Cleaning your car at home can be a simple process that reaps great results, but using the right products and techniques is key to a long lasting finish. We have made a guide of the top 4 main points to consider when cleaning your pride and joy.
Allocating enough time:
First of all is time. It might sound simple, but ensuring you have plenty of it to get the job done correctly is key. With limited time, you'll find the results significantly drop with missed patches, streaky finishes and potential chances of scratching. This is even more important if your vehicle has been detailed, you want to maintain that finish, especially knowing all the investment, time and labour that has gone into it. Depending on vehicle size, we would recommend 2 hours for an inside and out valet.
Separation of buckets and tools:
Next up is probably the biggest key to a scratch free finish, keeping all of your buckets and equipment specific to each part of the car. To start off, we would use a 20L bucket which has our AWC wheel mitt, wheel brush and a few drops of AWC shampoo in, this is then only used for the wheels, keeping that nasty wheel grime away from your prestigious paint. When it comes to the paintwork, we have two 20L buckets, one is filled with just water and the other is filled with water and car shampoo. This is commonly known as the two bucket method where one is for the soap solution to work into the cars paintwork, and the other is to rinse off the dirt you have picked up in the wash mitt. Using this process will reduce swirl marks, marring and any other light surface scratches.
While talking about the wash process, we will throw in a secret - Work the shampoo up and down instead of side to side. This way you will reduce the wash marring, but just ensure you don't go to low as we use a separate mitt for the side skirts and bottoms of the bumpers.
Weather conditions
If you have ever tried to wash your car in the sun you will know the pain of seeing water spots and lime scale dried to the paintwork. It isn't always possible due to driveway or the road position, but we would always recommend washing away from direct sunlight. This way your products will have more time to work and therefore will be more cost effective in the long run. Another way of avoiding water spots is to use filtered / pure water from companies such as Spotless Water.
Finishing touches
The final touches to your DIY car valet will make or break it. Using tyre shine, glass cleaner and quick detailer will elevate your results and bring the package together. Starting off with the tyres, once dried, apply a layer of your favourite tyre dressing and let to sit. Moving onto the glass, there is only one product for the job, our AWC glass cleaner, spray on, wipe off and admire the streakless finish. To conclude any package, we spray our AWC ceramic detailer onto the paint, wheels and door jams which gives an extremely glossy finish that is hard to match.
