Car detailing is all about making your car look its absolute best—and keeping it looking great for as long as possible. Detailing can include washing, buffing, painting, waxing, ceramic coatings, and more; the point is to improve your car’s appearance and protect it from future damage.
Interior detailing may not be as flashy as exterior detailing, but it’s just as important—you want your car to look as good on the inside as it does on the outside. We recommend starting with interior detailing; if you do the interior second, you might end up getting dust or fingerprints on your freshly detailed exterior.
Cleaning your car’s interior is a fairly involved process; a good interior detailing might include vacuuming, conditioning, steam cleaning, sealants, and even applying ceramic coatings to further protect your vehicle.
Interior car detailing can take anywhere from 1-6 hours depending on the size of your car and the level of detailing you’re doing.
Your vehicle is going to be covered in all kinds of filth—pollen, debris, dust, dirt, and more. Giving your car a good spray can get rid of a lot of contaminants before you start really washing, clay-barring, drying, and polishing. We recommend spraying your wheels and engine bay first, then spraying off the rest of the car.
A quick pre-wash before you begin the real work can seriously reduce the risk of swirl marks and scratches from contaminants; don’t neglect this step!
These areas are full of grime, grease, dirt, brake dust, and other contaminants. A detailer will clean them before working on the rest of your vehicle—that way, they can just wash off any grime that lands on the rest of your car.
Specialized wheel cleaners and tire cleaners are usually used to clear off all of the contaminants and restore the look of your wheels; in a more comprehensive car detailing, tire wax or ceramic coating may be used to protect your wheels.
The next step is to work on your headlights—they might need a little more TLC than the rest of your vehicle because they can get cloudy and oxidized. Restoring your headlights can improve their functionality, so it’s an important step.
First, tape off your headlights—you may then need to sand, polish, and buff the headlights. From there, using a UV sealant can help prevent your headlights from getting cloudy or yellow. Headlight restoration can be a messy job, so working on them before cleaning the rest of your car is the way to go.
You can give your car’s exterior another quick rinse; then it’s time to start putting in some elbow grease. Washing your car’s exterior involves a pre-soak, scrubbing your vehicle from the roof down, constantly resoaking the wash mitt or microfibre cloth you’re using, cleaning contaminants out of the bucket of soapy water, and rinsing with a hose or pressure washer any time a section is fully washed. Special attention will need to be paid to certain areas to remove stubborn dirt.
Once the car wash is complete, your vehicle will need to be dried down with microfibre towels; if you let a vehicle air-dry, you’ll almost definitely end up with streaks.
With the vehicle dry, you can now look for any embedded brake dust, metal dust, road grit, or other contaminants. You’ll need to remove those contaminants with a clay bar; if you’ve never used one, you’re in for a treat. A clay bar treatment (or a clay mitt for even better results) will get your vehicle looking as good as new.
Now that contaminants have been removed, it’s time for paint correction; this process involves using abrasives to level your clear coat, removing swirl marks, light scratches (and even heavy scratches), and more. The process of paint correction can leave your vehicle’s paint looking a little hazy—the next step is polishing.
By using polishing compounds, any haziness from the paint correction process can be removed, giving your vehicle a mirror-like sheen. Your vehicle is looking its best—but there are just a couple of details left to cover before the detailing is done:
Your car paint looks immaculate; the next step is protecting it. Car wax is the most commonly used protective layer for most auto detailing, but we highly recommend going with a ceramic coating instead; it’s sturdier, longer lasting, and helps your car look its best for longer.
Most of the work is done—now it’s a simple matter of applying trim dressing, washing windshields, windows, and mirrors, and ensuring that everything looks perfect. Your vehicle should be looking better than new by now—that’s every step to car detailing covered!
Car owners will often handle some detailing tasks themselves; washing your own car can be pretty satisfying. The car detailing process is pretty labour-intensive, though, and a thorough car detailing will take hours. You’ll also need a whole lot of car detailing supplies—you might not have a clay bar lying around, let alone a polisher or rotary buffer.
Professional car detailers have the supplies to do the job right; they’re also full of car lovers who have years of experience detailing vehicles. If you want your car to look absolutely immaculate—and to save yourself what could be days of work—go see a professional car detailer.
The team at Crystal Auto Styling can help. We offer high-quality car detailing in Winnipeg, including clay bar treatments, paint correction, ceramic coatings, and more. See your vehicle like you’ve never seen it before—get in touch with us today!
