Stretch Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 So I'm looking to start getting into auto detailing a little bit. I was going to pay somebody to do both my cars but decided it would be more fun and enjoyable to do it myself. Does anybody have any good write ups as well as a list of necessary products? I'm not looking to go all out right away but I would like to invest in some nice stuff until I learn more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AudiOn19s Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 Autopia.org Detailingworld.co.uk Autogeek forums are also a great resource READ READ READ. Educate yourself before going out and buying all of the most expensive products and products that are redundant. While the right products can help the end result it's mostly about technique and process. Happy detailing! P.S. Both cars you own have extremely hard paint and are very difficult to do swirl mark and defect correction on. If you buy a polisher and want to learn it may be a good idea to pick up a fender from a junk yard off of say a Honda or Toyota which have softer paint so that you can better see what it takes to get results. Just takes a lot more time and effort on hard paint it's sometimes easier to learn on soft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRed05 Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 P.S. Both cars you own have extremely hard paint and are very difficult to do swirl mark and defect correction on. If you buy a polisher and want to learn it may be a good idea to pick up a fender from a junk yard off of say a Honda or Toyota which have softer paint so that you can better see what it takes to get results. Just takes a lot more time and effort on hard paint it's sometimes easier to learn on soft. Out of curiosity, what would you consider the paint on my cars? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AudiOn19s Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 Out of curiosity, what would you consider the paint on my cars? B5's have paint that's on the harder side. Rover is in the middle. Not too bad. The exception to all of this is if you own something that's had paintwork since it left the factory. For the most part that paint is almost always soft. Hard vs. Soft: Hard paint is great to have as an owner. If you have it near perfect and know how to look after it you can go forever without a ton of maintenance work and it will always look nice. Once it's messed up it's difficult to correct. No joke a black C5 like stretch has could easily take 20-30 hours to fully correct once swirled up. Soft paint on the other hand is easy to correct and make look beautiful, but from an owner's perspective if you're not very careful it's pretty easy to mess up and can look like crap in short order needing attention quite often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRed05 Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 Thanks for the info Andy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HUMBLER1647545517 Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 Adam's Polishes have DVD / YouTube videos for each of their products. Very informative plus they support numerous forums and events. They are always the first call on my list if I ever need anything for our GTO events, great guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmwohio Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 I would agree with Andy on the websites. I would say that Autogeek forum is probably the most user friendly and full of information. I went the same route you did, OP and spent MANY hours on the forums and asking question, researching threads, etc. I bought a Porter Cable 7424-XP and a bunch of products from detailed image and Autogeek. Since then, I have had a TON of fun and pride getting the fleet clean. I can vouch for the soft paint on my wife's MDX and hard paint on my 5 series....the time it took to do both of those was about 3-4 hours for the MDX and 7-8 for the BMW (hard clearcloat). Here is my thread I did a while back, lots of info and pics in here --> http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108563 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stretch Posted January 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2014 Autopia.org Detailingworld.co.uk Autogeek forums are also a great resource READ READ READ. Educate yourself before going out and buying all of the most expensive products and products that are redundant. While the right products can help the end result it's mostly about technique and process. Happy detailing! P.S. Both cars you own have extremely hard paint and are very difficult to do swirl mark and defect correction on. If you buy a polisher and want to learn it may be a good idea to pick up a fender from a junk yard off of say a Honda or Toyota which have softer paint so that you can better see what it takes to get results. Just takes a lot more time and effort on hard paint it's sometimes easier to learn on soft. Thanks for the advice! I never thought about grabbing a cheap fender to practice on. I actually still have mine from when I wrecked my car last month. I'll give that a shot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stretch Posted January 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2014 I would agree with Andy on the websites. I would say that Autogeek forum is probably the most user friendly and full of information. I went the same route you did, OP and spent MANY hours on the forums and asking question, researching threads, etc. I bought a Porter Cable 7424-XP and a bunch of products from detailed image and Autogeek. Since then, I have had a TON of fun and pride getting the fleet clean. I can vouch for the soft paint on my wife's MDX and hard paint on my 5 series....the time it took to do both of those was about 3-4 hours for the MDX and 7-8 for the BMW (hard clearcloat). Here is my thread I did a while back, lots of info and pics in here --> http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108563 Thatnks for the info! I'm definitely going to get out and try somethings soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franchi Posted January 24, 2014 Report Share Posted January 24, 2014 Just plastidip the whole car Brian. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fubar231 Posted January 24, 2014 Report Share Posted January 24, 2014 Dont know if this will help you or not, guys great @ detailing and has a bunch of videos on his website and youtube that will give you a good idea of what to do / what he does. He also has a bunch of HOW TO PDF's on his website for each video explaining even further what he did/how. His website: http://www.ammonyc.com/videos/ Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/AMMONYCdotcom And he also has a bunch of videos on the /DRIVE channel (Simple search for /DRIVE CLEAN Results : http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%2FDRIVE%20CLEAN&sm=4 ) Its nice to be able to see how someone does it or why they do it a certain way instead of reading about it. Hope this helps you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stretch Posted January 25, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2014 Just plastidip the whole car Brian. :-) I seriously considered it, but I'd want to pay somebody to do it. Cheapest I could find is $800. For that I'd rather just spend $300 and learn more about detailing. Dont know if this will help you or not, guys great @ detailing and has a bunch of videos on his website and youtube that will give you a good idea of what to do / what he does. He also has a bunch of HOW TO PDF's on his website for each video explaining even further what he did/how. His website: http://www.ammonyc.com/videos/ Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/AMMONYCdotcom And he also has a bunch of videos on the /DRIVE channel (Simple search for /DRIVE CLEAN Results : http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%2FDRIVE%20CLEAN&sm=4 ) Its nice to be able to see how someone does it or why they do it a certain way instead of reading about it. Hope this helps you! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cstmg8 Posted January 25, 2014 Report Share Posted January 25, 2014 Those are helpful, there's a guy from g8 board that has some great instructional videos. I'll see if I can dig it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.