Always, Always, Always start with the wheels! We can't say it enough. Your wheels are the grubbiest area of your car, and you want to clean that away first before you wash the rest of the car. Most people wash the wheels last as the wash water gets really dirty, but that risk rinsing brake dust and strong wheel cleaners onto the main body of the vehcile. Best practice car detailing is to wash the wheels first with a dedicated wheel bucket, before starting on the rest of the vehicle. It's faster and you get a better result.

A trick to cleaning wheels faster is to use a range of brushes. Keep them in a dedicated wheel bucket and swap out to use a different brush for different parts of the wheel. A long wheel barrel brush is great to reach through gaps and properly clean the wheel barrels and edges of spokes but wont reach the other parts of the wheel. A soft flat brush is great for the face of the wheel, but wont reach much else. A harder brush will scrub the tyres better and faster but using it on mags wheels will scratch. And a detail brush is perfect for the hard to get areas likearround wheen nuts and corners, but would take too long to do the whole wheel with just that brush. Having a range allows you to quickly swap to use the right brush for the right area. You get a better reuslt faster.

After the Pre-Wash its time to tackle and stubborn spots that need extra attention, bug splatter, tar, tree sap, and other contaminants that can stick and cling to your vehicle even after the initial pre-wash.

The trick here is to be targeted. Tar is very different to bug splatter, and a different chemical is needed to remove them quickly, easily and safely.

A targeted tar remover like Fireball Tar remover will see tar start runing off imediately right before your eyes. Such a product will not be effective on bugs which are effectively protien.

A bug remover like Fireballs Bug remover works by expanding the protein of the bug splatter to make it softer and much easier to remove, this is very effective on bug splatter, but not effective on tar.

All in one "Bug and Tar" products are appealing, however they are not anywhere near as effective as a targeted products.

Recommended Targeted Wash Products:

For Tar: Fireball Tar Remover

For Bugs: Fireball Bug Cleaner

For Glue and Tree sap: ValetPro Citrus Tar & Glue Remover

Best Cloth for cleaning: Rockcar Roadie Microfiber Cloth

Dry with a low scratch risk towel, we recommend the Rockcar Performer Drying towel.

You want to remove all the water to avoid water spots. You also want to ensure in drying you dont scratch the car.

One option is to use an air dryer or blower, the issue here is not all of the water is blown off, some of it evaporates and leaves the minerals in the water behind which like mini water spots dulls your paint over time.

Instead we recommend using a drying towel, but a good drying towel. So what do we mean buy that, what do you want in a drying towel?

First you want it to be a 70:30 blend microfiber cloth, that is 70% polyester and 30% polyamide, that is the sweet spot for structure, absorbency and softness. Polyamide is expensive so most drying towels are only 20%, 10%, 5% or 0% polyamide, it makes it a lot cheaper to manufacture. Don't use those.

Most important is you want realy long strands. This is so if there is any dust, dirt or grit missed or that lands from the air after the wash, that there is somewhere for this to go other than being dragged across the paint. A good way to visualise this is to imagine a polished wooden table, sprinkle some sand on it, then put something flat like a book on it and move the book. It will scratch. The sand has nowhere to go but down and accross the wood as the book is flat. It's the same when drying a car. If you use something flat like a chamois, or even worse a drying blade, and you have any tiny piece of dirt, grit or dust on the car, it will be dragged across and down into your paint and it will scratch. Instead sue something that's not just 70:30 blend but that has a long weave so that any grit has somewhere to go and not just dragged across the surface of the paint.

And last, you want absorbency. You want to dry the car quickly and easily, not just smear water around.

Pro Tip add shine while drying:

If you are doing a regular maintenance wash and not going to clay and polish the car, a great time saver is to use the Autostolz Enhanced Spray Wax as a drying aid. Spray the Autostolz onto the wet car as you dry, section at a time, and buff it off as you dry with the Rockcar performer Towel. In next to no time you have addead a layer of SiO2 and Carnaubra wax while drying, addign amazing shine, water beading and protection. if you do this with every wash you'll keep up the protection and your car will get easier and easier to clean as the layers build on each other.

Recommended Drying Towel:

Rockcar Performer Towel. It's the only one we use on our cars.

If your paint is scratched, oxodised or otherwise damaged, you can polish the top very fine layer down to remove fresh flat unscratched clearcoat.

Light surface water spots: Try Water Spot Remover first

Use at least 4 pads per car. Overlap by half, smooth and steady. Clean pads with pad cleaner and hot water that day. Dry standing or Velcro up so water runs out.

Recommended Polish & Pad Combos:

1 step (to 2,000 grit): Autostolz One Step with Pad matched to Paint Hardness (Euro, Std, Asian)

2 Step: Autostolz Heavy Cut & Heavy pad. Final Finish with polishing Pad.

Heavier: Lake Country Wool Pad with Autostolz heavy Cut.

Difficult Finishing: Black Cloud and Autostolz Final Finnish