One of the more overlooked aspects of detailing a vehicle is proper vehicle prep. Many detailers are well aware of time limits and the challenges that lay ahead in the vehicle they are about to detail, so the logical point of view would seem to be to simply wash the car quickly and get it into the detail bay so it can be detailed. The thinking is that a quick 5-10 minute wash is a time saver compared to the extensive prep and procedures in the wash bay that are about to discussed.
What tasks are necessary to accomplish in the wash bay and how can they be done in a safe and efficient manner that will make the detail itself easier, and the quality of the detail better? Also, we will examine the tools and chemicals required, and the time spent vs. the time ultimately saved by doing a quality prep in the wash bay.
Tools and chemicals
There are some things you need to have handy to efficiently prep the vehicle. I have a small plastic toolbox with various brushes to clean the wheels, bug sponges, a body brush, a floor mat brush, and a couple of plastic razor blades for scraping stubborn things that are really stuck on. Also, you will need your wheel cleaner, bug and tar remover, and a bottle of properly diluted all purpose cleaner that can safely be sprayed on paint, engines, or glass without any etching or damage. Make sure the bottles are full so no refilling is needed during the prep process. Of course, in the wash bay, you will need a wash mitt/s or vehicle brush and a soap bucket.
What to do first?
If you were only washing the car, this would be easy. You would do what most homeowners do. Simply wash the car and assume that it's clean. However, to get the vehicle totally clean and help you in the ensuing detailing steps, there are things that need to be addressed before the car is washed.
An often overlooked item to wash are all the floor mats. It is so much easier and more effective to wash the floor mats in the wash bay rather than trying to simply extract them later. Flushing out the ground in dirt and fully scrubbing the mats will work wonders for mats that looked like they had no hope. Also, doing them now gives them plenty of time to dry. Use mat hangers to hang them vertically or drape them over something and let them drip dry. Later, in the detail bay, simply extract the remaining moisture and they will be dry enough to place back in the vehicle.
The next thing on the to-do list is the engine. For space considerations, we will not get into the actual engine cleaning process, but this step should be done first in the prep process. Be careful to identify and cover things that may make the vehicle run poor or not start, and always use a correctly diluted cleaner to ensure no damage to aluminum, electrical connections, or the surrounding painted areas. Because you will be working at the front of the vehicle, you also will fully prep the front bumper area at this time. Spray a bug and tar remover on the nose of the car, along with properly diluted all purpose cleaner that you know will be safe on paint and trim. Use only the all purpose cleaner for the engine because solvents can do damage to electrical components and have a very high flash point. Also make sure the engine and surrounding areas are wet.
A body brush and bug sponge will agitate the grime and lift it off. Agitate the engine dirt as well with a brush dedicated for engine areas only. Then, rinse everything at once and the entire front of the vehicle is properly prepped. Once the engine is completed, simply close the hood. On your mental checklist you will know that once you close a panel it's been taken care of.
It's all choreographed
Like a dance number in a Broadway play, you now must work swiftly, opening and closing doors, spraying cleaners, using various brushes and scrubbers, moving back and forth, and rinsing the just cleaned areas. All the while, not letting the cleaners dry on the vehicle. All these tasks need to be completed simultaneously to get the job done in a reasonable amount of time.
To choreograph these procedures, your "mark" is between the wheel and front door. Here you can "perform" many steps at once, but you must be swift, smart, and alert. Make sure the entire side of the car is completely wet and the wheels are cooled. Pre rinse the door jambs and spray cleaner in the jambs and let it start to dwell. Then quickly spray the wheels, tires, and wheel wells with the correctly diluted wheel cleaner. Also spray the bottom of the doors with both all purpose and tar remover and let all the products start to work, but be careful not to let them sit too long.
It may seem like entirely too much work to do all this at once, but it is far more effective and efficient this way. The problems with doing just one operation at a time are:
A) The cleaner won't have too long to dwell, and
B) You have to keep circling the car (for example: going wheel to wheel, jamb to jamb), which wastes time and will make you work harder. Staying in the same area, but doing many things at once is a bit more difficult, but will save time and ensure you won't miss anything.
Clean, rinse, move along
Once all the cleaners have had some time to dwell, I work the door jambs first. Use a brush or wash mitt dedicated for only jambs and the bottoms portions of the car only. Once the door jambs are done, rinse thoroughly, close the doors and you know that step of the prep is complete. Getting the door jambs done in the wash bay is far easier, more effective and efficient than trying to clean them manually in the detail bay.
Now move along to the tar and grime on the bottom of the car, as well as cleaning the wheels. This is where you must be swift. Most vehicles will have some degree of grime on the bottom that will never come off with a normal wash. This grime and debris will be very difficult and time consuming to buff off. Get it off now! Also, the wheels will need some degree of brushing to most effectively remove grime and brake dust. The theory of just spraying wheel cleaner on, then hosing or even power washing everything off, is really wishful thinking. Many times when detailers see that they did not effectively clean the wheels in the wash bay, they will manually clean them and try to reach into tight areas with a towel wrapped around their fingers to get that last bit of stubborn brake dust out. Again, get it all off in the wash bay and save time in the long run!
The same holds true for the trunk sill, gate area of a truck or SUV, and the gas tank door. Treat these areas like another door jamb and they will be perfectly clean. It seems like you have done so much cleaning and scrubbing already and the car is not even washed yet! All you are thinking and hearing is the clock going tick tock, tick tock. Don't worry, you are still saving time.
Now wash the car!
Now it is time to wash the car. Finally! Because you have done such a thorough cleaning of the wheels, and bottom portions of the vehicle, the wash should be fairly simple, but check for a few things first. How dirty is the car? Does it have dirt embedded deep into the paint? Has any extra dirt accumulated in the moldings?
If the car is this filthy, just washing the car with plain car wash soap will probably get you nowhere, and the appearance will still be that of a dirty car, even after it's washed. For cars like these, it's OK to cheat a bit and either spray some all purpose cleaner on the painted panels as you wash, or add some to the soap bucket. However, be very careful and know your product. Make sure it is diluted enough to spray on the paint, glass, and trim, and will not etch in any way. This precaution again should have been exercised when you were cleaning the door jambs and the bottom portions of the car with the same cleaner. The extra alkalinity of the all purpose cleaner will deeply clean dirt and grime from deeper in the paint surface and produce a much cleaner vehicle. Again, this will not significantly add to the time washing the car, but may actually save a buffing step because of the dirt you have now pulled from the paint.
Generally you want to wash the car with a wash mitt that HAS NOT been used to wash the grimy areas of the vehicle. You do not want to pick up debris and drag it along the paint surface and put scratches into the paint. A couple of things to keep in mind regarding car wash technique. Don't scrub the paint like you are trying to sand it off the car. Simply agitate the dirt with the mitt and let the cleaner and soap do the work. Some detailers like to use a wash brush to wash the car. That's OK. While I think that a brush will be a bit more abrasive to the paint than a wash mitt made of wool or micro fiber, you are going to be buffing the vehicle anyway, so any light marks should easily be buffed out.
Remember, most car wash soaps are heavily concentrated. More is not better. First of all know the size of the wash bucket you are using and READ the directions on the label of the soap bottle and dilute accordingly. Many detailers use a vast amount of soap. All this does is create way too many suds, which are difficult and time consuming to rinse off.
When rinsing, blast the moldings and any trim so they are free of dirt and debris, and try to sheet the water off the vehicle from the top down. Sounds simple, but even in this step mistakes are often made.
Time savings even in drying the car
Now the vehicle is washed. The best thing now is to just let the car drip for a couple of minutes and put your tools and cleaners away. This creates a neat environment and gives the car a head start on drying. Even with drying the car, detailers have different ways of going about it. Assuming you are not using treated water (which will allow the car to naturally dry without hard water spotting) you will need to dry it before moving it to the detail area. Some detailers are fans of squeegees. I think many of these will leave marks on the vehicle no matter how soft the company claims they are. But they are quick and will get the car fairly dry in a short amount of time. A synthetic chamois or waffle micro fiber towel is something I prefer to dry with. A chamois can be continually wrung out and used over and over. Don't get caught up trying to get the vehicle bone dry. You will probably be detailing the interior next so the car will have a significant amount of time to continue to dry before you begin buffing it. There is no need in this step to blow out all the cracks and crevices with compressed air and make sure the vehicle looks perfect. It's a waste of time.
A little extra time vs. time saved
Clearly washing a vehicle in this manner will be more time consuming than simply "washing the car". If you are used to spending 10-15 minutes doing a poor wash, that is almost a waste of time because of all the back tracking you will have to do. "Prepping" the vehicle as explained here will probably take you considerably more time especially if it's in rough shape. However, you are left with a clean engine that will start and run properly, clean door jambs which are free of dirt and grease that only need to be wiped dry in the interior part of the detail. The trunk sill or gate area is also clean as described. The wheels and wheel wells are perfect. The lips of the fenders, quarter panels, and bumpers look like new. The floor mats are much cleaner and do not need further scrubbing and extracting. And, the paint is as clean as you can get it without buffing it. You now have a truly "Prepped" vehicle that is waiting to be detailed.
Even if you have spent another 20 minutes "prepping" the car, don't sweat it. You will easily equal that in time saved (probably more) detailing the car, and it will look that much better when it's finished. Work just a little smarter and harder in the wash bay, and details will be quicker and the overall quality will be much improved.
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