I didn't realize I could ask the dealer to remove these before we left, and the dealer is several hundred miles away, so I'm not driving back for them to remove.

What is the safest way to remove these? Goo Gone? Goof Off? Texas sun and a credit card?

Near my house at a local gas station.

Not knocking these guys they work really hard and do their best, but man; the broom on the paint makes my skin crawl.

What was originally supposed to be a fun weekend project quickly turned into a nightmare. I started Saturday and finished late last night. Overall, I'm very happy with the results. However, I did see 2 small high spots this morning that I will need to polish off at some point. Not bad for a newbie though.

I think what made this process longer than what it should've been was my own OCD. I wanted everything to be perfect and I believed if I took my time I could get the results similarly to a professional (I perform fabrication on aircraft for work so surface prep,sanding, and applying coatings, etc. is not uncharted territory for me). Everything was going fine until I got the the polishing stage. I did NOT expect it to take me so damn long and I did NOT expect my new 2025 ctr to be riddled with swirls in the clear coat. Not even a 1 step correction could get all the scratches out, although I did get most of them out and my car does look alot better. When I first started, I wanted perfection. It wasn't until 4-5 hours into it, I realized my expectations were unrealistic unless I were to do a 2 step correction, which I had zero desire to take off that much clear coat on a new car. So after awhile a few scratches here and there stopped bothering me. The difference between a hobbyist and a professional is time. A pro could easily get this done in a day. Whereas it took me 4 days to complete the job. 4 fucking days. I had to take PTO Monday. And Tuesday I was able to get a ride to work but only slept 3 hours since I was up all night trying to get this done. I was no longer having a good time.

Polishing is a pain in the fucking ass and is nightmare fuel if you have OCD. Oh, and it didnt help that my brand new Griots G9 random DA polisher died after only a couple hours of use. I changed the brushes and tried everything else I could to troubleshoot it. But no avail. So beware of their polishers. They stop working for no reason and are overpriced. I went to Harbor Freight and their polisher worked like a damn charm for almost 1/3 of the price.

I used adams advanced graphene ceramic coating which is TRICKY to work with at first. I didn't realize until I already started that it's not recommended for beginners. I had to redo the entire hood and roof because there were high spots everywhere that I didn't see until I took it out in the sun for better lighting. My advice is to absolutely make sure your overlaps are 50% and apply little to no pressure during the coating process.

If you read this far, thank you. After how frustrating these past few days have been, this post is therapy for me right now.

Would I do this again? Fuck no. Well, not for at least a couple grand lol. I get now why a ceramic coat is so expensive. Salute to all the detailers out there who do this for a living. What a humbling experience this has been.

I normally spend about two and a half hours to detail just my one car. The next day I am so sore all over from just that one car I can barely move. You pros must be insanely in-shape to be able to do this all day every day. Mad mad mad respect for all of you that are able to survive and make a living at this.

Mods, if I am out of line here, no problem from me if you delete. I just had to say this….

Thought I would subject my ‘24 F150 hood to a MN winter driving sealant experiment. Note, work provides me the truck. It now has ~18K miles, never been hand washed, only automatic car washes. Hood was pretty dull. I polished the whole hood with 3D One (God I love that stuff) then applied the following 6 sealants per instructions: Griots Ceramic All-in-One Wax, Griots Ceramic Liquid Wax, Griots Ceramic 3 in 1 Wax spray, 303 Graphene Nano Spray, Adams Graphene Ceramic Spray Coating Advanced, Meguiar’s Ultimate Liquid Wax. I plan to just drive and use the truck as I normally do, including automatic car washes. I’ll post 30 day water beading updates in the months aheads. Any suggestions are welcome. Check in again near Christmas!

Too much?

Basically the area where leaves and twigs get trapped when you open the trunk ? I want to tackle this

Just another tip for you guys hope it helps you out someday

There was tobacco everywhere, the door pockets were full and the screw holes inside the door pockets were packed full. I don't know if they just stored cigarettes everywhere they could think of, it was weird. And gross.

Started using a leaf blower as my final step in the wash process. Last week did a foam cannon wash, clay bar, polish, ceramic wax and today the water just blew right off! Definitely a step forward in the right direction.

My city is under drought restrictions and we are now allowed to wash our cars at home but only bucket washing. But, I emailed the city and they said we still can’t use a hose even to rinse it off. How am I supposed to use just buckets? Am I better off just bringing my stuff to a self car wash?

UPDATE from previous post… Got huge bird poop on windshield that dried up. Didn’t want to wipe it because of the small stones birds eat. Used pressure washer at work that we use to clean our work trucks. The bird poop was stuck on good so I kept getting closer and closer with the nozzle. Windshield was basically wet sanded when I was done. Had to take it to someone to buff out. Everyone recommended Jody’s Windshield Repair (Virginia Beach, VA). Took Dale about an hour to buff out but it’s fixed. I took a video of him doing the job but it won’t let me post it here. He used a glass polisher compound. $95. Sorry I couldn’t update my last post.

Hi Guys, everytime I try to clean my windshield from inside the car, I got streams and traces of dust. It looks clean under normal circumstances but if the sun is shining I can see the traces where the microfiber was going. This is really annoying me and I wonder if you have some hints for me.

I bought this (LICARGO® 2X Carbon Pads &... https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0C99T9RL9) but the pads don’t glide on the glass surface, they get stuck. The cleaner seems to be good, but I still have these stripes/streams.

We used 99% alcohol on the small spots, but the big spots like this we used the steamer, and i want to be sure this won’t ruin the customers car fmy own vehicle).

With all the ceramic coating and cermaic sprays on the market. Why would anyone still use a wax? My neighbor recommend collinate 845 but not sure why I'd use it over a spray ceramic that lasts 2 or 3 times longer. Or a pure ceramic that lasts years.

I have a bunch of microfibers to clean this weekend and would also like to clean some other things. Here’s what’s in the picture:

• standard microfiber towel
• standard microfiber application pad
• Meguiars foam pad
• Suds.lab Detailing scrub sponges
• ChemicalGuys Wooly Mammoth drying towel

I’ll be using Rags to Riches microfiber detergent at least for the microfiber towels.

I don’t expect to be able to wash all of these together. But what can I wash together and what should I wash separately? Do you have any techniques that work well? Thanks in advance

Is it normal to not cut or trim extra PPF underneath the hood? Is use of heat gun/hair dryer important in this case? My installer told me to not worry about this extra material.

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the car detailing world - Just bought a bunch of supplies for the first time a few weeks ago: turtle wax shampoo, 2 buckets, microfiber wash mits, The rag company gauntlet drying towel, P&S wheel cleaner, various microfiber clothes, to name a few - and though I really enjoying washing cars, I really hate the drying aspect of it. Reason being is that I was washing and drying my girlfriends cars for her this weekend (2019 Honda Civic Hatchback) and this car has a lot of nooks, crannies, crevices, grills, etc, and drying all of these things is such a pain in the ass. And not only that but my drying towel seems to get "full" super quick and having to constantly wring it out is very time consuming and tiring.

Does anyone have any tips/tricks/suggestions to make the drying process of automotive detailing more bearable?

This car came in with 228 miles on it. The dealership detail crew ruined the paint. They must have used towels with rocks imbedded in the towel.

Anyway the car was washed, decon’d, washed again.

The car was given a 3 step correction: CarPro Ultra Cut - WaxedShine hybrid wool pad CarPro Fixer - Lake Country blue pad WaxedShine Prime - Lake Country orange pad

Ceramic:

Body: CarPro DQuartz base CarPro Finest

Engine: CarPro DLUX

Wheels: CarPro DLUX

Brakes: CarPro DLUX

I have a ceramic coated car that I try to take good care of with proper washing techniques: a pressure washer, shampoo wash with mitts, followed by drying with microfibers.

I live in a dusty city and while cleaning in my basement helps, I want to minimise any chance of swirls. So I added a blower to my drying process but the hassle of it all is making me reconsider putting in so much effort:

1. It's somewhat heavy so using it for long is a pain.
2. It's loud af so I need to carry earplugs next time.
3. I need to do it in a certain way (top to bottom) else I'm just wetting some panels again.
4. Probably most frustrating - I notice water spots in places where the water dries before the blower or my microfiber dab can get to it.

Am I missing something in my process? Are there any tips to make using the blower more tolerable/enjoyable?

Not bad from 10 feet away right?

This is why lighting tells the real story. These are all “after” I’ve told this customer the vehicle needs a polish each time I’ve had it, but she doesn’t seem interested. So she gets a good wash and a ceramic sealant and it’s on its way.

I post this to show maybe some of the newer detailers: 1. what improper washing and cleaning can do to paint. I see this vehicle maybe once a year, the rest is how she upkeeps it. 2. When someone says put a light on the paint, this is exactly what they’re talking about. 3. Expectations vs reality when dealing with customers. This goes both ways. I almost don’t like this leaving my garage looking like this but that’s what they paid for and what they want. They also need to understand that without a polish, this is as good as it gets.

Using Armor All tire shine. And following directions of basically spray it, leave it and don't wipe excess. All tires seem to come out like this. I'm not sure if im the cause or if I need to invest in better products. This is after letting them sit for 15 minutes as directed

This guy moved the car from the shaded area of the garage to the sun. Why? Assume he is doing rins eless based on setup

I picked up my car from the dealership’s service center the other night, and learned the hard way to do a walk around when getting your car back. After I was home, I saw that they left some kind of extremely hard to remove tape or glue residue all around my passenger window. It’s slowly coming off the paint with a lot of elbow grease, but the plastic is ruined.

My car was in there for engine diagnostics so I can’t imagine why they would have done this in the first place, and are of course ignoring my messages now.

If there are any Austinites on this sub, avoid South Point Hyundai. They also lost my keys and made me wait for two hours after letting me know it was ready for pickup.