Anatomy of a detail


VERY often people will contact me for a detail and once they hear it can cost $300 and up they sometimes go . I think it's important for people to understand just what really goes into a quality detail. If you're sick and need a doctor are you going to seek out who can do the best job or who's the cheapest? If you're having bodywork on your car done do you want someone with experience and a record of quality or just some that is cheap? If you want cheap, head to your local car wash but don't complain when the sun hits your car and it looks worse than it did before. A quality detailer is an artist at what he or she does. It's someone that's going to have your car looking better than when it rolled off the showroom floor. It's someone that's going to treat your car the way they would treat theirs.

Detailing a car isn't just washing it and then throwing some wax on and then calling it a day. It's understanding what's wrong with the car and knowing what tools it's going to take to get that paint looking and feeling like glass. Each job is 100% CUSTOMIZED for that client's car. Is the car super swirled? Well it will probably need a fairly aggressive polish and maybe and pad which has some decent cut to it followed by a finishing polish with very little cut and a pad which has little bite to it. Do you need to start with 15 pounds of pressure or 10? What speed does the polisher have to be at and for how long? The combos can go on and on depending what you're trying to accomplish. Fully understanding how to attack jacked up paint is what turns this....


to this....


to this...


You also have to look at the costs the detailer has to incur. You need polish and quality polish can easily run $45+ a bottle. A quality sealant can be $25 - $50 a bottle. Quality wax can run $45 - $200 (though there are waxes over $1000), a DA or rotary for polishing can be $150-$350+. You need a LOT of polishing pads for the machine and those can be $5-$10 each and there's still metal polishes, clay, tire cleaners and tire protectants, leather cleaner, etc etc. Also, a quality detail is usually going to be at least 8 hours long, assuming it's one person doing the job, though I don't remember ever doing one that fast if polishing was involved. Maybe you can now see why you're not going to get a QUALITY detail for $100. There's MANY detailers that just want to get the job done fast and get the next person in so they don't take as much times as they should. In this picture you can see TONS of buffer trails all over the trunk of this '71 Sting Ray which was caused by going super fast and not allowing the polish to fully break down and do it's job....


Now here's a half and half shot of the same trunk when time was actually taken to do it right....



I know it's not easy these days to have a ton of extra cash laying around but there's no feeling like picking your car up from the detailer and seeing that transformation. When you do that, you will immediately forget what you paid because you won't believe your eyes. Whether it's myself or your local guys, we aren't people that are going to skimp because all of you that are driving around in cars we've detailed are rolling billboards for the work we do. So the next time you want your car detailed and you want us to cut our costs, tell us first which steps we can skimp on. Seriously though I hope this helped everyone get a better understanding of all that is involved with a quality detail.

 

I already knew, I'm glad I don't drive a black car and you can't see swirls or anything lol

 

Exactly

 

Very, very well put. Couldn't have said it better! Nice work by the way.

 

Chad for the price you charge, I believe it's more than fair.

For those of you guys who don't know Chad, he's local to me even though I've personally never gotten a detail from him (yet), he's done numerous cars and it's always a night and day difference.

Chad I am rarely on CZ lately but I'll PM you through here when my car can (finally) get a detail from you, I know it needs it given that it's been 2 years and it's my daily.

 

Thanks Tof, just say when.

 

How long do these details hold up if you do not have a garage or cover your car? I live in Cali.

 

Wow, that's a crazy sick detail. Better than a lot of professional detailers I know

 

Great question. It really depends on how you take care of it after the detail. This is what I suggest for you to keep the car looking a good as possible. Do NOT NOT NOT go to car washes!!!! They are the quickest way to destroy your finish. Invest in a really good detail spray like Zaino Z8. It's not cheap as far as detail sprays go but the slickness is insane and the slicker your cars surface is, the easier it is to get dust and dirt off of it. Being in Cali you obviously don't have the rainfall like we have in Chicago so that helps since you park outside. Parking outside does make it tough for sure but keep a good wax on the car and depending how much dust your picking up during the day and depending on the color of your car, I'd wash the car one a week like on a Saturday morning. Use a nice plush microfiber wash mit and quality soap like Meguiars Gold Class and GENTLY wash the car starting from the top down. Use 2 buckets, one for soapy water and one for clean water. This was you can rinse the wash mit after a couple passes to ensure you aren't dragging dirt or other contaminants across the paint. When you dry the car (this is when most swirling happens) you want to have to wipe the paint as little as possible. Get a nice plush microfiber towel and in one direction, gently soak the water up. You can also use the "flooding" technique which works great too. Here's a little vid I shot to show you what to do

I hope this helped.

 

Very useful and helpful information. My car is black so it is really swirly. I thought the automatic car washes were bad. So the squirt yourself ones are bad too? I really don't have a place to wash my car so I always go to the squirt yourself ones.. Thanks for the info!

 

Squirt yourself places can be totally fine as long as you DO NOT USE THE BRUSH!! That thing just sits there collecting all the crap that came off of other cars so don't touch it! You can easily bring a bucket, soap and washing mit with you and do it that way, just obviously not while they are busy.

 

You look like Dallas Green in the after photo on the Z.

Good 50/50 on the vette.

 

Ironic, my old band played with alexisonfire years ago.

 

I have to agree. Having detailed my G for the first time I can say it was a lot of work. I took two weeks with 4-5 hrs/day excluding weekends. I did a 3 step polish process with M105/205 combo.

I want to get a Flex to hopefully go faster. But it is a lot of work and practice helps you pick up speed.

 

Good thread. A lot of pro detailers START their polishing services at ~$300. You definitely get what you pay for.