Today I did some detailing...

Well today was my big detailing day with the Rav4. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Long and short of it was that I went to bed last night with an alarm set for 9am and every intention to be polishing til my arms bleed until 4:30pm (I do it outside, and so can't continue on after sunset, unfortunately, due to lack of light).

So I rolled out of bed at midday and half-consciously fell into the Rav before going to get some more supplies i wanted in halfords and homebase (some steel wool and autosol for the exhaust, a brush for the tyre gloss, etc.).

It was 2pm before a drop of water hit the Rav and I got as far as Iron Cleansing before having to call it a day and wrap it up. Thankfully, I've another free-ish day tomorrow, so i can continue on from where I left off after a quick wash.


Today I discovered that gloves are a worthy investment when it comes to cold weather and cold water. Who'd have thunk it! :rolleyes:

I figured that by slapping a load more of the Snowfoam solution into the Nilfisk bottle attachment, it might become more 'snowy'. And to an extent it did work. I had a near 50/50 mix, and it was much better than watered down milk from the previous day, in that it did sit on the car, but it was still far too runny. It looked like someone had gotten sick on the car, almost. At this rate I'll have no snowfoam solution left by the time I get the lance, I'm using that much of it with the crappy detergent bottle. A false economy if ever there was one.

That said, I must admit, and it could well be just the placebo effect, but when rinsing the snowfoam off the car, even though it's watered down to sh*te when I use it, it still leaves a lovely glossy wet shine when it comes off. It's quite good. i look forward to seeing what it'll be like when done properly like in some of the Youtube videos I've been watching.


Moving on from there, the shampoo recommended by Curran is quite good. Compared to the Tesco wash and wax, i find, whilst it doesn't necessarily give a notably better finish (it is better, but probably not enough to sing it's praises), it does get a very comparable finish using only a fraction of the amount of Tesco stuff.

By that what I mean is, a dribble of Chemical Guys Glozzworx seems to work as well as nearly a cup-full of Tesco's stuff. Ultimately, when it comes time to renew my shampoo, I'll buy Glossworx off DetailingShed.com again, instead of using Tesco, as I find that, although paying more up-front, it's still significantly better value for money in the long run (in my opinion, anyway).

I used the tar cleanse today, too. I pretty much used half a bottle of it by spraying it over the entire car as if i were washing it with it ('better safe than sorry', I thought, figuring that my car probably never seen a tar cleanse before, and I wanted to over-do everything the first time around to make sure it was all up to scratch for future cleans).

I was initially disappointed. I sprayed it all over the car and let it sit, then cleaned it off and noticed minor differences. Figured I'm using it wrong and then remembered I didn't use it on the wheels or sidebars. Sprayed it on the wheels and sidebars and let it sit.

It's worth mentioning now, that my car is black, and therefore the tar remover did probably work a lot but it's work was probably hidden by the blackness of the car itself. I grabbed my hose (wahey) and started spraying it off the wheels. Some of those little annoying black dots started to disappear. 'Hey, maybe this does work'.

Then I got to the sidebars and my jaw nearly had to be picked up off the floor. To think that, only a couple of weeks ago, I was looking at sidebars for a couple of hundred euro to get them fitted because these ones were so badly 'damaged'. All those black specs of dirt that I couldn't get off for the life of me when cleaning (and believe me, I scrubbed the sidebars on this yoke every time i cleaned it!).

A quick rinse of the side bars after the tar cleanse and my side bars looked absolutely fantastic. They were like brand new bars (well, slight exaggeration). I went again, for round 2 on them, and got rid of more tar deposits. Tomorrow I'm going to go in for round 3 and try to clean them altogether (the amount of times I have to do this might help give an indication with regards to just how bad the tar had gotten to the sidebars!).

I was shocked. TarCleanse has now become, not only the product that inadvertently paid for my entire DetailingShed order two or three times over (new bars were working out ~€400-€500), it's also quickly become my single favourite product. The tar just melted away with it. Cant wait for rounds 3 and 4 tomorrow to try and get them looking new again!

Highly recommend it. It's an amazing product!


After this, i moved on to the Ironcleanse which didn't really do a whole lot that I could see. I didn't use this on the car itself (don't ask me why, but for some reason i opted against it.. maybe I should have?!) I only put it on the wheels. Wheels looked a tad cleaner after it, but can't put my finger on what it did exactly. Maybe if i knew what it was supposed to do i'd have an easier time appreciating it, but as it stands, much as Im sure its a good product, it wouldn't be in my shopping cart again when i make my next order.



After that, I called it a day and started pulling my hose in. Sun was setting and although my car was gleaming, I wasn't entirely happy that I didn't get a chance to polish or wax it (or claybar, but i dont really know if im looking forward to claying it or not, to be honest).


So Tomorrow I promised myself I'd get out of bed early, and give myself a good bit of time in which to give the car a quick wash, and then TarCleanse the sidebars and wheels a couple more times (more attention being paid to the side bars than wheels, but the wheels would still benefit with another clean with it).


Oh, I also used Autosol and some steel wool on the exhaust. I figured this would be the most annoying and 'elbow grease'-inducing part of the clean, but surprisingly enough the autosol is an amazing product also. The dirt on the exhaust just melted away. Took about 2 minutes, but then my steel wool was filthy so i was going around in circles. Another part of the clean that'll get a round 2 tomorrow. Highly recommend autosol and some steel wool for your exhausts. The Rav exhaust isn't shiny (as expected) but still looks a lot better than the charred-black look it had before I started.

Autosol packaging says don't use on anything with a 'mirror finish'. I'm not sure if thats what the nudge bar is, but I tried it on it anyway. Used a decent amount of product, but ultimately it didn't really do anything. Nudge bar didn't really benefit at all from Autosol.

Unfortunately, it got dark fast and I barely got started, so I've no photos to share. I will have tomorrow though. Photos of my fingers bleeding.

Well it could indeed be a case that I just genuinely have no idea how to properly apply it, or didnt let it sit long enough, but I'll try again.

My plan today is out the window as the weather isn't in agreement with my car clean plans. Extremely windy and heavy shower here and there. My car is generally parked outdoors (a driveway), and Im guessing the weather was pretty bad last night, cos it's back to being filthy again, already. and I mean filthy. I'm shocked at how dirty it's gotten, so quickly.


I must do a quick clean on a nice day sometime, and then head into a multistorey car park to finish the job. I know the lads working in one of the car parks nearby, so I'll do it there if they don't mind. Don't have any other interiors I can use (off the top of my head, anyway).

Yeah I've noticed it's not exactly a whole heap of fun.

I've had my cleaning gear for the guts of a week now (since Monday) and I've barely gotten near the car with it (in fairness, i did get to use the tar and iron cleanses, and the autosol stuff, so im happy enough with that, but it's the polishing and waxing that I want to get into with it).


What do ye guys do in poor weather? I can wash the car outside and then bring it into a multistorey for the polish onwards (polish, wax) but i can't really use water in a car park (no access to water, though if i had im sure the local lads would let me clean it on the top floor/roof anyway).

So what I can currently do is give the car the wash up to the point of claybar involvement, rinse the car down after claybar, then drive it to the car park and polish and wax in there, but im not sure if bringing the car on the road mid-wash makes the process as a whole a bit redundant. The car park would be a solid 5-6 minute drive away on fairly busy roads with start/stop traffic (so if the road is wet...).


I have a shed in my back garden that I can park the car in, but it's half kitted out as a home gym.. I'm gonna take a look later on and see if i can squeeze the gym stuff down into the corner (without the exercise gear i could fit the car with space to walk around it, but with the gym gear, i can only get to one side of the car as it is).


All very annoying. Just wish I had a couple of million euro to build a purpose-built state of the art detailing garage (complete with typical millionaire's accessories, like buckets of cash and naked female mechanics, etc.). Would make the process a lot easier.

It fits! It fits!












Well, I knew it would fit, but I didn't think there'd actually be any space to move around it (and there's a crappy home gym set up in front of it with another 6-7 feet to move forward if i compacted it down a bit... but it was the width i was concerned about, really).


Take that, Nature: You ignorant, car hating, motherfu... Well actually, maybe that's not the Christmas spirit!

:pac: