[Greg Nichols]

Originally Posted by Celicadude

DON'T DO IT!!!! I use to work for a dealer and they go as cheap as they possibly can. Wash mitts/brushes that have seen 100 cars prior and have dirt/rocks/junk in them, crap drive through washes, poor quality products etc etc. In fact my wife went to get her first oil change done on our TSX, and she got the "free" wash. Mind you I had just detailed the car a week earlier. So I come home and first thing she says to me is "look at how shiny the car is!!". All that came out my mouth was a long and drawn out Noooooooooooooooo!!!(Darth Vader voice and all). I then showed her the swirl marks and water spots they left when they improperly dried the car. Needless to say i spent a good part of the afternoon removing the water marks and buffing out the swirls. I know its not possible for everyone to wash your car at home especially if you don't have access to water and equipment, but I highly suggest learning to detail your own car if you can. I think Autopia.org was mentioned earlier. Also detailedimage.com has some great articles. There's a guy on there, Todd Cooperrider, who has some awesome detailing articles. Also the AMMO guy from NYC has some great informative videos on youtube as well. Here's a long a detailed video of his on just the thought process of a detailer.

Detailed Image is a good place to start, you can also just ask many of the other detailers on this forum. I am a poster of info for detailed image too. If you value the appearance of your car its very good to pratice to do your homework on the person, go see cars they have worked on, know what you need to look for, etc.

Cheers,
GREG