how often do you detail?

[NCZ13]

weekly wash

coat of non abrasive just to keep things beading and looking/feeling nice.

full detail clay/3 step polish and wax is about once ever month and a half or whenever i have the time. claying is done when i feel the paint is rough. no more then twice a year.

anyone else obsessive?

 

[carter1551]

wow thats quite a bit, im more at a wash every 2 weeks and wax twice a year

 

[L8R]

I wash once every three months or so, polish twice a year, wax... heh, once?

No lie.

 

[NCZ13]

wax twice a year? i cant even fathom that.

and only washing once every 3 months? =O

 

[blue-sun]

my Protege gets a weekly wash usually followed by a quick detailer on the whole car. Since I've had it (since Nov 06) she's gotten 3 coats of wax, one the week I got her then one about 6 weeks ago and another one this past weekend.

I did a half ass polish/buff on her initially but didn't get all the swirls out and have yet to do that.

[week i got her]

Also, if I've got a detail coming up, she'll get washed and QD'ed the day before to make sure she's clean at least when I show up.

My MR2 sits in the garage, sometimes with the car cover on, and is QD'ed often. I barely drive her lately, but when I do it's a wipe down before I do and usually after if I see spots on her.

[taken last year]

The wife's carm being a charcoal grey/graphite gets washed and waxed about every 2-3 months, since it's a chore even for me (I told her not to get that color, but alas, she didn't listen) so I tend to let it go longer in between washings. Though it's almost 2 yrs old and only buffed when we bought it, it's still relatively swirl free. Some minor marring but nothing a buff won't fix.

[taken the day after we bought it]

 

[patmaz]

i wash 2 times a week,wax every 2 weeks,with cleaner wax,glaze,and a good wax...and the car sleeps in the garage!!!!

i do the clay job when needed to the feel!

 

[NCZ13]

hehe

you know your car looks good, when your boss looks at your 2002 silver p5 and asks if it is a brand new car.

(smile)

 

[blue-sun]

i wash 2 times a week,wax every 2 weeks,with cleaner wax,glaze,and a good wax...and the car sleeps in the garage!!!!

i do the clay job when needed to the feel!

if you wash the car 2x a week, a cleaner wax every 2 weeks is probably overkill in my book, the glaze too.

I would recomment just adding more wax to it and do the 3 step maybe 2x a year.

 

[ThrillRide]

weekly wash

coat of non abrasive just to keep things beading and looking/feeling nice.

full detail clay/3 step polish and wax is about once ever month and a half or whenever i have the time. claying is done when i feel the paint is rough. no more then twice a year.

anyone else obsessive?

You three step every month or two? With a machine? I would indeed say obsessive. Good for you for taking care of the car!

 

[blue-sun]

regardless of if it's with a machine or by hand that actually removes a thin layer of your clear coat. do that enoug (ie too many times) and you're gonna go through your clear coat completely and into the base paint layer and once that happens, your paint is essentially done.

 

[NMMotorsport]

u should really only do a paint cleaner/clay bar, maby once twice a year. if not your gonna ruin the paint. its the same with polish but u can do that a bit more often. what u wanna do it, do a 4 stage on it. then just wash it and wax it the rest of the time

 

[jeg0024]

I try to wash the ride once a week, but then again its garage kept so sometimes it doesn't need it that often. I try to do a wax once a month or before any meets im planning on attending. I have the ICE Turtle Wax liquid clay bar stuff that im going to use tomorrow though, ill probably use that about 2-3 times a year depending on how pleased I am with the results. So tomorrow I guess im in for a wash, liquid clay bar, and a good wax. Should be fun, and ill probably have pics up

 

[NMMotorsport]

try megulars its the s***

 

[altspace]

It would also help to let us know what products you use.

 

[BlackCherry06]

Wash once a week (usually saturday morning) and finish up with Megiuars Quick Wax. Real wax every 2 months, give or take when I have time and I usually devote the entire day and do everything.

 

[NMMotorsport]

everything megs, ive tryed the rest, none of them are crap. but with megs its just amasing!

my twice a year routine

spray down
megs shampoo
megs wheel cleaner
spray down
megs tyre shine
megs clay
nxt wax

buff lol



other times

same as before but without the clay, instead a polish and carnooba wax lol

 

[NMMotorsport]

can i link to club323f, its the site over here

went to a megs thingy

 

[andrew.savage]

Wash every two weeks with Armor all car wash then wax every two months with mothers Carnuba wax. Vaccuum and detail interior every week. Usually use rubbing alcohol on the interior plastic to keep finger prints and spots off of everything.

 

[altspace]

The only time you should use rubbing alcohol to clean plastic is when you want to adhere something to it. Otherwise it breaks down the composition and eventually will become deformed.

 

[Astral]

I wash on average every 1.5-2 weeks, depending on the weather. If the car is looking nasty, I wash it.

Always hand-wash the car, even in the winter (another topic).

In the spring pollen time, I use a California Car Duster between washes.

Wax every 3-4 months or so. Sometimes between waxings I give it a layer of quick detailer to maintain things a little longer. I use sealants/waxes that last a long time.

Clay about twice a year (I drive 25K miles a year, so I need it).

Polish... well, only when I get scratches, I polish them out, I haven't done a full polish/swirl removal on the car yet. Right now my car has pretty low swirls (just the dealer installed ones and stuff that accumulated over last 50K miles).

I try to vacuum once a month, but realistically it's more like once every 2 or 3 months. Detail the interior twice a year with dressings, but detail the leather steering wheel much more often (like every 2 months).