New Detailing Appreciation

How many times should you wax? How often? Wax build up?
Do you need to polish ever time you wax? I understand polishing is the preparation for waxing.

I did not know how involved detailing is. I took my older car to a detailer about four times a year. Now that I have a spanky brand new SUV, I would like to care for it myself.

I have a new found appreciation for auto detailing. It is a lot of work.

Thanks

Tom

Tom,

This question really depends on how well you want to treat & keep up your vehicle. Personally if I had your Honda CRV, I would polish & wax it every other month. Your finish has a clear coat on it & you also stated that you have the green finish. Your finish is a green metallic that has the metal flake in it followed by a clear coat. Metallic finishes do require more care than base colors due to the pigment that is contained in a metallic finish.

The other factor is cost, how often are you able to afford having it done or doing it yourself. Most likely you will be doing it yourself & what is important here is your time. You have to ask yourself, is my time worth the same amount of time I could have it professionally detailed?

As you might already know, detailing is exactly what the word implies, detailing the little aspects that a vehicle is made up from. You have the exterior, interior, engine compartment, undercarriage & etc.

What you don't want to do is by reading all of this & get discourge over how long it may take you. You do not have to do everything in one day.

You can do maybe one half of the vehicle on a Sat. & the other half on Sun. Anything is possible & you can also do the same type of method for the interior as well.

A note of caution, if you plan on cleaning your engine compartment, use plastic bags for the electrical components & do not get carried away with the water. Use only enough water to remove the cleaning solution of your choice. You also do not want to introduce cold water onto a hot engine due to the warpage of the engine block. Clean the engine early in the morning for best results.

Happy Detailing!