The devil is always in the details, and there’s no exception when it comes to your valuable car. Detailing your car is an important process in taking care of it as well as maintaining its value.
What is auto detailing?
In layman’s terms, auto detailing involves restoring a process where you restore your car from its current state into showroom – quality condition. Notice however that the age of your car is irrelevant, every care needs cleaning, restoration as well as attention. Detailing is necessary for new cars just as much as it is for old cars. Assuming you have a classic car then you are probably inclined have your car detailed to bring out that classy flush – style shiny look.
There are two types of detailing: interior detailing as well as exterior detailing. In this particular piece we will examine the most observable type of detailing: exterior detailing.
Exterior detailing
The outer side of your car exists of 4 sub – layers on top of each other. These layers consist of the substrate, the primer, the paint and the clear coat. The primer connects the body of your vehicle with the paint. Typically, the clear coat makes up about 50% of the exterior of your car (in terms of volume). Your eyesight works by perceiving light that reflects off of objects; this gives you the ability to see. For the exterior of your vehicle, the reflection of light off your clear coat is what allows you to see the paint.
Over time, your car body may suffer a few scratches due to scrapes and some small dents. Furthermore, you’ll have noticed that your clothes become faded over time especially if you hang them out to dry in the sun. The same goes for your car. Damage by UV rays from sunlight actually damages the coat of your vehicle. What this means is that the light entering the cracks of your coat (as well as damaged coats) is diffused and gives your vehicle this appearance that comes off as dirty or dull. Finally, these dents that are sustained are privy to filled with dust, or grime. This means that low quality clothes can’t quite reach these areas and so your car is never clean even after a ‘thorough’ scrubbing. This implies that after these processes, you can never get your vehicle to its original shine.
However, there is a way to get the shine back.
When your car is getting exterior detailing, an adhesive substance simply known as clay is applied over your car’s body. This substance acts in the same manner as wax over your body, when pulled off the clay comes off with all the contaminants over your vehicle. Afterwards, you may clean your car now in the usual manner and it will actually clean this time round.
Now that we’ve dealt with the contaminants and dirt, it is time to deal with the scratches and other marks over your car. Some scratches may be deeper than others and may not be as easy to fix. However, there are ways to make the state of your car better. We now use polishing and paint correction methods. How this works is by reducing the amount of clear coat (and in so doing, some scratches disappear while others are not as deep anymore). This reduces most of the scratches and thus improves the look of your car.
However, not all scratches can be dealt with and so the diffusion of light may still affect the look of your car. At this point you’ll want to add a glazer. A glazer acts by filling in the remaining scratches and thus making the surface of your body even. Afterwards, you add the sealant on top of the glazer to protect your glazer. Finally, you place wax on top of these two newly added layers to give your vehicle that is an excellent reflector of light and thus gives it that shine you’re looking for.
Remember that dust and dirt affect the reflective ability of this wax layer and so it is important for you to maintain that shine by using a maintenance spray alongside a clean microfiber towel to keep that protection on top of your vehicle surface. It is inevitable that your vehicle will sustain a few more scratches as you continue to use it so you may have to redo the auto detailing process again when you notice a significant reduction in the shine of your car.
Auto detailing is an important process of looking after your vehicle. If you are unsure of any of the processes stated above or are curious as to how to begin the process of interior detailing, then it may be best to contact a detailer. Some of them even come to your doorstep to do the detailing process at your place.
Read Also:
- Why choose a custom car detail and polish in Adelaide?
- Get the best price possible when you sell your car