Disinfecting your Car And the Importance of Detaling

Disinfecting your Car and the Importance of Car Detailing

By Patrick Horrigan

With the recent outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) there has been a lot of information coming at all of us from all kinds of sources about how to protect you and your family from exposure to the virus. All the experts agree that things like proper personal hygiene, social distancing and cleaning and re-cleaning your environment are the best steps to protect yourself and your family. After every local news outlet runs a Coronavirus related story and they share a tip on cleaning your cars comes up as a way to help stop the spread.  We get a ton of panicked phone calls from our clients or prospective clients. We welcome the opportunity to clean your car and love to give out advice to our clients on how to maintain and properly care for their car, there is no need to panic. There has been a ton of misinformation spread by social media as well. We are going to attempt to cut through the clutter of information for you and try to help put you at ease a bit and give you a few tips on cleaning your own car.

A phone call we have received a few times in the last ten days or so are from car owners or car owners with family members that have to either self-quarantine because of possible exposure or are told that they need to be in quarantine for 14 days by medical professionals. We are more than happy to come and detail their vehicles properly so they have a nice clean car when their quarantine is over but it isn’t really necessary for preventing the spread of the virus in these cases. According the CDC, Coronavirus can live on a solid surface up to 4 days. Some medical experts through published reports have been suggesting that some viruses can live up to 9 days on a solid surface. This does not factor in the sun. Sunlight, or UV radiation can actually kill viruses in minutes under direct full sunlight exposure. Most newer vehicles have some form of UV protection in their glass, even on clear glass, there is still UV rays hitting the inside of your vehicle killing virus. Factor in the minimum of 14 days quarantine time, when you are cleared to leave your house there is no virus left alive in your car. While we strongly believe in having a nice clean germ free car all the time, Its important to have the car disinfected from an actual or suspected exposure is when that vehicle needs to be put in service right away such as in the case of a company-owned vehicle or a vehicle shared by multiple drivers.

Importance of Keeping a Clean Car

On average our clients spend up to 3 hours a day commuting to and from work. That means apart from your bed and maybe your office chair there is a good chance you spend the most of the rest of your time each day in your drivers seat. How clean is your environment when behind the wheel? There have been numerous studies that proves that your steering wheel can contain up to seven times the germs found on a public toilet seat. Can you imagine unbolting the toilet seat in the restroom of your local gas station and driving home with that?
Proper cleaning of your vehicle should be considered an important part of your regular automotive maintenance as much as changing your engine oil is. Not only will you have a safer and cleaner environment to be in while driving but will help your vehicle maintain its value and make it easier to notice if you have an issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
A lot of the recent service calls we have been performing have been for people who have owned their vehicles for a while and have NEVER cleaned them at all. We take the time to explain the benefits of maintaining their own vehicles going forward and discuss a timetable for calling us again or cover things they can do on their own to help make their cars feel new much longer.

Disinfecting Your Own Car

For the DIY crowd a good place to start is with CDC guidelines for cleaning. Their website has a complete list of household cleaners available on their website that can actually kill Coronavirus. A lot of the products listed as certified, unfortunately, are not safe to use on all surfaces in your car. For most of the safer products to be effective you need to leave the product on the surface for three minutes or more and allow it to air dry. It’s very important to follow the manufacturer labels. More often than not they will tell you what surfaces are safe to use the products on as well as safety precautions when using the products.

There are a lot of different surfaces in your vehicle to take into account when selecting products to use and procedures on how to clean them. For example most leather seats and trim are coated in vinyl or a clear coat which is a lot more resistant to stronger cleaning products and can stand up to a fair amount of light scrubbing. Some vehicles have soft-touch buttons and surfaces around the car. Most of the time its a rubber based material. Anything containing alcohols can break down, weaken or destroy these surfaces. If you are going to use any of the CDC certified products on your car you should test it in an inconspicuous spot first and make sure its a pH balanced cleaner. There are quite a few products on the market designed specifically to decontaminate automotive interiors that are safe to use on all surfaces of your vehicle that you can purchase online or in local stores, just make sure you read your labels and follow each products’ directions.

When it’s time to clean your own car an important tip is not to spray product directly on the surface. You run the risk of overspray onto surfaces that do not like cleaners like touchscreens, glass or electronics. You want to spray into whatever towel you are using first then wipe. It’s best to use a few quality microfiber towels or if needed, a lint free paper towel. Spraying into a towel first also keeps you from oversaturating sensitive things like electronics, buttons and switches.
Another thing to keep in mind is that dirt attracts dirt. If your car is dirty, it’s makes it a lot easier for the bacteria and viruses to stick around inside your car. You should property detail your entire car in conjunction with taking addtional steps twards disinfecting. That old french fry that fell under your seat a month ago may not be food for Coronavirus to help grow but there are plenty of other microscopic goodies that love spilled food. Vacuuming is always a good idea, and a good place to start when cleaning your car.

Once you have finished vacuuming and removing any loose trash the next step is cleaning surfaces. You will also want to clean and wipe all surfaces of your car with a good quality cleaner. Not just the obvious things like door handles and steering wheel but you really should clean and wipe down every last inch of your interior. Having cleaned over 10,000 cars since going into business, I have learned that kids can touch and dirty up every nook and cranny in no time without fail.

After you have thoroughly vacuumed your interior, wiped down all the surfaces with an appropriate cleaner you should finish off your detail/ cleaning with a final wipe of some kind of vehicle protectant. There are endless choices on products to use here too. You will want to avoid anything containing silicone (Like traditional Armour-All). Silicone may make it look nice and shiny but that will be a dirt and dust magnet after. Silicone can also damage some surfaces after repeated use. You will want to use a natural finish “Interior Detailer” . A good Interior detailer will offer some UV protection and help with dirt and dust buildup. There are a few on the market, including the one that we use, that also has Microban which actually prevents microorganisms from sticking to surfaces after application. At this point, after vacuuming and wiping and treating all surfaces with a interior detailer you will want to clean your glass. Do not use an ammonia based glass cleaner like you may use around your house. You want a alcohol based glass cleaner, and something that is safe to use on your touchscreens of your infotainment system and screens in your dash. Another item always overlooked is your key fob. You touch that at least twice for every ride in the car. Quick wipe is all that’s needed to keep it germ free.

Cleaning your car more often makes the job go quicker. If you spend a few minutes every week or two doing a quick vacuum and wipe down will help cut down on the time it takes to do a more thorough cleaning. Does anyone want to waste a half a Saturday afternoon a few times a year cleaning your car?
Another pro tip: keep some car cleaning wipes or natural baby wipes in your car. Next time you’re sitting in your car in the pickup line at the kids school you can take a wipe and just give a quick pass on your dash and cup holders. Even with a well maintained and clean car can use a professional deep cleaning once or twice a year. A lot of our customers are Spring/ Fall customers. We see their cars twice a year for a solid cleaning. For those of you that are marticulas about cleaning you should do it at least once a year. Our suggested time for those cleanings is at the end of summer when road trip season is coming to an end.

How the Pros Do It

When we do an interior detailing we have with us some very expensive cleaning toys and all the best products to get the job done quickly and correctly right in your driveway or office. On average our Base Interior detail for a sedan takes around three man hours to complete. As our packages go up, so too does that amount of time it takes to get the job done.

When we perform a disinfection of a vehicle we attack the germs with a few different methods. The most safe and proven method is the use of an ozone machine. Without getting too technical, an ozone machine converts oxygen molecules into ozone or O3. That third oxygen molecule is by nature is unstable and attaches, attacks and breaks down anything organic in the car. This includes germs, virus, mold and bacteria. Ozone also permeates into all areas of your car, not just the easy to reach and wipe areas. The virus is killed after about three minutes of exposure to ozone and it takes about twenty minutes for our equipment to reach a proper level of ozone inside your car for cleaning, depending on vehicle size. The second method we use is a steam cleaner. We steam clean surfaces that have already been hit with ozone to not only remove the germs but to get rid of any ozone residue. When we do a full detailing, not just a disinfection, all surfaces are treated after cleaning with a natural finish surface protectant that not only helps against dust build up and damage from UV rays but contains a product called Microban that prevents new deposits of microorganisms.

If you would like to schedule We Car Care Care to come complete a professional cleaning of your vehicle at your home or office or you just have some more questions on how to properly clean your own car you can visit our website at http://www.WeCarCarCare.com, find us on Facebook or call us directly at 774-279-1384.

Our Base Interior detail starts at $120 for a sedan and our Base Plus Package, which includes a ozone treatment starts at $150 for sedans. We also have interior packages that offer long term protection using nano ceramic based coating and even a package backed with a 5 year warranty!

 

Between the Details : Winter Cleaning

By: Patrick Horrigan

Owner/ Lead Tech at We Care Car Care

Often people put off cleaning or detailing their vehicle in the winter months. Most detailers will tell you proper winter detailing is more important in the cold months than in the Spring for many reasons. Both the outside and inside of your car takes a beating in the winter. Salt and sand is not your friend. More often than not, the effects tend to build up over time. Lets take a look at what happening inside your car first.
Take a look at the floors and mats of your car. The sand is rather obvious but notice those
little white stains on your carpet? Those are from salt. When you get into your vehicle in the winter after storms or walking through salted and sanded parking lots you’re tracking it into your vehicles suspended in water from melting and runoff. As that water dries it leaves the salt behind.  Over time the salt will build up and start to burn the fibers of your carpet to the point it may not be completely reversible.  Also sand gets into the fibers of your carpet and depending on your vehicle maybe really hard to remove. Sand in the carpeting really speeds up the wear on your carpet.  Winter is also the best time of year for fogging of your glass. A dirty glass surface magnifies fogging and often streaking shows the worse in winter between the low sun angles, cold temps, extended time of darkness and glare from wet roadways.
The outside of your vehicle suffers in the cold months as well. The issue of road salt and body corrosion has been discussed over and over again so we will spare you that discussion. The simple solution is a properly washed and waxed vehicle will help resist corrosion effects. But did you know that it also helps when cleaning ice and snow off your car. After a quality detailing with paint decontamination and a clay bar treatment followed by a coating with a high hydrophobic paint coating or wax that your car’s surfaces will be more ‘slick’ making it easier to clean off your car. Ice and snow has less of a surface to stick too. Proper coatings on wheels and wheel well liners can also help snow and i
ce buildup too. In the winter on light colored vehicles in particular, iron deposits turn to surface rust way faster than the rest of the year and show up as small orange dots. Doors sticking from ice can also be prevented with a proper cleaning and coating.
We Care Car Care offers both a winter prep package and winter survival package for our customers. We include a whole host of items to battle the winter and help cleaning and reversing of its already taken hold effects.  The tricks that we use to fight winter can be done by anyone who likes to use a fall/ spring full detail schedule or anytime your car is feeling the winter blues.

 

For the outside of the vehicle we do a full wash, paint decontamination using both specific chemicals and clay then finish with a upgraded  synthetic wax if they are not paying for an advanced paint coating. To clay on your own vehicle, most local auto part stores stock everything you need in one kit, normally from brands such as Mothers and Meguiars.  These kits come with a microfiber towel, the correct clay bar lube as well as enough clay to either clay a few vehicles or extra if you drop the bar on the ground and have to discard it. They also come with simple to follow instructions. If you still need a little of help there is a host of YouTube videos  online to watch.  Once you have properly prepped the surface of your car the next step is to apply a wax or coating to your car. We skip using wax mostly comprised of carnauba in the winter since it does not last as long because of the salt. There are lots of choices that can be found locally at your autopart store for synthetic waxes to use in the winter. Spray waxes tend to be the easiest to use in cold weather since most are a simple spray on, wipe off application. The colder the weather, the smaller the size panel you’ll want to work at a time. Another benefit of a spray wax in winter is it’s very easy to get a coating on areas that snow and slush like to build up like wheel s and wheel wells.

Like your paint, your glass can benefit from a good cleaning and a coating. Products such as RainX and Aquapell will help ice from sticking to your windshield and help your windshield wipers perform better. A new pair of wiper blades isn’t a bad idea either.

One of the last areas on the outside of your vehicle that deserves a little special attention is your jambs and sills. Lots of corrosive salt, dirt and road debris can build up in your jambs over the winter. Too much build up can clog areas and channels designed to funnel water away from your vehicle. Pooling salty water is a breeding ground for future headaches.  Dirty door seals freeze a lot easier then clean and treated seals. A good APC (all purpose cleaner) and a few microfiber cloths is all you need to keep them sparking clean. When we do our winter clean-ups we always hit the painted area of jambs and sills with spray wax and then condition and clean all the black rubber seals with tire shine product.

To keep the inside of your vehicle sparkling clean in the winter months regular cleaning is also key especially between your professional details. Equipping your vehicle with a quality rubber or plastic form fitting car mats can keep a lot of that winter mess from reaching your carpets and save you a lot of cleaning time. If you have regular mats a good quality shop vacuum with stiff brush attachments are needed to get all that sand out of your carpets.

Pro Tip: A palm sander is a great tool for getting out sand. Use the sander with nothing on it to vibrate the carpet to bring the sand to the top and then just vacuum away.

Salt stains on carpet can be a pain to remove. The best method we have is to use a 50/50 mixture of distilled white vinegar and warm water in a spray bottle. Simply spray on the stain and let it dwell for a few minutes to start breaking up the salt.  Next, while the carpet is still wet, rub in with a stiff bristle brush and that should break up the rest. Wipe the area with a terry towel until dry. The smell will go away in a day or two. If its bothersome a quick spray, agitate and wipe with an APC will get most of it. Or if you are cleaning a mat you can remove them from the vehicle and place in the sun. The UV rays will kill any smell as it dries.

Another area inside of your car that needs a little extra attention in the winter is your glass. A good quality auto-specific glass cleaner is a lot better to use then something you have already for around the house. Auto glass cleaner is formulated to use on the special coatings found on auto glass as well as being safe for window tint. Streaking is always an issues with cleaning car glass. There is a few ways to cut down on streaking. First, avoid direct sunlight as it can dry the cleaner before you can wipe it off. Secondly do not spray the cleaner on the glass. Use a glass cleaning microfiber towel and spray the cleaner on the towel. Start with the outside edges first and work your way in. While the window is still wet flip your towel to a dry side and dry off the glass. With a second dry towel, make another pass over the glass to polish away any remaining haze.  There are products on the market that you can apply to glass to cut down on fogging but I find that plain clean glass and a working defroster works better than any coating I’ve used.

Last thing to talk about may be the most important if you want your car looking nice for a long time. The single biggest cause for scratching in paint in my area is snow removal. It leads to a lot of paint correction work so maybe I shouldn’t give some tips?

Anytime you clear snow off your vehicle your almost guaranteed to put scratches into your paint. Most people use a snow brush. By it self the brush causes micro scratches easily but when you add in dirt picked up by the brush and then spread it over your car the scratching becomes deeper and more plentiful. Most of these are easily corrected with polishing later on. Some Brushes use metal to attach the bristles to the handle. Any contact with anything other then the brush is going to do number on your finish and are often not correctable. Some of the alternatives to brushes such as snow brooms (foam) can also scratch since they can pickup dirt and debris. Never, Ever, Never use a kitchen broom, something we see ALL THE TIME!

So what is safe way to clear snow off your car? Believe it or not one of the best tools to use is a leaf blower. There is nothing to contact your vehicles paint other then air. The leaf blower can be rather impracticable to use when not at home. Cordless models do not have enough power for deep snow and the cold will seriously cut your battery life short. A good on the road solution is to wrap your snow brush in a large clean micofiber towel. This will reduce the scratching if you move the towel slightly after every pass or two so you always have a fresh clean spot of the towel touching your paint.  A few 16×16 towels in the trunk is a lot smaller then a leaf blower. You can toss the towels in the wash after every storm and be ready for the next one.

Remember if you don’t feel like doing any of the above, I know quite a few guys that will do the work for you. And don’t forget to give us a call when its time to fix those snow removal scratches!

Mobile Detail Pricing: Car Cleaning Vs. Car Detailing

By Patrick Horrigan

Owner/ Lead Tech at We Care Car Care

As business owner and the guy that usually answers the phone here, one of the first questions potential new clients ask us is “How Much is it to have my car done?”

The simple way to answer the question is to give the customer a price after a few quick qualifying questions such as vehicle make/ model as well as finding out what they are looking for. Unless they have been referred from another client chances are they are shopping around by price. In my market there are a few other good detail shops and two quick detailing centers in the area. There only seems to be one other active mobile detailer covering my town and he actually brings me more business.  I have a few new clients that reached out to me for service after visiting my competitor and receiving less than stellar service.   This is lucky for me for a couple of reasons. First it’s more work for me. But more important is the customer has already been educated in what is involved in a detail versus just a car cleaning and understands the value of such service.  The biggest obstacle for obtaining new clients who are shopping around by mostly price point is customer education.

My shop has a set dollar per hour metric we try to meet when pricing out jobs for customers.  That number varies based on what kind of work we are doing. Labor cost is my largest expense and the amount of time something takes directly relates to its cost. I have to pay my guys and myself (labor costs), cost of consumable materials and chemicals, equipment costs and wear and tear, etc. Then there general costs for running business that needs to be covered such as insurance, licenses, tax and payroll services, trade affiliation memberships, web hosting, graphic design services, and so on. My certified, trained and experienced guys and gals that do complicated paint corrections are going to make a bit more then the new ones in training that just do vacuuming and windows, and deservedly so. Most of the quick detail centers that do car cleaning do not need highly skilled workers to just do quick vacuums and hand application of waxes.   We try to make it as simple as possible for customers to understand our pricing online through different packages to pick from. Although we do charge over and above those prices for cars that are very neglected, it’s rare that we have to do that, and it’s always covered ahead of time with the customer.

So what is the difference between cleaning a car and detailing a car?

Think it of it this way, your house. If you are going to have some friends or another couple over for a dinner you run around and pick-up the house first. You get dirty clothes off the floor, take out the trash, maybe clean dishes, wipe the old toothpaste off the bathroom sink, run a vacuum cleaner quickly over the living room rug and if your real ambitious you may even do a wipe down of things like coffee tables. This would be the house cleaning equivalent of a CAR CLEANING.  Now picture your mother coming over to spend a few days to visit. You don’t just pick up the house. You wash the kitchen and bathroom floors, dust the living room, get all the soap scum out of the bathtub, clean the toilet, etc. This would be closer to a full car detailing.

There is a popular local drive through car wash that offers several car cleaning options including an “Interior Detail” for $18 to $49 depending on vehicle size. Their “Interior Detail” includes a drive through tunnel wash, vacuum of the carpets, cleaning of windows and a wipe down of the dash and cup holders and empting of ash trays all completed in under 30 minutes while you wait. Not a bad deal when you think it costs $10 just to drive through the tunnel wash. This would be an interior CAR CLEANING not a CAR DETAILING. By comparison, just a proper vacuum cleaning by us takes 30 minutes or more and more often than not we make more than one vacuum pass once we finish detailing the interior. We have special attachments, tools and brushes, both mechanical and machine powered that helps to dislodge every last spec of sand, fuzzy and dirt from your carpets possible and not just from the parts of the carpet you see but under seats and those hard to reach places.  A CAR DETAILING with us also includes all the things mentioned in their package plus a lot more. For example, Dashes are not just wiped down with product. We do a full dry vapor steam cleaning and even a pre-scrub with products designed just for car interiors on really bad cars prior to steam cleaning. We offer several packages for different levels of cleaning from what we would call a basic interior detailing all the way up to a multi-day cleaning where we disassemble parts of your interior like your trim and remove the seats. That detailing package could even be considered more of a restoration then a detailing.

A general wipe down with a cheap dressing like the car wash only covers up years of body soil build-up, germs, dirt and general yuck. Will it look good? Yes it will. Not as good as it would if cleaned the proper way and more importantly just covers up the filth rather then get rid of it. Will We Care Car Care do just an interior cleaning the same as the local car wash? Yes we will but only on vehicles that have been detailed by us already and done as part of a maintenance detailing package.  We would not put our name on anything short of perfect.

That same Local wash also offers exterior “Detailing Services”. For a barging price of just $79.95 they will do a hand rub paste wax that gives you , to quote their website, “Super shine using a hand rubbed quality paste wax that really protects the car’s finish”. Sounds like a pretty good deal. Wax will protect your cars finish, but it won’t produce a super shine alone. That wax special includes a tunnel wash. I could spend all day on the disadvantages of using a drive through car wash. It doesn’t matter how soft the cloth and brushes are, they are scratching the heck out of your clear coat! So they start your Exterior Detail off by scratching your car. Then they hand rub paste wax, buff it off and that’s it for $79.95 for 1 to 3 months of paint protection over your freshly scratched painted surfaces.

For close to the same price, We Care Car Care would do a true proper exterior detailing.  We would start with a complete paint safe rinseless car wash followed by both a chemical and mechanical paint decontamination to remove bonded contaminates that washing alone does not remove.  Once the vehicle is fully cleaned we can finish off the exterior in many different ways. From a simple spray wax to a full multi-stage paint correction and coated with a 5 year ceramic coating. On our trucks we have no less than 60 combinations of options for finishing your paint the correct way and give you real shine. We also include wheel cleaning with a brake dust and iron remover followed by a spray wheel wax. Tire rubber is cleaned with a specific cleaner and shined using a UV blocking tire dressing. All plastic and rubber trim protected. Glass and mirrors cleaned and treated.

There are many differences between Cleaning a Car and Detailing a Car. We Care Car Care is a proper detailing service that comes to you with highly skilled and trained employees, using the proper products that will take care of your vehicle the correct way. Not the fast way!

Are Paint Coatings Worth the Money?

By Patrick Horrigan

Owner/ Lead Tech at We Care Car Care

 

This scene is plays it out every day at new car dealers…

You have found the perfect new car and spent most of the day playing the game at the dealership. The game where they pretend they give you the best price for the car, you give your counter offer, yet another number. Then your sales person disappears to that giant desk at the front of the dealership where a couple of grumpy or important looking people sit and magically comes back with a slightly better number but not what you want. Sometimes this can go for a few rounds. You have a trade-in. The value they want to give you for the trade goes through almost the same process. Finally you agree on a number that you are happy with. Then you go visit another guy behind a desk. They ask you tons of personal information, you wonder if they really need to know all this info? Then you sit and wait, and wait. Sometimes they make you wait until the next business day.  Finally you are told your loan is approved. Now, onto the best part, all the paperwork. You get to sit down with yet another important looking person in a secret or private office area. He/she will drop a huge folder on the table. The $695 document fee they are about to hit you with starts to make a bit of sense. First, they hit you with a review of what you are buying and what you agreed upon. Next is when they start hitting you with the extras such as that $695 document fee followed by delivery fee. Having just purchased a 2016 Ram vehicle I was hit with a $1495 delivery and prep fee. That over $2,000 over what I said I wanted to pay. Next, is the very well rehearsed extended warranties speech. They sometimes offer several different options but always include a chart of what items and parts in your car cost to replace at the dealership. I could do another blog just on these alone. Last thing they always hit you up with is an additional “paint protection warranty”.

Most new vehicles come with a Corrosion Protection Warranty, or protection from your vehicle painted exterior from rusting out on you.  The average corrosion protection warranties are a 5 year, unlimited mileage coverage. Some higher end manufactures like Audi, BMW/ Mini and Mercedes offer 10 and 12 year unlimited mileage warranties. This protection is from rust forming on the outside of your car, and if you read your warranty carefully, they all have a clause about the rust forming due to workmanship or manufacturing defects. What’s not covered? Damage to your paint from actual real world environmental conditions such as sunshine, hard water staining, bird droppings, tree sap, brake dust, etc, are never covered.  This is where additional paint protection warranties come into play. Car dealers will try to sell you this added protection and warranty, sometimes they just add it into your contract either hoping you don’t notice or just go along with what they are selling and not get upset over the small fortune they are selling it for.  All of them come with some form of paint protective coating installed at the time of delivery of the vehicle.  The coatings basically all do the same thing with some of them performing better than others.  There are two different types of coatings, polymer and ceramic based. They offer an additional long-lasting layer of protection on top of your factory clear coat. Think of it as adding a second clear coat to your vehicle.

Is the coating and warranty worth the extra money?

The short answer is YES. These coatings can give you years of protection from all sorts of environmental problems as well as additional paint scratch protection.

Think about this. Chances are when you were considering optional and extending warranties your sales person covered the typical costs of most common parts prone to failure. How much it would cost to replace those parts once your warranty runs out if you had one? What is the most expensive part on your new car? Most people would say it is the engine. Remanufactured motors start around $2000 before adding labor. Factory crate motors, or brand new motors costs even more.  What about your paintjob? Around the Boston market, a quality paintjob at a reputable body shop runs around $1500 per panel. A complete car re-spray could set you back $10,000 or more! Is it worth purchasing the coating through your new car dealer and adding it into your loan? That’s for you to decide. I know a few people in the car sales/ dealership industry. They have told me that they sell a fair amount of these warranties and coatings but more often than not do nothing more then put the fancy “Protected by XYX” stickers on the car windows. At least you have the warranty to feel a bit better about it. Maybe your independent detailer or installer might be the better option. With better products, experience in application and service all without dealership pricing sounds like a much better option! That’s were car detailers like We Care Car Care can come in.

So what are paint protection coatings?

To understand what modern car paint coatings are we need to go back a little bit.
Using wax for paint protection goes back before cars were even a thing. Back in the 1800’s people use to coat their painted wood and natural finish horse drawn carriages with different types of protective coatings made from things such as oils from animals and plants to keep them from rotting out. As automobiles came into existence a lot of them were built with wood frames as well as steel and people continued to protect them the way they would protect their old carriage.  As vehicle technology continued to develop, so did paint technology. By the mid 1990’s nearly every vehicle on the road was painted with a two step process consisting of a base coat and a clear coat we use today. The use of a clear coat protects the paint much better then old single stage paint. It also adds a whole new level of gloss to the finish. Think of how a mirror works. It’s basically a piece of glass with black paint or coating on one side. The glass creates the reflection. Clear coat acts in the same way, creating refection and depth. Adding wax (or any other coating) increases that depth of gloss. As we move into the future, paints are moving towards water based, environmentally friendly formulas that will still require additional protection from the vehicle owners.

Modern paint coatings add extra protection on top of your existing clear coat finish similar to wax. Rather that lasting a few months as wax does, the protection can last for years. Paint coatings provide protection of harmful UV rays which can dull and oxidize your finish. Coatings also protect your car from damage from bird droppings, bugs, tree sap, hard water stains and environmental fallout while maintaining a hydrophobic finish (ability to repel water). In addition to the length the product lasts, unlike wax, paint coatings offer some level of scratch protection. It does this in two ways. First, these coatings can add a measurable level of thickness to your cars overall finish. This creates an additional layer available for paint correction. Light scratching and scuffs may not even make it to your clear coat layer. Some coatings can add as much a 1 Mil or  1 thousands of an inch on top of your clear coat. A typical clear coat is 2 to 3 mils thick. Coatings also help protect your cars finish by having a hardness level as great as or greater than the original clear coat itself. The standard for hardness testing is the ASDM D3363 Test. It uses a lead pencil under varied pressure to check for scratching resistance. Coatings and paint are rated on a H1 to H9 scale, with H9 being the most scratch resistant. Clear coat on factory installed paints varies greatly by brand but typical fall into the H3 to H4 range.  By comparison some aftermarket paint coatings can test off the charts, H9 on the scale. One of the ceramic coatings We Care Car Care installs hits that mark making it more than twice as resistance to scratching then factory installed clear coats!

There are two types of coatings that have become very popular with detailers and car enthusiast and both perform in similar fashion.  Coatings come infused with either ceramic or plastic (polymer) nano particles that cure in air and form a bond to your clear coat on a molecular level.  There are a few differences between the two types of coatings as well as variations from one brand to the next.

Having tried numerous coatings through the last few years we have settled with one vendor which we feel is far superior to the others in the way the product performs and the way it is applied. We Care Car Care installs our own product line made just for us overseas in Korea. The Formula we use is made just for us by the same company that makes 3 of the top 4 coatings in the industry. We tweaked out our formula to our liking and has the ability to be applied in extreme conditions (below 50 degree panel temps) as well as in full sunlight. It contains just under 97% Si02, the main ingredient in any Ceramic or Glass coating.   It is very important to us to work with manufactures, vendors and suppliers  that stands behind the products we are installing on customers vehicles as well as support for their installers.

Our coating carries a 5 year transferable warranty on new to 2 year old vehicles and 3 years on any other vehicle with protection from weather-induced fading or loss of gloss, oxidation, hard water etching, industrial fallout, bird droppings, insects, tree sap, and acid rain. It’s high hydroponic formula which means less washing of your vehicle and normal rain water can carry the dirt away on its own. It also measures above H9 on the hardness scale making it one of the hardest coatings available you can apply to your vehicle. The finish has a very deep shine and does not contain any kind of fillers so the product is best suited for new or close to new paint finishes. It also requires labor intensive muli-step paint correction, even on brand new paint since it will magnify and ‘lock-in’ any existing paint defects such as scratching and etching.

We Care Car Care also installs a polymer coating for older vehicles. This special polymer offers the same protection from weather-induced fading or loss of gloss, oxidation, hard water etching, industrial fallout, bird droppings, insects, tree sap, and acid rain as the Ceramic coating does. It also is very hydroponic. The coating carries a 3 year transferable warranty. This coating is better suited to older vehicles since it has some scratch and defect filling properties and is less labor intensive application only requiring a one step polish using various polishing options selected to match each vehicles clear coat.

Back to our original question, are paint coatings worth the money? We have already shown you what paint coatings can do for your car. If you are planning to keep your vehicle for a long time paint coatings make a lot of sense to keep you vehicle looking as new as possible. If you are the type of person that drives a car for just a few years then trades or sells off the car, coatings make a lot of sense as well as it will help retain value and in the case of our coating, offers a value added transferable warranty. You also need to factor the money and time saving aspect. A quality paint coating such as ours means you will need to clean your car less often. I have found myself washing my own vehicles less than half as often as I was with traditional wax coatings. If you take your car to the local touchless carwash once a week at $12.95 that trip through the tunnel that comes out to around $675 a year! Cutting your washing in half will save over $300 in the first year alone! Also, not having to wax the car it will either save you a few Saturdays of time each year or for paying someone like We Care Car Care from doing the work.

Interested in getting a quote for your car, truck, SUV or even RV, boat or motorcycle give us a call today!

 

Between the Details: Vacuuming

Between the Details: Vacuuming

by: Patrick Horrigan

Owner and Lead Tech at We Care Car Care

Between the Details is a multi-part series on how to maintain your vehicle properly between details. This Chapter is on washing your vehicle without water.

Vacuuming, sounds pretty simple right? The simple answer is that it is easy, unless you want it done right. When a new detailing assistant or tech starts working for me I always start them off learning the art of vacuuming first. There are several reasons for that. First and foremost everyone thinks they know how to vacuum. You get a vacuum cleaner, a long enough hose and special nozzle or two and go to town.  Secondly, it’s a good chance for me to show them the difference between what their idea of clean is and what I call clean.

Why bother to vacuum in between details anyway? Is it just to make your car look cleaner, longer? While it does make your car look clean this isn’t the only reason you want to regularly vacuum. Think of all that stuff you drag into the car, like sand, salt, dirt, grass; all as mini pieces of sandpaper. As your feet (or butt) press down and move around on all that stuff you are speeding up the wear on your carpets and other fabrics in your car.  Just a few grains of sand in the cracks of your car seats can destroy that nice soft leather surface in no time. Have nice all weather rubber or plastic car mats? While they are great at preventing crud from getting to your carpets and help provide protection even the best mats can’t keep everything from reaching your carpets. Once sand and dirt gets under those mats the sandpaper effect on your carpets is magnified even more with contact between the dirt,
carpet and mats. Now are you ready to go vacuum your car?

Here is what you will need

Vacuum Cleaner:  Almost any vacuum would be better than nothing. While your average
home upright vac and a few attachments will get the job done I recommend a wet/dry shop type vacuum with at least 3hp rating. The vacuums I use in my business are all Husky 5hp, 4 gallon wet/ dry vacuum available from Home Depot as well as HERE. This vacuum is small enough for our mobile operation and fit inside larger vehicles if we need it but still has 130 inches of waterlift making it one of the most powerful single stage vacuum running on regular household power. We also use the optional HEPA filter to help keep the dust and stuff out of the air in the area we are working.

Attachments: You will need at minimum a crevice tool attachment to get into all the little nooks and crannies.  Most car vacuuming kits also include both a stiff carpet brush attachment and softer brush for seats and dash as well as a longer, more flexible hose that can help with larger vehicles. We use this Ridgid Auto Detailing Kit and it contains everything you need.

 

Not all carpets are created equal

In today’s modern cars you will find a variety of different carpet types and quite often several styles in the same car. The carpet type in the passenger area is normally different then the carpeting using in the cargo and trunk area, even on the most expensive cars. Most high end cars such as Audi and Mercedes use a wool or synthetic wool loop pyle style carpet in the passenger area and a cut pile in the trunk. Less expensive cars have carpet that is so lightweight and loosely woven it can hardly called carpet.  Extra care must be taken when using more powerful vacuum cleaners with these because under full suction you can actually start unraveling the carpet!

Closed loop and open loop tight woven carpets are the easiest to vacuum since most of the debris does not get trapped in the actual carpet itself as bad. Other vehicles, such as a Toyota Prius, Honda Fit or Mitsubishi Lancer, carpets are so difficult to clean you may not get everything out without damaging the carpet. The loose carpeting can start to unravel if you apply the full suction of the vacuum trying to get stuck in dirt.

The vacuuming process is basically the same with all types of carpets and pretty straightforward.  First step is to remove all the loose trash that should not be sucked up by the vacuum. Also keep an eye open for ‘lost treasures’. Seats love to hide pens, change and other small items lost from view. On to the vacuuming.

I always work top to bottom inside the vehicle vacuuming and cleaning. It keeps you from knocking back into the carpet dirt and debris from the seats and dash. Start with a soft brush attachment and vacuum the dash, trim and vents. The vacuum will pick most of the junk without having to use a wet and wipe method first. The next step, move onto the seats. Seats love to hide crud between the seams and where the side bolsters meet the bottom cushion and where the seatback meets the bottom cushion. Start with a crevice tool and with vacuum out the cracks and where the seatback meets the cushion. I always tells my guys to “spread the cheeks” to stretch the gaps and get down deep. Next, switch to either the soft dash brush for leather seating surfaces or stiffer carpet brush for cloth seats and vacuum the rest of the seat. If you still have debris in the crevices of the seats the brush will help to loosen it up. When you vacuum the rear seats make sure lift the seatbelts as some of them sit in molded pockets and love to collect stuff.

Once you have vacuumed all other surfaces its onto the floor. Remove the mats from the vehicle and shake out any loose stuff. If you have carpeted or foam backed mats, take care as to where you put them down since they can pick up more stuff off the ground that wasn’t there when you removed them.

When its time to vacuum the actual floors it doesn’t matter if you start in the back and work forward or the other way around. Start by making a first pass with a wide mouth attachment or no attachment at all and get all the loose easy stuff first. This should only take a few minutes, not worrying about the stuck in dirt. Once you have completed a quick vac, move onto working around and under the seats with your crevice tool.  I would not recommend blindly fishing your vacuum hose with no attachment under and around the seats because the vacuum WILL stuck up at least one large item you didn’t see.  A crevice tool will keep the large items from getting in the vacuum and can actually help you retrieve items you couldn’t reach.

Once you have completed vacuuming around and under the seats the only thing left on your carpets will be either stuck/ ground in dirt and stains. The best way to get most of the stuck in dirt is with a brush. Using your brush attachment or a separate stiff bristle brush lightly scrub the brush over the dirt while under vacuum. This will loosen up and suck away most of what is left.  Make sure to take care again vacuuming the carpet found in inexpensive imports. Heavy brushing will loosen up and separate the fibers of the carpet in the same way too much suction will. You will not be able to get everything out of these carpets no matter how much you brush or vacuum. If you have stuck items that are bothersome I have had some success using tweezers, although it can be quite a tedious process!

The last step of vacuuming is taking care of your mats. After banging out all the loose debris, take a brush attachment or standard brush and loosen up the remaining stuck in debris. Before putting mats into your vehicle make sure you also look for dirt on the backside. Cloth and foam back mats pick up stuff much easier then the front/ top side of the mat. Even hard plastic mats can pick up larger items in the barbs used to keep mats from slipping around.

 

Between the Details: Waterless Washing

by: Patrick Horrigan

Owner and Lead Tech at We Care Car Care

Between the Details is a multi-part series on how to maintain your vehicle properly between details. This Chapter is on washing your vehicle without water.

In a previous post we discussed the importance of washing your vehicle regularly in between professional details and the problems with commercial car wash locations. If you have not had a chance to read it click here.

So now you know the best way to keep a clean car between detailing is to wash your own car at home. But what if you live in a condo or apartment building and have no access to outdoor running water? Or your city or town has a water ban or waste water restrictions in place? Or you just want to do your part to save water? The solution is doing a Waterless or Rinseless wash.

We Care Car Care has been using several different waterless system for years to detail about 95% of the vehicles we take care of. Last year alone, we saved over 60,000 gallons of water from being turned into waste water. At-home car wash consumes, on average, 110 gallons of water just to wash one vehicle! Other then the savings, waterless washing has other advantages. When you wash your car using one of these waterless methods no water hits the ground so you can wash your car right in the garage and not make a mess!  Ever wanted to wash your car in the dead of winter? Add one ingredient into your washing solution and you can wash your car in sub-freezing temps.

Steam Cleaning Vehicle Exterior

When We Care Car Care details a vehicle we use one of three diffrent wash methods to clean a car and varies based on the condition of the vehicle. Waterless/ Rinseless washes do have some limitations. When a vehicle is excessively dirty, such as someone who just went off-roading, waterless washes do not work. We use a commercial dry-vapor steamer to clean off those vehicles. Not a procedure we would recommend to the average weekend warrior/ driveway detailer invest in only due to the high cost of the equipment needed. If you are on a unlimited budget and want to explore that route here are a few machines we use in our own detailing business and highly recommend. These machines are workhorses when it comes to cleaning the inside of your vehicle too!
US Steam ES1900 Dry Vapor Steamer     Vapamore MR-1000 Dry Vapor Steamer
                                                                      

For all other vehicles we use either a Rinseless wash or a Waterless wash. The ‘soap’ we use is the same for both methods.One question we get asked all the time from our detailing customers is “Will your waterless cleaning scratch my car?” The simple answer to that is yes, if it is not done properly. Just like the two bucket method, you need to make sure you are using a dirt free tool such as a microfiber cloth or wash mitt and secondly the proper solution to clean the car. The wash solution is an emulsifier so it lifts and encapsulates dirt off your car. If you use a clean microfiber towel or mitt, it picks up that dirt and keeps it from scratching your car. In the propper hands it is a safe, scratch free way of cleaning your car. Now lets explore the Rinseless wash first.

Rinseless Wash

What will you need:

Microfiber wash mitt such as Meguiar’s X3002

1 3-5 Gallon Bucket

Grit Guard

1 or 2 Microfiber Towels

Waterless Wash Concentrate such as Mequiar’s Rinse Free Express Wash

Distilled or Filtered Water

Performing a rinseless wash is best for any vehicle that is dirty to mildly dirty and can be completed in direct sunlight unlike a conventional wash.  There are a lot of waterless wash solutions now on the market and they are starting to find their way into local auto parts stores in  diluted, ready to use form or as a concentrate.  Some solutions also come in a wash and wax formula eliminating the need to wax when you are done. We Care Car Care uses Meguairs Express wash exclusively. It is a concentrated formula that only is available in gallon sizes part of their Professional Line and is not carried in standard retailers. To clean using the Rinseless method you will need an undiluted concentrate. The ready to use solutions are perfect for Waterless wash we will cover next.

To start you need to make up your wash solution. Using a single 3 to 5 gallon bucket, drop in a grit guard and add one gallon of water. Most vehicles can be cleaned using less but 1 gallon makes mixing easy. Following the dilution instructions on your product, add the correct amount to your bucket and mix the solution.  You may use tap water but I have found using distilled water produces better results and have not had any issues with mineral deposits if a panel starts to dry before you can wipe it. If you are a fan of the Two Bucket standard cleaning method you can use a separate rinse for your mitt if you are worried about scratching your car from a dirty mitt. It is not as critial as a standard wash but does help if you are new to waterless washing. The next, soak your microfiber wash mitt or towel into the solution.

Time to start washing! Start by ringing out your wash mitt into the bucket until it is almost dry. Start with the roof of the vehicle, clean one small section at a time cleaning down to the bottom. Don’t forget the windows!  The size of the section or panel depends on how dirty the car is. Once you have washed one section or panel, dry immediately with an absorbent microfiber drying towel. Continue on until you have washed the entire vehicle. If the microfiber towel starts to get dirty rotate it to a new side or replace with a clean towel.  Once you have completed your wash you can use a light maintenance spray wax such as WAXWAXWax to add extra shine!

If your vehicle is only mildly dirty to just dusty you can use a Waterless wash.

Waterless Wash

What you will need:

4 Microfiber Towels

Ready to Use Wash   Meguiar’s Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere

Or

Waterless Wash Concentrate Mequiar’s Rinse Free Express Wash

Sprayer or Pressure Sprayer Autogeek Chemical Resistant Pressure Sprayer

Water

Waterless wash comes in two different forms, ready to use or concentrate. If you are using a concentrate formula you will need to mix it according to instructions and add that to either a clean spray bottle or pressurized pump sprayer.  We Care Car Care uses a simple 64oz pump sprayer to apply the solution with since it saves your hands from having to constantly pump a trigger sprayer. The size of the bottle allows us to wash several cars with having to refill.  Any spray bottle will work just fine.   Take one of your microfiber towels and fold twice. This creates 8 different cleaning surfaces to the towel. Take your sprayer and lightly spray one panel. You want to get it wet but not to the point where it is dripping. Now with your cloth in hand, wipe slowly in one direction down the length of the panel making one pass. If your towel is dirty flip to a clean side and repeat wiping the panel the next section down. The towel will clean and dry at the same time so it’s a single wipe and your done procedure. Repeat the procedure until you have cleaned your entire car. You should need 3 to 4 towels to clean the entire vehicle.  Once cleaned if you used a wash only solution you can apply spray maintenance wax to add extra shine between waxing.

Lastly, Step back and Enjoy!

Pro Tip: When rain water dries on a clean car it can leave waterspots and deposits from environmental fall-out. Next time if rains and you have some free time, why not take advantage of the rain giving your car a free rinse. Just use the Waterless wash method and spray the cleaner on the already wet car. Then simply dry the entire car with a microfiber towel and your done!

 

 

Between The Details: Wash

by: Patrick Horrigan

Owner and Lead Tech at We Care Car Care

Between the Details is a multi-part series on how to maintain your vehicle properly between details. This Chapter is on washing your vehicle.

Ask yourself, what do bird dropping, tree sap, mold spores, bug guts, Iron particles and environmental fall-out have in common? Chances are they are all sitting on the surface of your car right now. Unless it’s been only a few hours since your last professional detailing, it’s more than likely your paint is already getting damaged.

Washing your car is important to not only keeping it look nice but help extend the life of the vehicle.

There are several ways to clean your car between details, some better than others. Drive through car washes (even touch-less ones) may take away some of the dirt and grime but not without leaving its own type of damage.  Even the softest washes can leave light scratches in your vehicles clear coat. Commonly called spider webbing or halo scratching, under the correct light the scratches look just like spider webs.

Spider Web Scratching in Clear Coat

Your clear coat can be scratched just by dry and clean towel on the paint. Another drawback of mechanical washes is the poor cleaning ability. Some off the tough, stuck on contaminants such as tree sap and iron contamination will be left behind after your wash. Drive thru washes normally do not use any of the advanced cleaning products needed to chemically remove items such as tree sap and tar or lack the proper safe scrubbing power.

Washing your car at home is a much better solution and with the proper tools and techniques you can can do it safety and quickly. The ‘old’ method DIYers have used since the invention of the automobile has been the Bucket and Hose method. You drag out the hose, find a bucket and put in a little dish soap and fill the bucket with water then dig under the sink for a sponge.   While this method is far better than the drive-thru wash as far as removing surface containments, you can still easily create undesirable scratches in your paint. So how do you clean while reducing the chance of scratching?

The Two Bucket Method

We Care Car Care uses several waterless washing methods to clean 95% of the vehicles we detail. There are some circumstances where we cannot use a waterless wash such as cleaning modern RVs with a textured rubber roof. Our next posting will cover a how-to on waterless wash systems.

Today we will introduce you to a modified version of a more traditional cleaning method.  The two bucket method is the way professional detailers who use water, clean a vehicle. The secret behind the two bucket method is rinsing of your wash cloth after every panel to cut down on scratching.

To start you will need:

A parking spot out direct sunlight

Hose and spray nozzle

Two – 3 to 5 Gallon Buckets

The Grit Guard Insert

Meguiar’s Microfiber Wash Mitt

Car Wash Soap: Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Wash Shampoo & Conditioner

A Drying Towel or Chamois such as Meguiar’s Supreme Shine Microfiber Towels

Wax

            The first step is the prep phase. Start by putting your grit guards in the bottom of the buckets and fill them with fresh water.  The grit guard is a plastic tray that keeps your wash mitt out of the solid debris that settles in the bottom of the bucket. By keeping the mitt out of the dirt you greatly reduce the chance of a stray piece of dirt being carried back to the paint in your mitt.   Next add your car wash soap to only one bucket by following the mixing directions on the bottle. I recommend Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Wash soap since it cleans all the mess without stripping away any wax. Now you have a wash bucket and a rinse bucket.

Next, try to park your vehicle out of the direct sunlight. Unless the water you are using to wash and rinse is heavily filtered, you will have water spots (mineral deposits) left behind if the water dries on the car. Next, rinse the entire vehicle top to bottom to remove and loose dirt or debris. Take your microfiber wash mitt and soak it in the wash solution then wring out almost all the way and then begin to wash the car one panel or section at a time. The dirtier the car the smaller you section should be. Once you have cleaned one panel/ section drop the wash mitt into the clean water bucket while you spray off the panel you just cleaned. You want to make sure you are cleaning the car top to bottom to avoid having to re-clean a section.  Rinse the wash mitt in the fresh water to make sure to get off all the dirt that was just collected. Re-soap the mitt in the wash solution and then continue on and wash another section. Continue until you have cleaned the entire body of the car.

Now, that the car is cleaned, dry the car right away to avoid water staining issues. At this point your car should be nice and clean. Depending on the length of time since your last wax you may want to finish the car with a maintenance or spray wax.

The final step….take a few steps back and enjoy!