Detailing Vs the valet

The whole concept of car detailing has def made its presence felt over the last couple of years.Never has there been a time when washing a damn car been so involved and comprehensive.

There is a product for every single inch of a car and taking into account the wide variety of paints,plastic types,tyre compounds and variety in trim build,you can begin to see why it is known as detailing.

So where does the valet end and the detail begin?

Its def throws a few questions into the mix such as,'what have i been doing wrong all these years' and 'is this just another marketing ploy for the big wig wax companies to make big cash'?.

I think to some degree its been motivated by those in the trade,those on the shp floor so to speak in the valet world that have demanded more and there customers some of which have spent several hundreds of thousands of pounds on exotic metal,that require a more time consuming specialised end result.

But the difference between a £25-40 valet from the local eastern blockers and a £90-150 basic wash detail is actually quite staggering so i have found out for myself.

Technique,tools for the job,products and knowledge cause a clear divide between the two houses of all that is 'wash'.


What got me into the deeper side was hearing so many misnomers and silly mistakes being made,assumptions that a product will do this and that or how many hours someone has spent and the end result isnt great.
I was extremely guilty of being in this division and through pure learning and a passion to take things up a notch,i largely found out for myself in my own time,with my own targets.

the most common misconception is the actual terminology on the basic level and what you actually need to do to make products work.

The time old T-cut is still proving to be popular but scarely no one uses it correctly and then perhaps not every one is full aware of what its make up is and what its actaully doing.

Ive heard all sorts of strange things like 'leave it on the car and it will burn your paint', 'use loads of it for a faster job'....'doing it all the time strips your paint'..

ok,so the last one has a smidgen of truth to it but perhaps this applies more to the single stage paints that modern paint packs.

Polish itself is an essential tool and when you use very little,work for very long and recognise most polish in halfords contains a lot of fillers,you will see a good result and know why.

Fillers and masking agents arent a dirty word either.poorboys much loved blackhole is essentially polyfiller for paint work as is the slightly more demanding autoglym super resin polish.

But these are essential tools of the trade as retaining a swirl free finish after say,a paint correction day,isnt as easy as it sounds.

And some all in one products really stretch the boundaries of truth claiming to paint clease,polish and wax at the end!??! seriously you wont find an all in one that effectively ticks all 3 boxes.

But anyway back to the top.

If you could get everyone who loves this side of car care to try a few more daring products,you would see a big shift in product availability and this would start to show itself in the highstreet stores.

Sadly most of my time is spent directing people to websites to obtain the best stuff.
but we are winning the war with the little battles.

The adage you get what you pay for certainly applies to this arena.Just be careful you pick the right people to undertake the job or better still,learn and do yourself.