The annoying side of being into detailing.

[andy198712]

Hello,

Just washed my car, and now 98% of the population probably use car washes and dish soap and sponges....

We spend hours washing and polishing ect, basically spending a lot of time looking closely at our cars body work, so:

I notice every microscopic chip and scratch and it drives me insane at times! I guess you need to just accept its a car that is used daily so it will happen.



Does anyone else find this? every few washes you notice a new tiny tiny imperfection, then see it every time you look at the car but no one else would notice it

today i noticed a small very very light scuff on my rear bump, cheers who ever did that (its in the side so couldn't have been me)
plenty of love marks (can see them no the sun is out) on the rear quarter which are no doubt my fault and will be polished out when its nicer weather.
and finally and most painfully some very minor surface rust (wiped away)at the bottom of the front quarter panel where stones have eroded the paint and left it bare (cleaned and applied touch up paint for now) annoying on a 2010 bmw....


now i know for a fact my family who fall into the car wash 98% would NEVER notice such things, but we 2% do



Its not meant to be a rant, and in a way its good to catch these things earlier, especially stone chips. but i can't stop staring at it now


Anyone else feel my pain?

[Soul boy 68]

Yes it does happen, we are in a community that strives for perfection in our car or to at least raise the bar to a high standard, my car has a couple of minor chips lower down and it will happen to any car regardless if anyone cares for it or not. But as long as the paintwork is in superb condition thanks to the knowledge gained on here then I'm happy with that, stone chips or imperfections can be dealt with.


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[M300JDG]

I feel this pain badly! I spend 5 hours detailing my car until it shines like a mirro, drive to work and it’s plastered in mud again and I sit at my desk looking at it feeling demoralised! Can’t wait until it’s summer again and I can detail spray every hour


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[steelghost]

I take some small solace in the fact that, even having been on by some passing vulture and with some minor spotting because I left the AA Rapidcoat H2O on a bit too long, it was still the cleanest car on my mum's road this evening by a country mile

[Jack R]

I feel your pain, I think I can find at least one imperfection on every panel of mine.
But having said that I have noticed that people are washing there cars more often at work now! Even convinced one colleague to join up on here although he’s not completely converted yet, his car does appear to be a lot cleaner.

[Radish293]

We moved out of a town in to a village a year or so back. There are loads of farms around the area and the roads are minging. The only place my cars stay clean is on the drive. Two miles down the road and I wonder why I bother. But I will get the buckets out and start again. Thanks for Green Star it makes my life less stressful.


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[Slammedorion]

I deal with paintwork imperfections daily ( it’s my job )
I see faults in everything not just cars...

[dan4291]

I've just changed cars and I'm positive that I'll find a new issue every time I wash it. Also got my previous car and always found a new stonechip or imperfection after pretty much every wash. Just one of those things I guess. The annoying thing for me though as finding the time to sort the issues out, finding it really difficult at the moment!

[Naddy37]

I gave the chauffeur work horse e-class a wash Sunday. While giving it another coat of C2v3, I noticed a small scuff/chip. Not sure how it happened, whether it’s a door ding scrape. Still annoying, but, at 200k miles, it’s totally ding free.

What annoys me most, my colleagues just see their cars as work horses, and use hand car washes all the time. Their cars look cleaner at times, i hand wash mine, spend hundreds of £ on cleaning products. I do wonder sometimes, why bother when the others don’t give a hoot and their cars still look clean.

[Mcpx]

First thing I learnt when I got into Detailing was that there are 6 foot cars and there are 1 foot cars. Most cars look ok from 6 feet away, some that are cleaned regularly, albeit poorly, even look pretty good from that distance. But when you start to get closer they start to look progressively worse, so the object of the exercise when detailing is to have a car that looks as good up close as it does from a distance, a 1 foot car.

I see this regularly with my neighbor, washes his car every week without fail, single bucket, cheap sponge then plasters it with Demon Shine, and from 6 feet+, it looks clean and shiny, but get any closer and the swirls start to show. I’ve just done a two stage polish and a coat of wax on mine today and I can look out from an upstairs window at my car parked next to his and there is a difference but it’s not a monumental one, definitely not proportionate to the amount of work put in. Of course a 1 foot car will always look better than a 6 foot car at any distance, but the difference in time and effort and investment between the two is massive, so where do you draw the line?