Thorough wash, T-Cut the entire car, polish it, clean the glass. Worked wonders on my new Audi for getting rid of a number of small scratches and bringing the 10 year old paint back to life.

Helped that my housemate had a buffing machine I could borrow though, took some of the elbow grease required out of the occassion…

Here are the products I used…

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_169076_langId_-1_categoryId_165527
http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_172001_langId_-1_categoryId_165682
http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_185498_langId_-1_categoryId_165527

And a selection of cloths, you’ll need normal fairly rough cloth for T-Cutting, then you want fine microfibre cloths for doing things like waxing and cleaning the glass. And a chamois perhaps for the final polish.

BTW, this was my very first time I did it too a few weeks ago. Took advice off a mate who’s been detailing cars for years, expressly told him I didn’t mind spending 2-3 hours for a one off to get the car looking pretty good, but was not wanting to spend days on it, nor have to do the same every weekend.

Oh, and Halfords had/have a 3 for 2 offer on car care products when I bought, saved me about £7 so was happy.

See http://www.detailingworld.co.uk for all your car ‘detailing’ needs!

Terrible innit theese birds crapping on peoples cars- you’d have thought they’d have sorted that out by now, next time you get your new BMW see if they can get all the wildlife killed in case it damages your paintwork. I blame Bill Oddie! 😈

I only hand wash my motors. Car washes are terrible things, inadequate prerinsing and rinsing stage by stage, plus dirty brushes etc. means lots more abrasion occurs. Plus they are crap at getting into number plate recesses, about door mirrors etc. A wax each spring and autumn means my car repels lots more dirt so I do need to wash it as often as well.

Every year or so I use paraffin to remove tar spots. T-cut is used very sparingly so as not to cause long term damage, since it removes paint.

Washing a car to me is as therapeutic as tuning up your bike gears or building a wheel. Nearly.

If you want real OCD have a look here

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk