To find the best mobile car detailer near me is not as easy as it seems. Of course the easiest way to start is to Google detailing near me or car detailing near me and your local search results will display the top results in your local area. My suggestion is to look carefully at each detailer. I would strongly recommend visiting the website and look at photos of actual cars that were detailed. Some businesses use images of cars that were used from around the web. Navigate around the site to get feel for the talent that you might be hiring to detail your vehicle. Clearlights Detailing features real photos from real local customers. It’s very easy for anyone to see how well Clearlights Detailing restores each and every car to perfection. Our website has separate pages that include detailed information on Services, Blog, Locations, Headlight Restoration, Contact and more. Every bit of information that a customer is searching for is available within our website. Car Exterior Cleaning Once we are contacted we offer Free detailing pricing consultation for everyone. Once hired we schedule a day that is convenient for our schedules. A standard Full Detail can take between 4-6 hours to complete. Many steps are taken to decontaminate the exterior of the car as well as tires. Tire cleaning and dressing can take up to an hour by itself. Some services that are used will be several types of washing, {power wash, hand wash, final wash}, clay, IPA wipe, hand dry, hand wax and more. Car Interior Cleaning Interior car cleaning is as intensive as the exterior. Many customers that we see have never had the interior “detailed” before. Most people throw trash away, lightly vacuum, and sometimes clean the windows of their cars. Daily drivers usually travel to and from work 9-5 and have 2 days off usually not wanting to clean their cars extensively. Not a problem for mobile car detailers that is why we are here to “Detail”. Pulling the car mats out and doing a deep vacuum to remove dirt, rocks, pet hair, dust, and whatever is left to remove. The seats are next as well as the trunk to try and see the carpet again. Spot and stain removal is the next attack including the door panels with its modern day angles and buttons. Once cleaned we apply protectants that are UV-A-UV-B sun rated to prevent drying and cracking during the blazing hot summer. Cleaning the center console, steering wheel, entire dash area and air vents are up next. We use very delicate cleaning microfiber towels for this area because they can easily scratch. Best Car Polishing After about 5 hours of detailing car polishing can begin. This process is labor intensive as well as time consuming. A close inspection of the car paint is done to evaluate how to correct and remove light swirls and scratches. This process is a bit misunderstood because the general public thinks that after you have a car detailed that those swirls and scratches get removed automatically. Not true this process usually takes 4-6 hours to tape off sections of the car then apply special blends of polish and colored buffing pads to machine polish. Then after each section is polished we can move to the next section etc. The process of machine polishing is by far the most important way to restore a cars paint to near perfection! Remember scratches in your car or truck’s paint is a cut inside your clear coat and to polish with high speed buffing can in most cases remove the scratches. Headlight Restoration If you look around cars today you will see many cars and trucks that have yellow fading headlights. Some are lightly faded to extremely faded where you just can’t see through the lens at all. This happens because the factory clear coat has been removed from the weather. Intense sun, salt, wind, air pollutants all contribute to the fading of the headlights. Cloudy headlights cause many issues such as poor visibility at night and can impair driving causing safety issues. We restore headlights with a multi step process. Sanding and machine polishing with different levels of polishes and buffing pads will restore clarity to yellow fading headlights. Final Car Detailing Inspection When the car is finished that’s when the final inspection takes place. To check the work on the exterior we look for wax that needs to be buffed off, moving the car a few inches to make sure the tire dressing is uniform around each tire and checking the rims for brake dust. Final inspection of the windows is very difficult. In bright hot sun fogging glass on the inside and out is always going to be tough to get because of off gassing of interior materials. Doing a final vacuum is always done to get the small crumbs and extra stuff that is hiding under the seats and seat belt areas. Cleaning the complicated dash buttons and computer screens is also very challenging because they scratch very easily. We use very delicate make up brushes and plush microfiber cloths to remove fingerprints and dust. Also using using special micro attachments for the vacuum hoses also allow us to get in to the very tight areas on the dashboard. We use special leather conditioners on leather seats and center console areas. Leather tends to do two things crack and absorb color dyes from blue jeans and other types of clothes. We can remove most if not all dye jean transfer on light color leather seats. We use final inspection detail sprays on top of the wax before delivery of the car or truck. That final spray will seal the layer of wax and extend the life of protection for anywhere from 3 to six months. Maintenance Car Detailing In closing we recommend getting on a maintenance detail plan to ensure the level of protection and look is always kept to have your vehicle always looking amazing. Maintenance is the best prevention. Clearlights Detailing
11 Comments
Many car owners never have had their car or truck detailed. I found that out a long time ago. When I get calls to have vehicles detailed most of the time the person on the other end has no idea what goes into the detail process. There is a major difference between "just washing the car on the weekend" and the detail in having a car detailed (no pun intended). The very basic routine for a DIY car wash is to put wash soap in a bucket with water, wash car, rinse car, dry car, and if you have time... wax car...maybe. Or go to the coin operated car wash service center. I would honestly like to say both are very damaging to the exterior of your vehicle. I can assure you that at closer look you are applying light to medium swirl marks and scratches to the paint. Not to offend anyone here, but unless you really know what you are doing, those who try so hard to get all that road grime and dirt off to make the car shine again...are actually taking years off of the life of the paint luster. Believe me I have been there. So basically here is the rub...pun intended. With today's modern cars the clear coat paint that sits on top of the color base of the car is very soft and thin which makes it very easy to put swirls and scratches into it. I am sure you have see many cars with the clear coat peeling. It's a thin film. There are many solutions to the maintenance and caring for the car's paint. I always tell people never to run your car through a car wash service because the rollers have lots of dirt on them and when they touch any part of your car the dirt will scratch the paint. At Clearlights Detailing we carefully remove non-bonded contaminants followed by bonded particles that have glued themselves to the clear coat of the paint. We clay the paint so those particles can be removed safely. After which a high quality wax or sealant can be applied to the paint to extend the life of the clear coat to prevent clear coat failure. Interior car detailing is kind of like the exterior. Deep cleaning of cloth materials such as seats, carpets, door trims, center consoles is done by attacking them with mild degreasers. It is followed by UV protectants so the intense heat from the suns rays do not crack dashboards, door panels, center consoles, and electronics. Pet hair, dirt, sand, salt, grease are some common issues that are dealt with on a regular basis to restore a cars interior. Windows are the hardest to clean...believe it or not. The traditional Full Detail can take anywhere from 5 to 8 hours depending on the level of service the customer is looking to receive. The final finish of the detail in every case is a night and day difference. Amazing Results! A good detailer will restore your car to its original shine and gloss while increasing resale value! Clearlights Detailing is a cut above the rest! |
Author
I became a Car Detailer by accident about 30 years ago. It all started while driving my 1977 Chevy Chevette. One day while driving my feet went right through the floor! Yes just right out of the Flintstones cartoons. Well after the floor rusted out I realized that I would clean (detail) all of my future cars to prevent any rust or paint failure. So the rest is history. ArchivesCategories |