Auto Detailing FAQs | The Difference Between Wax & Paint Sealants

This week Adventures in Detailing covers the question, “What is the difference between a wax & a sealant?”

Carnauba is pretty much the industry standard as far as wax is concerned. It is derived from the leaves of a Brazilian palm & is much sought after by car care enthusiasts because of the deep, rich, wet look that it gives to the finish of a vehicle whose paint is in decent condition. Wax will usually afford protection for your paint for about 6 – 8 weeks.

For any protection application it is best (if not necessary) to clean your paint first, this is not only washing your car to remove the dirt, grit & grime, but using automotive clay to pull out the surface contaminants (like industrial fallout, paint over spray, light tar, very light cement), many of which may not even be visible to the naked eye & polish to even out the micro-scratches in the finish & get rid of oxidation (kind of like scrubbing away dead skin when you take a bath).

Paint Sealants are man made polymer synthetics that bond to the paint for longer term protection. They are often sold by dealerships as part of an “Environmental Protection Package”. Paint Sealant will often continue to protect your vehicle for about 5 – 12 months. They tend to have more of a hard, glassy shell appearance, not quite as desirable as the carnauba deep, wet look.

So, which should you use? It depends what your objectives are, but my recommendation would be as follows:

• if you have to choose between one or the other & you are the typical person who spends more time driving their car & not so much caring for it, then use the paint sealant.
• if you like to spend a couple hours a month or more on your car, put down a layer of sealant first, then add a wax layer to enhance the appearance. You can continue to wax once a month (or more often if you choose). One great thing about carnauba is you can keep adding to the protective layer. If you happen to miss 3 or 4 months, your sealant will be there like an armor coating for your car to help repel contaminants, UV rays, etc

I would like to mention however, that while adding protection is a must if you want to keep your paint in good condition, it is not a cast-iron solution. You can still get (as an example) hard water spots on your car if you park next to a sprinkler, or your finish can get etched by the acid in the bird droppings left on your hood or roof. The protection merely gives you a lot longer to get rid of the offending contaminant before it has the chance to do any real damage to your vehicle (& probably make it a whole lot easier to remove as well).

As always, thank you for listening.

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Auto Detailing FAQs | Cleaning Stock Rims & Tires

Adventures in Detailing has been asked to cover an often overlooked area…your vehicles rims & tires.

It IS possible to just scrub, dry, then throw on some tire shine…& your tires will look better, but for best results, let’s try a slightly different procedure.

Equipment:

• pressure washer (or garden hose)
• tire brush
• all-purpose or wheel well brush (optional)
• spoke/wheel brush (optional)
• spray bottle degreaser or all-purpose cleaner
• spray bottle chemical wash (spoke & wheel cleaner/whitewall cleaner/non-acid or non-caustic cleaner depending on your rims & preferences)
• blower (optional)
• spray bottle tire shine or tire shine gel with applicator or terry cloth
• terry cloth
• nitrile or similar disposable gloves (optional)
• protective glasses

Procedure:

• place your vehicle where the brake dust & runoff from the tires will filter into the ground (preferably on a grasscrete or similar area). You want to avoid having contaminants enter our storm system & find their way out into our ocean ecosystem as much as possible.
• before you start each rim and tire, wet the grass around the area you will be working. This will help to protect the grass & prevent temporary brown patches if you are using anything that can “burn” them. Try to use biodegradable products as much as possible.
• If the sun is fairly strong, position your vehicle so the sunlight does not hit one side or the other directly. If this is not possible, start on the side in the shade. When you are done cleaning that side, progress to the sunny side. Before working on it, feel the rim to see if it is hot. If it is, spray it with water until it feels cool to the touch. Hot rims can show chemical stains which could become difficult to remove.
• If you are working in the shade, you may spray degreaser on multiple tires/rims at once, if you are in the sun, it would be advisable to work on one at a time.
  • if your rim is “open” (the inside is highly visible from the side of your vehicle) & you want to clean it also, mist the inside being sure to cover the areas behind the face of the rim, the switch to stream & hit the areas farther in that the mist did not reach.
  • mist the face of the rim, tire & wheel well.
    • degreaser often works better if you let it sit for a minute, but before it dries. Mist again if necessary.
  • scrub the tire with your tire brush. If your tire has built up grime, road dirt, or old tire shine, you should literally be able to see it scrubbing off with your tire brush. If you are performing this procedure in a driveway, be sure this black sludge/tar gets removed or shot off into the grass or plants where nature will be able to slowly dispose of it. If you leave it on your driveway, it can get on your shoes & then into your interior carpets where it will cause you a much bigger headache.
  • scrub the wheel-well as deep in as you would like to go. If you have a raised truck or a big suv with a wide open wheel-well, obviously this is more important than a car that you can barely squeeze your brush between the tire & the wheel-well wall.
  • if you are working relatively fast, you can continue to the next step, if you are having to put in some scrubbing time you may want to shoot the whole thing off with your pressure washer or garden hose
  • if your rim is open, repeat the procedure you performed with the degreaser with your “chemical wash” to the interior of the rim. (On successive cleanings {if you keep up with it} it is better to use non-caustic cleaners that are less likely to promote rusting. Keeping up with the maintenance of your vehicle will help it to retain it’s value as much as possible!)
  • mist the face of the rim with your chemical wash (if the rim turns white in a mass of tiny white bubbles, spray it off immediately & wipe over with soapy water. Your rim is aluminum or a custom soft metal alloy. You should not use the chemical wash you are using without knowing what you are doing. If you have a custom alloy or powder coated rim, Just use soap & water, then if you really want to, polish with an aluminum polish like Mothers^tm or other soft metal polish).
    • Spray upwards towards the rim as much as possible. You cannot see what is on the sides of the rim facing towards the ground, so these areas should receive most of the action. (alternatively, drive your car half a rim forward or back after you have finished all 4 tires/rims & repeat the procedures again.) Pressure wash the rims off. Imagine your tires are square shaped & try to pressure wash them from all four corners, again paying most attention to the undersides that are not as visible. If you have thin slats or apertures in your rims, it will be better to concentrate on what you can see, roll your vehicle half a rim forward when you’re done with all four tires & repeat the procedure again.
      • If you want to get your rims a bit cleaner, use your all-purpose brush lightly over your rims this is fine for most rims, however if you have a Jaguar, Porsche, or if your rims are aluminum, custom alloy, or just really shiny looking polished chrome it is not worth risking using a brush, stick with the pressure washer or do it by hand with your soft terry or a separate sponge. You can always use a metal polish later.
      • if your rims are wide open & you want to get the insides done, but do not want to remove the tires, you may use your pressure washer, a brush or your hand with a terry. There are brush attachments you can attach to a drill to get behind the face of the rim, but for most people I think these will be unnecessary. If you decide to try to get behind the face of the rim by hand, wear gloves & be careful, some of the rims can have sharp edges. I would advise sticking with the pressure washer, your cleaners & maybe an old toothbrush if you want to get the visible bits behind the front facing.
  • After all your rims, tires & wheel-wells are cleaned, you can either use a blower to be sure they are completely dry & all the water is out of the crevices, or you can chamois down the faces of the rims & go in for lunch (or finish washing your vehicle or start working on the interior, etc) while the sun & wind finishes drying your tires for you.
• When your tires (& wheel wells, if you are going to dress them as well) are completely dry, you may apply your tire shine. Adventures in Detailing would prefer you used a water based tire shine as they are more environment friendly, however, for the comparable dollar spent, solvent based tire shines seem to last a bit longer based on our experience so far.
  • either apply your tire shine with an applicator or put down some terry cloths to protect your driveway or grass if you are using a spray on variety (tire shine may be harmful to your grass or plants if sprayed directly on them & can leave crescent shaped marks on asphalt or cement which may be extremely difficult to remove. It can also be slippery on a smooth surface {though a degreaser or soap & water can usually take care of that problem}). You can also spray 2/3^rds of each tire, then roll have a rim & take care of the rest. This is often a good idea anyway, since most people are not very good at getting the bottom inch or so of the tire…especially if it is not properly pressurized.
  • if possible, let it sit for a while for the dressing (& hopefully protectants) to absorb into the tire (I usually work on the rest of the car then, take care of this step last), then take a mostly clean, dry rag (which you will use for nothing else in most cases) & wipe over your tire to make sure any excess tire shine is removed (I usually go over each tire at least three times). If you do not do this there is a good chance you will have little spots in a rainbow pattern down the sides of your car appear within a couple of days. They will be nearly invisible at first, but will be sticky & attract dust & dirt & not be pretty.
    • If you have selected a “wet” or “shiny” looking tire shine & decide you want more of a matte or “no tire shine” look. Spray a clean terry (which again you will probably not be using for any other purpose) with an all-purpose cleaner (or just make sure it’s damp if you do not have an all-purpose cleaner available) & wipe over your tire repeatedly.

I trust this post has answered your questions…but if not, or even better, if it has generated more, please feel free to give us a call & let us know what you are interested in.

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Auto Detailing FAQs | Cleaning removable car mats

Adventures in Detailing recently (this morning) recleaned another services (which will remain nameless) removable car mats. They had paid some attention to them, but the mats were still heavily soiled.

Equipment/Supplies used:

• pressure washer (or hose if unavailable)
• nylon carpet brush
• all-purpose cleaner (or carpet shampoo)
• terri cloth (not used in this instance, but may be used wipe up foam or agitate light stains)

If your vehicle is used as a “Soccer Mom” van or something similar where the mats are going to get heavily soiled, when you decide to clean them (assuming you want to get out as much of the c#@p out of them as you can, it’s probably a good idea to remove them from the vehicle & clean them on a nice hard service where the runoff can feed your grass or flowers.

A good technique here would be to saturate the areas of heavy staining, then immediately mist the entire mat with an all-purpose cleaner or carpet shampoo. Use a carpet brush with nylon bristles & agitate the heavily soiled areas with brisk scrubbing, your stain should disappear under a mass of stain colored foam (unless you are using a low-foam cleaner with a hot-water extractor…different procedure); then quickly brush over the rest of the mat. When you are done, get your pressure washer*** & spray (either as a fan or orbiting nozzle) into the mat in overlapping lines. You should see the dirt or stain color coming out in the wash. Continue until the water run-off is clear.

***Some things to look out for:

• watch where you are spraying! the water from your pressure washer will bounce. are you spraying towards your grass & plants (not too close to fragile flowers) or towards your car or wife’s clean plate glass sliding door?
• if you’re above 1800 psi keep your pressure washer at least 5″ away from the mat, the higher the psi the farther you keep the tip from your mat. It is possible to bring up the weave from the bottom of some mats with enough pressure. You do not want to do that.

Once your water run-off is clear, it is time to remove the excess water. Take the flat backside of your brush & run it firmly over the mat in overlapping lines. You may do this on the ground, or even better, against a wall (if the wall will not stain or become damaged in any way).

Now we can either let it dry in the sun or wind or without either option, put it somewhere that it will remain clean & use a fan or blower to completely dry it out.

If you have stubborn stains that have set in, there are also carpet dyes available…though it is likely the next time you clean them, the dye will come out again.

As always, please feel free to contact me.

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Auto Detailing FAQs | Cleaning your exterior car mirrors

Adventures in Detailing visits a place to step…or at least wipe…softly.

Your exterior car mirrors are a place that will easily show damage if you are not careful.

When washing your car, make sure your wash mitt is sudsy (think lubricated) & go from top to bottom, have a separate bucket to rinse off or a protector in the bottom of the bucket so grit is trapped beneath it. Even if you use one (or more) of these “defensive detailing” measures, it’s still a good idea to use no pressure when you wipe over the face of the mirror. A little grit & even just a little pressure with your wash mitt can leave visible scratches on your mirror…which will appear once it’s fully dried. Make sure to keep your wash mitts & chamois grit free.

Do you have contaminants (like paint over spray) on your mirror face? Yes, it is okay to use clay bar to remove them. Make sure the area is lubricated with a spray wax or soap & water…& again, make sure your clay bar is grit free.

Do you have hard water spots on your mirror face? DO NOT USE A GLASS POLISH!!!! If you do, chances are you will be in the market to replace the glass. If the spots are light enough, you have two options:

• use a compound wax & rub lightly with a clean soft cloth or wax applicator until they’re gone,
• or use a chemical or acid based water spot remover (I do not wipe over this area at all, though you may be able to with a micro-fiber cloth, I have not had too…yet).
  • make sure the glass of the mirror is absolutely, completely cool to the touch (if its even a little warm, you may have problems). Also, if your mirror is old, especially if there is visible chipping around the edges & the silver backing is visible, you probably should not use this method. This increases the risk of the chemical seeping behind the glass & damaging the backing. It may look something like an oil slick after you’re done…& you will have to replace the mirror.
    • cover the mirror face completely with a damp chamois while working on that side of the car (if it’s in the sun {even a little bit}).
    • lift the chamois & touch the glass, if it’s completely cool, spray the water spot remover evenly over the surface & let it sit while continuing to work on that side of the car, revisit a couple more times if necessary (DO NOT let dry on surface)
    • spray off with water & wipe dry with your chamois
    • if there are still remnants of the water spots go over with your light compound wax (usually not necessary). Again, do not use pressure & apply with a clean soft cloth or wax applicator.
    • If your mirror seems to have a little haze on an edge or may have taken a very, very light amount of damage, you may be able to correct it slightly with Mother^tm aluminum polish. Again, when dealing with mirror faces, it’s a good policy not to use pressure.

You should now have a sparkling clean exterior mirror face.

As always, if you have any questions on this procedure, please feel free to drop me a line.

Please send any questions for future episodes of “Adventures in Detailing” to gavin@autodetailaces.com.

Thank you for tuning in…& see you next week!

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Auto Detailing FAQs | Cleaning Automotive Glass

Have you cleaned your car’s interior glass, then driven out into the sun & suddenly your clean glass is covered with horrible streaky wipe marks all over?

This week, Adventures in Detailing tackles a recurring problem for our “do-it-yourselfers”. How do we clean our cars interior glass & get “streak-free” results?

Supplies you will need: (available at practically any big-box or care care store)

• glass cleaner
• lint-free window rag or new, clean (washed once) terri-cloth
• new, clean microfiber cloth
• chamois
• a minimal amount of elbow grease

Procedure:

• park under a shady area where you will not be in other peoples’ way
• if your car’s interior glass is visibly dirty, go over all interior glass first with your damp chamois. This is especially important if there was anything greasy (like interior dressing) that has found its way to your glass
• spray your window rag (all rags folded into quarters) a couple of times, then go over the entire glass (or half if front windshield or back glass) quickly & evenly.
  • immediately flip the towel over (dry side) & go over the same area again. You should be able to see the visible streaks disappear as you take them into the dry side of your cloth.
    • it’s important to “erase” the glass cleaner streaks before they dry on the glass, or you will have streaks appear when you drive out into different lighting conditions
  • wipe over the entire area again with your microfiber
• spray once onto the damp side of your window rag & repeat the above on all windows
  • if any of your rags become visibly dirty, you may have to fold over to a clean quarter
  • your finishing rag (microfiber) needs to be dry (enough to remove any dampness remaining on the glass)

Procedure when you do not have a shady area:

• There are a couple techniques you could use here, but the one I would suggest if your front windshield & back glass is hot, would be this. Use only your microfiber clothes. Spray once on your microfiber folded in quarters (do not overly wet). Wipe over entire area. You should not be leaving any glass cleaner streaks behind, if you are, immediately flip to dry side & wipe over again. If your new side becomes to damp, refold. If you have to use more than one microfiber, so be it.

Problems with your exterior glass? Didn’t we already cover that one in a past issue? I’m pretty sure we did. Removing waterspots anyway.

Please feel free to give me a call if you need immediate assistance…& keep those questions coming!

Thank you for tuning in again. See you next week.

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