Reduce Detail Times 30 Minutes: 4 tips

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So you want to shave off some time while detailing your car…well, here are some tips to help you do that without sacrificing quality (there are other ways, but here are 4 that I personally use from time to time):

1. Dress plastic and rubber PRIOR to car washing.
Using water based tire dressing like Meguiars Hyper Dressing at a 2:1 ratio, dress the tires before washing the car. After you wash the car, and move onto the wheels, your wheel washing step will remove the overspray/over wipe of tire dressing on the wheels. This will save you from having to clean the wheel, dress the tires, and then go back around the wheels again to wipe them down to remove the dressing. Not to mention, you can use this on all the trim as well while the car is still wet (think Nissan Xterra with lots of big trim pieces) and it will apply and hold if you wanted. I always will do this on tires that have a lot of groove, nubs, crevices since trying to dress those by hand takes a long time. Instead, I just spray Meguiars Hyper all over the tire and wash off the excess and am left with smooth looking tires!

2. Start from the TOP and work your way DOWN on interiors.
Dust the car before you vacuum the interior. This will loosen the dust and dirt from the cracks and crevices and allow it to fall onto easier to vacuum areas leaving you to just vacuum one time and have a clean interior in one shot, instead of vacuuming, then dusting and having the dust remain in the car (a towel doesn’t always pick up dust and hold onto it). I actually have the brush with me while I am vacuuming so that I can dust and hold the vacuum right next to the duster so while I brush the dust from the crack, it will get sucked up by the vacuum. If you have compressed air, blast EVERYTHING above the carpet level as your FIRST step to loosen dirt into areas you can access.

3. Use ONE cleaner for MULTIPLE PURPOSES.
Something like Optimum No rinse can be used for clay lube, washings, interior cleaning, wheel cleaning, and so forth. Instead of using an APC for this, a degreaser for that, and maybe an acid for the rare occasion, one product will have you reaching back in the product bin less and less, leaving you on the car longer, and providing faster detailing! The less time you have to go back and forth between products, the better! I have used ONR for a waterless wash (in areas where washing is not allowed), then used the same bottle for a clay lube, and used the rest of the spray bottle for a quick interior cleaning! Total time saved was about 3 minutes, but doing that with multiple products/steps throughout the detail process, well that will add up! Another option: use DEGREASER cut 10:1 as your interior cleaner, carpet cleaner, door jamb cleaner, and engine cleaner. Sounds odd...but works very well.

4. Dry the car in 2 minutes.
Don't be meticulous about drying after washing! Consider that you will be touching EVERY square inch of the exterior (glass, paint, trim) while polishing, waxing, cleaning windows, etc. Just a quick pass of the chamois to capture 75% of the water and the small beads will evaporate on their own. The time saved from drying can range from 10-15 minutes in this step alone!

Link to original article: [appliedcolors.com]

Thanks for taking the time to post your article.

I suppose it depends on how in-depth a detail you are doing, but I like to clean the tyres in the wash process. While the car is wet, I apply water-based dressing PERL on the tyres at 2:1 concentration (which is strong), then I towel dry the wheels to remove any excess. Don't you find your dressing gets removed in the wash if you apply it before anything else?

Just curious.

Cheers

Good question. This was written by a guest author.

I believe there must be a 5 minute "dwell time" on the strong mixture of water-based dressing before the wash.

It is a good idea because cleaningup "runs" from dressing is time consuming.