Here is my recommended order for a car detail, if I'm missing something let me know. Use whatever chemicals and products you prefer. I did this rather quickly so I probably didn't do the best of discriptions or whatever...

1.Vac inside of car completely
2.Take air hose and blow out all the nooks and cracks to remove hidin debris
3.Vac car again.
4.Use a mild soap and wipe down entire interior.
5.Dry with soft cloth.
6.Take q-tips and soft brissle brush and get in all the small places
7.Wipe down interior once more.
8.remove seats and shampoo carpet. Let air dry with doors open and fans blowin.
9.While interior drys take floor mats and power wash them to the extreme. This will remove any hard pressed dirt from within the carpet.
10.After interior is dry, vac one more final time to get any residue etc...
11.Install seats and interior pieces.
12.Mist car interior with your favorite scent.
13.Now spray exterior of car with water.
13.Apply bug and tar remover to exterior of the vehicle and let sit for 1-3 minutes to break down the crap.
14.Using a soft sponge or shammy remove all excess bugs and tar.
15.Mist car with soap water.
16.Open doors, hood, and trunk.
17.Take wet shammy and wipe down all the gaps and sills etc...on the doors,hood, and trunk areas.(this is one of the details that really sets a clean car apart from a detailed car)
18.While drying take a brush and scrub the seat belts with mild soap to remove oil and stains from where you been puttin your hands on them for who knows how long.
19.Clean underside of hood with soapy water and dry etc...
20.Now, using a engine cleaner of choice spray the engine down and all the under hood components.
21.Let sit for time listed on product.
22.Now on a lower pressure setting power wash engine compartment and get rid of all the nasty engine crap.
23.Dry engine compartment with shammy.
24.Close doors, hood, trunk, etc...
25.Wash car normally, making sure to get inside of gas lid, under the sides of the body and fender wells.
26.Clean rims and tires using your personal product of choice.
27.Now clay bar the entire exterior surface of the vehicle.
28.After done, wash the car again.
29.Dry car completely then let sit for a period of time to make sure it is dry.
30.Time to buff either by hand or machine. Just take your time and make sure not to swirl the paint.
31.Remove all excess crap from buffing.
32.Apply polish/wax to exterior and remove excess when finished.
33.Interior should be dry now so replace floor mats and any remaining pieces.
34.Apply your favorite interior product (armor all etc..)
35.Clean all interior windows using 2 pieces of paper towel folded into 4's. This will keep you from going through an entire roll of paper doing the windows.
36.Clean exterior windows.
37.Apply tire shine, lightly, Use a water based product to prevent crap from flinging all over your pretty car.
38.Go over entire finished product and do any spot detailing you want.

This is most of the steps I use to take when Detailing cars. This is just the quick way of doing it and looking somewhat professional. It may seem like a lot of steps but a good detail should honestly take 3 days or 12-15 hours of consecutive work to perform, it all depends on how gross the car looks.

 

Wanna do mine?

 

great write up.

 

that would be a awesome stickey....can anybody add what brands, cleaners, chemicals they use?....

 

sticky? that would be cool, I got more tips and tricks up my sleeve if any body has questions?

 

very long process, I bet the end result is great though

 

another way to get the carpet to dry quicker is to close the doors crank it up and trun the heat to the floor on full blast, i usually do this while im doing the outside of the car

 

I felt bad for a customer one time cuz we did a full 3 day detail on it, and the day he got it back it snowed...we give a free wash coupon to every customer though...I quit shortly there-after so I don't know if he came back to rewash it.

 

That's pretty badass. Only thing I noticed: I would personally switch 26 and put it after #30 as I find that washing the car sometimes gets crap on the rims, requires me to very thoroughly dry the rims...etc etc. This way your wheels and tires are shiny as hell 8-)

 

true I made the list in somewhat of a hurry so there are probably a couple things that could use an order of operations change.

 

what is the purpose of using 2 was buckets? ive never understood it, also what kind of shampooer are you using?

 

1.The purpose of 2 wash buckets is to keep clean and dirty water apart from each other. Or one wash bucket is used for the sponge/mat and the other is used to keep the shammy wet. You can do all kinds of stuff with multiple wash buckets.

2.You can use something as simple as a home carpet shampooer with attachments like a bissel steam vac etc...Although I would recommend something with some strong sucking power to get the deep dirt. In that case you would use an industrial grade shampooer. Regular carpet cleaning chemicals from bissel work just fine.

 

STICKY!!!! I hate that I haven't had time to detail my car yet...

 

I work at a detail shop right now in Norman, Ok we do personals and dearlerships, we do cars/trucks from 2006 Z06's to new mustangs to old beaters heres what we do and it takes about 2 hours at the most

before detail
#1 pre vac car and trunk
#2 buff if it needs it, sleek, polish or stiff
#3 spray the car down with degreaser, door moldings engine bay, truck carpet plastic moldings
#4 acid the wheels and fender wells
#5 shimmy off
buff before wash so you can get the compound out of cracks

outside
#1 blow out cracks with a air hose
#2 spray paint fender wells, frame, axle with black spray paint
#3 spray paint the exhuast with an engine paint type silver, make it look new, if you have chrome take steel wool to it
#4 take g-solve to get tar, and overspray from when you were painting
#5 dress the tires and all the plastic moldings, and egnine bay
#6 put some wax on

inside

#1 take a cleaner and a towel and brush
spray down the door and have the brush and scup of dirt if dirty or wipe down
#2 do it in sections, like the door than the dash then the center console. and use an air hose to get stuff out of cracks
#3 use your brush and scup the carpets til they look clean, blow underenth the seats and get crap out.
#4 spray the seats down and scup them, whipe them down,
#5 after cleaning dress the insides, glove box, the seat rails, EVERYthing.
#6 vac one last time and dress the rubbers around the doors.
#7 have 2 mirco fiber towls and do the windows, both inside and outside,
#8 take the wax off

I wrote this pretty fast,
you want to dress before you do windows or take the wax off because if you dont than you get spots all over the windows or on the car. if your around Norman area give us a call and ask for D and we will do you right, and if you want some before and after pics Ill post them up, our company name is Car Cosmetics (405)364-7279

 

I learned my detailing from a GM dealer also. Then I took the role of a mechanic for a year before my current job at CAT. We have a speed detail similar to the one you just described. Quick details are nice and I'm not trying to detour any of your sales but theres nothing like a long quality clean you know what I mean? And yes always dress before cleaning windows.

Cleaning the glove box and inside of console is always a + thanks for bringing that up. Doing the small things like that is what brings you repeat buisness! Nobody wants to pay $100+ for a detail if it turns out to be just a regular wash...

 

im mostly interested in the engine bay cleaning. what are the best products for keeping under the hood looking like new? is it safe to hose off junk under the hood?

 

haha i did everything listed there, plus more and it took me a total of 10 cummulative hours, spanning across a week and a half. the only thing is that once it's THAT clean, it only takes a week to make it dirty again (especially on a black car with leather interior like mine lol). the best thing u can do once it's that clean is take LOTS of pictures, and then show everybody what it looks like in it's prime. a picture lasts forever... a clean car last's a couple miles...
I know f-bodies are notorious for fogging up behind the brake light lenses every now and then, so it looks sharp if those are detatched and buffed out on the inside, as well as the outside. i used anti-fog on the inside, and have never had a problem since. same thing applies with headlight covers too (camaros).

 

I never use armor all on the interior, from my experince it would always resulted in cracking the dash from heat quicker...

 

there is a sticky on "the proper cleaning of a lsx based engine", i believe that is the exact name also.

 

we try to do as many cars/trucks possible in a day from 6am-6pm with 4 guys working. more cars more money but we make them look good, probably the best around here, I've been doing it for a year and didnt think it would take that long and how much detail is detail work