Hi

Hope to pick new car up in a couple of weeks, read on here that from dealer they are not prepared as they should be for the long hard toll the British weather is going to throw at them.

Up to now all I have done is bucket with washing up liquid in, wash with sponge, rinse water off, dry, use a t-cut type product if looks like car as never been polished for a time, put on some/any mid range branded car polish (what ever I picked up at the time), rub polish off and away I go, always seemed to look clean and bright to me

Reading the threads on here the way of cleaning and polishing a car seems to have changed dramatically, so what I wish to know is

What is the correct way to make the car look better than the rest.

What does each of these different tasks / products atchive

Is it for real or marketing hype using all this expensive stuff.

I would spend more time cleaning and polishing my motor bikes than I did riding them however it was basic products and elbow grease that did the trick and got results along with comments like is it brand new (5 yr old at the time)

I would also like to know best method of protecting the alloy wheels as soon as car is collected from dealer so a quick rinse will then bring them back to former glory

Love this site, does it have a fast find set up, is there any way of viewing a larger amount of threads on a page seem to be forever scrolling back looking for information

Thanks

Hi and welcome to FOC.

Have you read the detailing TOPICthat was set up by both DanGull and Greeny. You will find them really useful for bits and pieces of information, it will be some read though as the the topic has grown rapidly The answers to most of your questions you will find in there.

Yes there is a search bar, you will find it in the banner at the top of the page titled "Google site search" :P

Can i ask what you mean about viewing a larger amount of threads? Are you seeing a screen likeTHIS?

Welcome to FOC.

As well as the detailing thread posted by Gaz - there's also the detailing guide I pinned up in the detailing forum - it sort of collates much of what has been said in the detailing thread into one place.

Detailing Guide

As regards viewing lots of posts at once - not that I know of, I tend to use browser tabs if there are several things I want to refer to at once.

Enjoy your first steps into detailing - but be prepared for your wallet to take a bashing, it's an expensive and addictive hobby.

Enjoy your first steps into detailing - but be prepared for your wallet to take a bashing, it's an expensive and addictive hobby.

Don't i know it! I'm running out of stuff now. Not good at all!

Welcome to the forums :)

If your getting a brand new car you could just start off with using the two bucket method to wash your car and then slowy build up your detailing gear. I would highly recommend meguiars products. They are cheap and user friendly. You could buy the clay bar starter kit and paint cleaner/polish/wax steps (step 1 2 and 3) and make sure you buy a lambs wool mit (NO FRICKING SPONGES) and some nice microfibre cloths.

Check out http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk - absolute heaven for people nuts about cleaning their car, they've got all the products you'll ever need.

Meguiars, Autoglym and Chemical Guys make very good products.

Check out http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk - absolute heaven for people nuts about cleaning their car, they've got all the products you'll ever need.

Meguiars, Autoglym and Chemical Guys make very good products.

Even better i4detailing for your 7.5% discount ;)

Will one of you guys 'nuts' about cleaning your cars come and clean mine??? please!!!! :D

2 bucket method?, can some one explain

The two bucket method is one of the easiest ways to safely wash a car without causing any scratches - or at least reducing the chances of them.

As you would expect you have two buckets - one is filled with both water and shampoo (wash bucket) and the other with just plain water (rinse bucket). You charge the washmitt in the bucket with shampoo, but you rinse it only in the plain water bucket.

The thinking is that if any grit or muck has been picked up on the mitt, then it will end up in the rinse bucket rather than staying in your sponge or ending up in the clean wash water. That way it is less likely to get trapped between mitt and paint and cause scratches.

Even better i4detailing for your 7.5% discount ;)

Only problem is they don't stock a lot of the products I want, so... :(

Nuthing worse than paying postage from a few different sites, hate that aswell

Will one of you guys 'nuts' about cleaning your cars come and clean mine??? please!!!! :D

would love 2 where are you.. and can you make tea :) :)