Normal guy car cleaning…

thank you so much for the solid advice!

 

Dang I was hesitant to post this thread because there is so much info out there and I’ve been reading it all (didn’t want to get blasted for posting when there’s so many answers already) but you guys have been super helpful. You have really narrowed down a lot of what I needed to know. Thank you so much…such a cool community here.

I’m pretty confident I could get hooked on detailing this truck…just need to learn a little first…I live in a pretty small town so resources are limited.

 

For car care products and how to's check www.ammonyc.com and www.obsessedgarage.com you will find plenty of quality car care products on both sites. One thing to note is some products can be expensive depending on how involved you want to get. You can also search both of those companies on YouTube and they have some solid how to's in terms of car cleaning/detailing. Again it is not for everyone because it can get time consuming and costly. I have bought products from both companies and they are of great quality and great costumer service. Congrats and the new truck.

 

^^^^^^^ X2 our local vo tech offered detail training and it was well worth the money. The class did all our own cars which school donated all the supplies including the real ceramic that comes in glass bottles.

 

will definitely check them out. Thanks so much

 

I would recommend reading the forums over at Autogeek. Also, join their mailing list as they run sales all the time.

As far as polishing, you have to be a complete goober to burn paint with a DA like a porter cable. There are plenty of how to videos out there. Adam’s Polishes had some great videos on how to polish a vehicle.

 

That's a great job at detailing. You got your Tacoma looking like a Lexus.

 

thanks

 

Only if I can get my SUV looking like a Ferrari. That will be one good detailing trick.

 

prefer a Porsche over a Ferrari any day of the week.

 

I used to work at a Porsche dealership, like them but won't own one. I was brought up around Ferrari so I have a liking toward Ferrari.

 

I just detailed a friend’s 488 GTB. Beautiful car, drove awesome but the paint finish was kinda blah.

 

Was it original paint?

 

ferraris are known to have shitty paint finishes.

 

Depending on which years. I seen some older Ferrari with nice paint, but some has nasty orange peel.

My friend's father when he was in Italy worked on some gorgeous Ferraris. Now he lives in the U.S. he restores Ferrari to concours level. He doesn't like leaving a orange peel finish but has to.

 

A few similar commenters here, as in my thread asking similar questions (but showing my inexperience with newer products) and like you OP, everyone was super helpful.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/optimum-poli-seal-not-slick.559297/

I'm a super fan (based on those previous recommendations) of the spray on wipe off sealants. Yes I'm in AZ so not a lot of rain/washing the sealant off, and I do park in a garage, but my wife's 2017 Forester I did last Christmas with 303 Graphene Nano, and the water still beads quite nicely. Yep, a year. I used the 303 shampoo for the washes. Pan the Organizer YT channel convinced me to try the Turtle Wax (in high school that was a bad name) Ice Seal and Shine this year (based on his 10 month test and the 2021 awards). It was super easy to apply and remove, and way cheaper than the Blackfire SiO2 Sealant I started this journey with - I hope to see 12 months out of it. I have the 303 on the roof of my truck, the SnS everywhere else (Christmas break is such a nice time to do these types of things).

I didn't like the Mequiar's Ultimate Polish as it was difficult to remove after the polish step so purchased the 3M Perfect-It EX polish. When I did that, I didn't know 3M owns Meguiars, so they may be the same product (they are different colors). When Ms Santa brought me the DA, I didn't really know what "grade" of pad to buy so I picked the Orange, White and Black - if I had to do it again, I would only buy the white. In high school I had a '77 black Thunderbird, a rotary polisher and a wool bonnet. Yes, I cleaned the black from a couple of spots on those hard corners. I knew I was not going to get a microfiber or wool bonnet! The combination of white CCS pad and the Perfect-It polish is just barely aggressive enough to remove any swirls I ended up with but not enough to really let me harm the paint. Yes, I have needed to go over an area more than once if there was something which didn't clean up quickly, but then I'm ok with that being a "casual" detailer. I think it was NMTrailRider or gorram that made the statement "this is my daily driver, so I go for protection, not perfection" and that was super helpful to me.

The detailing threads are probably close to the oil threads, everyone has their experience that may or may not work for someone else, due to water hardness, amount of rain and or pollution, garaging condition - so what works for me in AZ may not work for someone say in the NorthEast. But it's a data point for you.