droplet in contact with a lotus fallen leave might be as litlle as 0.6 %.

Just how Does Gunk Obtain Cleaned Off The Area?
When gunk jumps on to such a surface area the quantity of bond in between the filth particle and the area is far much less compared to on other surfaces. When a water droplet rolls throughout the surface the amount of adhesion in between the area and the gunk fragment is much less than that between the dust particle and the droplet, so the dust fragment is gotten by the droplet and carried away causing automatic cleansing of the surface area. Nonetheless, this only works because of the high degree of surface area strain of a water droplet and does not operate in similarly with organic solvents.

In essence, that is just how it helps the lotus fallen leave. Specifically the very same concept is used in nano paint innovation for car paint protection Melbourne.

How Does Nano Paint Protection Work For Automobiles?
Nano innovation has progressed to the factor whereby a tough safety ceramic coating could be applied to the lacquered finished surface area of the car s paintwork when it leaves the factory. The lacquered area is not insusceptible to bird droppings, UV, or chemical etching and could be conveniently damaged or damaged. When this occurs the only alternative is to brighten off the scratch marks or swirl marks consequently minimizing the thickness of the factory paint layer. Gradually this implies that at some point a respray will be needed.

Lots of people will certainly make use of a wax polish or a polymer paint sealant on the paintwork, yet this still leaves the paint surface at risk to damage from square one, bird droppings and so on, as these can permeate the polish or sealant.

Just what Is the Answer?
The answer is to apply a hard nano paint modern technology finish to the area of the paintwork. The covering is much less at risk to damage than any other area layers, but also if swirl marks or various other damages ought to take place the covering itself can be polished off and re-applied. This indicates that the manufacturing plant paintwork will certainly not be harmed and will certainly maintain its density and sparkle.

In effect nano modern technology duplicates the results discovered in nature in a basic method and super-hydrophobic coatings have actually been made use of on man made surface areas for a significant number of years. One such application is self-cleaning glass made use of for home windows, but they have been utilized in different other applications. For instance, super-hydrophobic coatings integrating Teflon particles have actually been made use of on clinical diagnostic slides.

The exact same innovation has actually been made use of for points as varied as roof ceramic tiles and leather upholstery. It could be made use of on satellite tv dishes, for instance, in order to decrease the opportunity of rainfall discolor and to counteract any kind of develop of ice and snow on the antenna.

It has even been made use of for tree growing. The Groasis Waterboxx is a gadget created for planting small trees in locations of harsh drought which allows the young sapling to have enough water reach its root systems till the roots crash far enough into the ground to reach water. The Waterboxx could then be eliminated and utilized once more in other places. Nano modern technology enables the Waterboxx to harvest dew and condensation and channel it down to the origins of the sapling even in areas of desert.

In order to shield the paintwork of your automobile and preserve that fresh out of the showroom look with none of the hard work, nano paint protection is the solution for the critical driver. You will certainly never ever need to fret about scrape marks or bird droppings, and your auto will simply require a quick rinse to eliminate any kind of dirt. It doesn’t matter whether your automobile is new, or several years old; we could keep it the method it is, or recover it to the means it was. Click here for paint protection need of your car.

You will likewise have the ability to make fun of your next-door neighbors cleaning and brightening every Sunday early morning!