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-   -   A superb Car cleaning, polishing & detailing guide (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/102011-superb-car-cleaning-polishing-detailing-guide-465.html)

It doesn't need to. WD40 does everything. lol:

But seriously... it used to be hard to find, now you can buy it from hardware shops. You should be able to find it on one near you.

Yes I did. Ordered a couple of other things from them too twice last year - worked for me. They were also reachable over phone and email when i had a product query.

Posting the entire catalog of Optimum products available through Eco Car Care in India, with prices. They pretty much cover all my detailing needs.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v0n064tlcy...%20Price.pdf?m

Great. I don't mind spending money on products that offer superior protection or that appeal to my laziness by making a job noticeably easier.

Got 250ml green ONR wash and WAX today from Mr. Nirmal aka nirmaljusdoit. The product smells great and according to him, it performs even better than the blue one. Waiting for my blue one to finish, so I can shift to this.

Hi All,

What you guys think about the Armor All product range? Anybody using it? there is BOGO sale going on it at Snapdeal. I am thinking of picking up interior cleaner, leather conditioner and tire foam? What you guys think worth it?

-Ijeet

I went in for seat covers today. Picked up the car late at night and didn't check well. When I reached home, found this ugly snickering on the paint right below the swift logo :(

How can I get rid of this without damaging the paint?

You're better off with meguiars Apc and hyper dressing for interior cleaning and looks.

Thanks Parthasarathig,

I did talk to Nirmal today, waiting for him to send me the rate list of the stuff he is having. Does hyperdressing work on leather too?

-ijeet

hi
I wanted to share my experience on this subject. My Volkswagen Passat 2009 had been well taken care off, however with regular cleaning by the car wash boy, as well as the regular exposure to the elements, the car was in need for some TLC (Tender Loving Care)
After a lot of web search and going through various threads. I came across a very interesting thread. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/bangal...galore-10.html

This morning I took my car over to go through the process.

Here are a few pictures indicating the condition of the car.
A lot of salt deposits had shored up at panel joints.



There were also a lot of tar and oil stains on the alloy wheels.



The body panels had developed swirl marks all over.



So the process began at 10 am and the work carried on till 7 pm in the evening.
Firstly a little about Mohsin. He is a person who does this job out of love for the art of detailing and is exceptionally knowledgeable about the job. Thanks to all the posts in this thread, I at least knew what to expect from a good detailer and he exemplified exactly what to look for.

A few days ago I had visited him for an evaluation and he had explained the steps. Instead of elaborating on the explanation, I will explain the steps he did on the car.

First all the salt deposits were removed with a solution and a simple hard toothbrush.



Next the car was cleaned with water spray and dried with a microfiber cloth.
This was followed by a very diligent process of clay bar and lots of lubricant.

Thereafter came the long process of cutting compound. This process ran for almost 6 hours, wherein the yellow pad was moved over the body pannel in overlapping strokes. Plenty of water spray was used to work the compound all over the body panels. Every few minutes he would pause, use a led light to see the impact of the job. Almost 30 to 40 minutes on each body pannel.




Here is a set of pictures which show you the before and after phase of this effort. First picture is of the right hand side of the pannel (not yet done) and second picture is the after picture.


Post this step Mohsin was not satisfied with the effort, though to my eye the car was already amazing. He applied another layer of finer polish with the machine, followed by another dry wipe and then a wet wipe.
Unfortunately my camera battery died after this phase, but here is the essence of the next steps.

The car was again wet wiped all over. I had opted for a ceramic coating on the car. This is a very complicated process. Each pannel is wiped and cleaned a few times over. Thereafter a few drops of coating was applied to a small pad and applied with overlapping strokes.

the last step was to apply polishing material (sorry missing the name) for the plastics.

Overall a very satisfying experience. At the end, a 10 minute training program on how to clean the car. Clearly my regular car wash boy needed to be fired..

Will surely take some new pictures in a couple of days and show you the final effect of the effort.

Regards
Tushar

The beige leather seats of my Linea are getting dirty.
The difference can be seen mainly in the driver seat, which is used most.

What would be the best way to clean the seat and restore the original colour.

A question for everyone here. What all should i get done on a new car so as to ensure that i end up with it looking good and also has some amount of scratch resistance?

Optimum Protectant Plus should do the job with mild cleaning and leather restorative action.

I have used aggressive clay of higher grade to clear this up recently. Someone telling you that claying will not work, does not have the right clay or experience i feel on this. Using anything else like APC, thinner etc means you are marring the paint and need a polish after that. Safest -claying.

If you can post some pictures, it will help. However based on experience i feel that for cleaning the leather you need an all purpose cleaner. There are several in the market, but meguiars,sonus and optimum have decent ones. Do a test spot before hand. Leather also needs conditioning regularly ideally. Amway has a good product which works for most cases. Ultima also has a great product for interiors and leathers( UIGP)- that is a super protectant. Car Pro has Cquartz Leather protection that makes leather hydrophobic and protects against spills etc

I won't use blade on my 10 YO Santro so won't even think of using it on Crusoe (Linea) that has just turned one. :) I did try a plastic spatula after spraying generous quantity of QD. Some of the paint drops were too heavily bonded so didn't continue the effort.

WD 40 seems to be a "need to have" product and will procure one soon.

I tried to find good quality clay however, most of the accessory guys in my area don't even know what detailing clay is. Even the Reliance Autozone guys don't stock it. The only options I had was online order and that would have taken at least a week and I didn't want to wait for week with the paint spots.

There's a good detailer near Gurgaon who might have been able to clay it properly but that guy was very busy and I didn't want to drive for 50KMs without getting any work done. So, found two detailers near my home. One had Meguiar's products but the work was being done in open (read main road). NCR is extremely dusty and I just didn't want the rubbing/polishing to be done in open thus, went to the guy who is located in basement of a mall. He uses products of a co. called Paicar. The guy said it's an Italian company but the import label said Australia. They took 3 hours to wash, polish and wax the car. All the spots have gone and Crusoe is shining again.

Applied another coat of wax (Eagle Nano wax) after 24 hours. :)