Detailing Products

[struong]

Hello Guys!

Just wondering what you use as your go to detailing products.

Looking to try and upgrade products that will make the car shiny

Microfiber towels

The Kirkland brand microfiber towels are leaving swirl marks on the BO window trim.
Looking to get a plusher towel so I can polish and redo the ceramic coating.

Tire shine

What do you use to make them tires shiny?


Current Products:
Chemical Guys Leather Cleaner and leather Conditioner
Meticulous Matte Detailer and Spray Sealant for my XPEL Stealth
Chemical Guys Microfiber Wash Cleaning Detergent
Chemical Guys Meticulous Matte Auto Wash for Satin Finish and Matte Finish Paint for when the car played too hard
Armor All Tire Shine

Any product recommendation are greatly appreciated!

[Audibot]

Amazon Prime Day just had a pretty good sale on Chemical Guys products, including several detailing kits.

For microfiber towels, you will want something with >20% aramid fibers (and the rest polyester)--these tend to softer and higher quality. Edgeless towels are less likely to scratch too. Higher GSM (grams per square meter) are "plusher". I'm sort of brand agnostic for towels, but buying from reputable places is key, plus checking out the microfiber specs. The aforementioned Chemical Guys product sale was a great time to get some. I also have numerous Griot's products over the years, as the guy who got me into detailing was a huge fan of Griot's Garage. I typically use blue plush towels (Griot's) for detail spray, including when I clay. Sometimes on polish as well. I tend to use yellow/gold towels (both Griot's and CG) when I am doing anything for paint glaze, wax, etc. Remaining towels get used on various things (some for door jambs, rubber/vinyl, glass, etc), plus a number of "I don't care" towels for things.

My go-to car wash has been Griot's, but I've actually really like Meguiar's Gold Class, and have used Dodo Juice's wash before. Just picked up CG detailing kit as mentioned, so I'll be trying that out on their foam gun soon. I sometimes mix in IPA if I want to strip off all the waxes and such, but that's only if I have run out of Griot's Paint Prep (essentially the same thing). CarPro Iron-X at this point because it's simply the best. Griot's Speed Shine for clay, and their polishes for any machine polishing work. I haven't had to do compounding yet, but if I did, I'd probably pick up a bottle of Meguiar's on the cheap. For any paint glaze, sealant, or wax, I have used Griot's products for these (Best of Show Wax or their paste wax), in addition to Blackfire's sealant.

For glass, Stoner glass cleaner.

For wheels, I spray them down and start with something like Griot's Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner (have used Sonax before), Iron-X, and abrasion/power washing. Will try the CG product I received next time. For tires, I use Griot's rubber cleaner, but have also enjoyed Black Magic's Bleche Wite. Same for wheel arches. For tires, I never make my tires "shiny". I have used many products over the years, such as tire gel, tire shine, and I prefer the look of Griot's Rubber & Vinyl Dressing. It provides a satin finish while injecting some key oils and such into the rubber, and isn't sticky. So the tire looks "new" or "fresh".

For ceramic, a microfiber applicator pad is best so you don't lose the product all in the microfiber itself. Haven't done anything aside from Opti-Coat (I think they changed the name of it since i had purchased it).


Regarding your BO trim, you may need to have it properly polished w/ plastic polish to remove scratches/swirls.

Btw, if you were not aware, there's actually a whole detailing forum on Audizine you can explore. And I'd check out some youtube videos, especially from AMMO NYC (who explains all this stuff REALLY well)

[mobE]

Come over to the obsessed garage community! We have a wealth of knowledge on everything car/garage related.

[struong]

Amazon Prime Day just had a pretty good sale on Chemical Guys products, including several detailing kits.

For microfiber towels, you will want something with >20% aramid fibers (and the rest polyester)--these tend to softer and higher quality. Edgeless towels are less likely to scratch too. Higher GSM (grams per square meter) are "plusher". I'm sort of brand agnostic for towels, but buying from reputable places is key, plus checking out the microfiber specs. The aforementioned Chemical Guys product sale was a great time to get some. I also have numerous Griot's products over the years, as the guy who got me into detailing was a huge fan of Griot's Garage. I typically use blue plush towels (Griot's) for detail spray, including when I clay. Sometimes on polish as well. I tend to use yellow/gold towels (both Griot's and CG) when I am doing anything for paint glaze, wax, etc. Remaining towels get used on various things (some for door jambs, rubber/vinyl, glass, etc), plus a number of "I don't care" towels for things.

My go-to car wash has been Griot's, but I've actually really like Meguiar's Gold Class, and have used Dodo Juice's wash before. Just picked up CG detailing kit as mentioned, so I'll be trying that out on their foam gun soon. I sometimes mix in IPA if I want to strip off all the waxes and such, but that's only if I have run out of Griot's Paint Prep (essentially the same thing). CarPro Iron-X at this point because it's simply the best. Griot's Speed Shine for clay, and their polishes for any machine polishing work. I haven't had to do compounding yet, but if I did, I'd probably pick up a bottle of Meguiar's on the cheap. For any paint glaze, sealant, or wax, I have used Griot's products for these (Best of Show Wax or their paste wax), in addition to Blackfire's sealant.

For glass, Stoner glass cleaner.

For wheels, I spray them down and start with something like Griot's Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner (have used Sonax before), Iron-X, and abrasion/power washing. Will try the CG product I received next time. For tires, I use Griot's rubber cleaner, but have also enjoyed Black Magic's Bleche Wite. Same for wheel arches. For tires, I never make my tires "shiny". I have used many products over the years, such as tire gel, tire shine, and I prefer the look of Griot's Rubber & Vinyl Dressing. It provides a satin finish while injecting some key oils and such into the rubber, and isn't sticky. So the tire looks "new" or "fresh".

For ceramic, a microfiber applicator pad is best so you don't lose the product all in the microfiber itself. Haven't done anything aside from Opti-Coat (I think they changed the name of it since i had purchased it).


Regarding your BO trim, you may need to have it properly polished w/ plastic polish to remove scratches/swirls.

Btw, if you were not aware, there's actually a whole detailing forum on Audizine you can explore. And I'd check out some youtube videos, especially from AMMO NYC (who explains all this stuff REALLY well)

Thanks for the input!
For the BO trim, the guys that did my ceramic coating noticed that they scratch easily. They found out by polishing to remove the existing swirls, then as they remove the polish new swirls appear,
using a brand new microfiber towel. They will fix it for me so it shouldn't be an issue. They ceramic coated it with the swirls to prevent any more until they new towels.

Come over to the obsessed garage community! We have a wealth of knowledge on everything car/garage related.

Will do!

[Diokhan]

For me, I like microfiber from The Rag Company. I mainly use a mix of creature edgeless, edgeless 365's, eagle 350's and the occasional eagle 500. I use their dark gray all purpose and carwash towels for dirty jobs. If you're going for plush and scratch free, their Eagle 500 is one of the plushest and softest towels. For drying, if you're concerned about any marring, their Pluffle is a good bet, though it may take a couple extra passes to get all the water. One of the trade offs for plushness. I mainly use their double twistress. For scratch-free polish removal, I really like the Eagle 350 for that.

For tire shine, I prefer a matte sheen, so I use Carpro Perl. Since you like Chemical Guys and may want a little more shine and not go over board, their VRP would be a good choice. Their G6 Hypercoat is another good one.

My products:
Wheel and tire cleaning - P&S brake buster, especially on maintained wheels. For heavy cleaning, Griots Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner, but I find P&S to work great most of the time.
Car Wash - Carpro Reset or sometimes Meguiar's Hyper Wash. Both leave nothing behind, great for coatings.
"Drying Aid"/ top coat: P&S bead maker
Tire Dressing: Carpro Perl
Glass: Stoner's or Griot's
Interior: Griot's interior cleaner (doesn't smell or leave residue
Leather: Swissvax leather cleaner and conditioner
All purpose cleaner: Optimum Power Clean
bird crap / touch ups/ winter pre-soak: Optimum Opti-clean
Rinseless wash: Optimum ONR
Decon: Carpro Iron X and Tar X-(when needed)

[NC_Detail_Garage]

My two favorite resources are Autoality and Detailed Image. Autoality has a $50 per year membership program that equates to a very quick payback. Alternatively, Detailed Image has constant sales which makes them very attractive. There isn't any need to be paying retail prices for these consumables.

In regards to microfibers, I use Autofiber and only need two of their offerings for everything paint related.

Autofiber Mr Everything Microfiber Towel
Autofiber Buffmaster

https://www.autoality.com/store/pc/home.asp
https://www.detailedimage.com/

For tire shine - CarPro Perl is my preference. Wipe it on and let it sit several minutes before leveling. Nice satin sheen.

Since you're in California, Shine Supply is worth checking out.

https://shinesupply.com/

[HyperM3]

Come over to the obsessed garage community! We have a wealth of knowledge on everything car/garage related.

+1! One of the best groups Ive come across for discussing this specifically. Ive learned a lot there.

[Zed 2.0]

The black window/door trim is likely going to swirl no matter what you do. It is incredibly soft and can show marring even from removal of a finishing polish. Ceramic coating does very little to prevent swirls or marring, in my experience. IMHO you just need to live with it and plan on doing a correction on the trim one or twice a year. Rag Company towels are typically good quality if you want a replacement.

For tire shine, you're better off with nearly anything other than Armor All. Adam's VRT, 303 Aerospace, Sonax Tire Gloss are all good options.

[Audibot]

The black window/door trim is likely going to swirl no matter what you do. It is incredibly soft and can show marring even from removal of a finishing polish. Ceramic coating does very little to prevent swirls or marring, in my experience. IMHO you just need to live with it and plan on doing a correction on the trim one or twice a year. Rag Company towels are typically good quality if you want a replacement.

For tire shine, you're better off with nearly anything other than Armor All. Adam's VRT, 303 Aerospace, Sonax Tire Gloss are all good options.

To take a book out of Larry @ Ammo NYC's book (he did this on that soft interior plastic trim), you could do correction and then apply a paint protection film to the trim. If done right, should appear invisible and keep your trim safe. Ceramic is another option, of course, in which case, should be a 2 year application

[struong]

Yes, they are going to try and buff the swirls out and put PPF on it.

The ceramic coating does help prevent any more swirls from occurring from a microfiber.