I tried my 6-step exterior detailing process today w/ some of the new products I bought for my weekend auto-detailing business (website will be up soon!) in Houston. Here are a few pics of the results, some of the pics are fuzzy...my hands were shaking still from all the work lol:




















Let me know what you guys/gals think. I'm pretty excited, my g/f's hair dresser wants me to detail her 05 SRT-10 Viper vert for $120 and she's going to have my business cards at her shop since she drives the Viper daily. Pretty cool having an SRT-10 Viper as my first customer!

 

Looks really good!!! What products are you using? Good luck with your detailing business!

 

yea, good job, and good luck, i would also like to know what products you are using.

 

If i drive down there for NY will you detial mine for free?

 

looks great, i'd pay you to do my car if you werent in texas or if i was...

 

Wow. That looks great. Having a new SRT-10 Viper as a promotional tool never hurts.

 

Thanks for the comments, as for the stuff I'm using:

Wash- Sonus Gloss Shampoo

Clay- Sonus SFX Ultra-Fine Detailing clay

Paint Rejuvinate- Sonus SFX-1 Restore Polish

Polish- Sonus SFX-2 Enhance Polish

Clearcoat Protection- Klasse All-In-One

Paint Enhancement- P21S Ultima Carnauba Wax

drying chamois and microfiber towels are all 100% US manufactured.

It was very expensive stuff, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

Edit: Eventually I will be going with all Zymol products once I can afford it.

 

Any recomendations for black? and do you know anything about the Simoniz System 5 Teflon coating? I had that put on my car from the dealer

 

lol I dunno it might not look too good after the drive back!

 

how much for all that stuff?

 

Dude, you missed a spot!




Oh wait thats just the reflection of your dog... haha. Ok, just messing, but damn that is one of the shiniest cars ive ever seen.. Its so.. shiny. Great job!

 

Total was around $400. My parents thought the idea was creative so they helped me out since I'm currently jobless lol.

 

The "Teflon coating" scheme is decades old and only the names have changed. It is little more than padded profit for the dealer, and headaches for you if the guy applying it doesn't know what he's doing. Plus it likely requires "maintenance" so it's not as if it's an effortless proposition despite what the sales hype suggests. Even DuPont says teflon coating will do nothing to protect paint as it would require extremely high temperatures for it to even stick to the paint/clearcoat. I feel your pain though, I went through it w/ my Mustang a few years ago.

The main thing to be careful with black paint is swirl marks and spider webs in the clearcoat. What happens is when dirt scrapes against the clearcoat, it creats grooves in which because clearcoat is...well..clear it reflects light on the edges of the grooves and makes the scratches visible. Having black paint underneath it only makes it stand out more. The BEST thing to do to prevent swirl marks is make sure you either get a grit-guard or have two buckets (one for soap and one to dip the sponge in to get all the dirt out) when washing your car. Swirl marks are a true pain to get out...in fact I'd personally say it's nearly impossible to remove w/o either a high quality random orbit polisher or a circular buffer. The best stuff to use at local stores is meguiars (well according to most of the big gunned detailers out there) and ALWAYS use US made terry cloths or microfiber cloths...foreign stuff tends to aid swirl marks and scratches.

 

dude whatever you used that car looks freakin great...until i get better at doing it myself..i would pay to have somethin like that done

 

That is a great job, i know that took some time!

 

That looks f'in fantastic Tofu . Sonus products are the **** . My friend Jared got me to come off my serious Zaino addiction , lol . Did you went sand your car at all ?

Good luck with the business . From expirience , people will pay damn good money and be the most loyal customers u could hope for if you know what your doing . Seems like 80% of the detail shops out there specialize in charging $100-200 to make your car look good when u pic it up , and dont do a thing to actually make your paint healthy again . Again best of luck , you definately got the skill part down

Tell your g/f's hairdresser u gotta take the car for nice long test drive to test the slickness of the paint

 

Thanks man, yeah I'm really impressed w/ the sonus stuff, I might stick with that stuff for awhile. I've actually never tried Zaino although I've heard nothing but good stuff about it. I haven't wet sanded my car but I would love to...these cars have horrid orange peel lol. I'm hoping what you said is what will happen, I may not have a big customer list, but hopefully I'll have some loyal ones lol.

As for the Viper...I'm going to be brave and ask for at least a ride in it lol.

 

hey, Tofu, what do you think you'd charge for a big, black truck? the last time i was in Oklahoma it rained some form of acid and i can't for the life of me get it looking good again.

 

Do you have some pics of the acid damage? I'm guessing maybe acid rain? I'll definitely have to take a look at it, I wouldn't want to quote a price and not be able to get it out lol. But I sure wouldn't mind taking a look at it for you! I worked on my g/f's old nissan sentra that she had in High-school a few weeks back...hadn't been washed in years and never once was waxed as far as she can remember but it turned out really nice, so I'm pretty confident something can be done.

 

tofu get zaino! Zaino i think works best outta anything. I put 5 layers on my ss, and looks great! ill pm you some pics... the bad thing about black is that i zaino my car once a month! it gets to fukin dirty! wash it every sunday.

 

Wow! Nice job. Car looks amazing!

 

you should probably not take pictures in your garage and IN THE SUNLIGHT to actually show your skills but I guess you get an A for effort.

 

hey Tofu..dumb question...but is that a T on the trunk lid where the bowtie was?

 

i think it's a cross.

*edit* yeah that's a pretty badass job you did there, get it out in the sun and take some pics!

 

look amazing whook me up with those products