Choosing A Local Car Detailing Service

Where Do I Look For The Best Car Detailing Near Me?

One of the most common questions we’re asked is: how do I find a car detailer near me? And it’s an interesting one because there’s a little more to it than simply driving up to your local scratch ‘n’ swirl and handing over a tenner. If of course, you’d like to keep your car in the best possible condition. Perhaps the real question should be: how do I find a car detailer near me that’s best for my needs?

Our huge range of professional-grade detailing products are designed to make your home detailing safer, quicker and more effective than ever, but we still understand that you may not have the time, the space or even the inclination to wash your own car. And that’s okay with us. That’s why we have trained so many professional detailers over the years, just to help you out.

Then again, you may be looking for a one-off service to restore and protect your car so you can maintain it properly yourself. Even though we can furnish you with all the products and tools you need to get professional results at home, using an experienced pro detailer to complete specialist tasks such as machine polishing, interior deep-cleaning, wet sanding or ceramic coating is an option that many find appealing. After all they will already have all the machine polishers, wet vacs, polishing compounds, sanders and other stuff to get the best possible results.

With an industry professional taking care of the more specialist jobs you can simply use the correct wash stage products and techniques to perform routine maintenance without the risk of undoing the work they’ve put into creating an immaculate finish. You can find all the information you need on safe maintenance in our article: How To Safely Wash Your Car. And, if you simply haven’t got the space or equipment where you live, you can even do this at the local jet wash, check out our article: How To Detail Your Car When You Don’t Have Room At Home.

But, whether you want to do a little detailing yourself or do nothing at all is up to you. If you’re asking yourself: what about car detailing near me? How do I find the type of service that suits my specific needs? You’ve come to the right place.

Let’s see what to look out for when choosing the best car detailing service….

Why do I need to clean my car?

Cleaning your car regularly is important to help stop the early onset of corrosion. Bonded contamination can easily eat into sensitive paintwork and other components causing damage that will much more expensive to rectify than simply maintaining the car with regular washes in the first place.

Plus of course, a dirty car doesn’t exactly look good. Let’s face it, most of us simply want our cars to look their best, which is why we turn to detailing.

The key thing to remember is that every time you clean your car there is risk involved. Our detailing products are specifically designed to cut down on the chance of inflicting scratches and swirl marks, and using them with the correct techniques practically eliminates the risk of damaging your car during your routine maintenance or other detailing tasks.

Getting the right products and using the right techniques is, first and foremost, the most important part of detailing. It’s important for your car that the pro detailer you choose feels the same way.

Why a pro detailer and not a car wash?

There’s a difference between detailing a car and a simple, 10-minute, car wash, even when it comes to routine maintenance.

The reason why it’s best to opt for a professional detailer and avoid a static hand car wash, or the automated car wash at your local service station, comes down to a combination of the products commonly used and the techniques involved.

First the cleaning chemicals they use may not be the safest. It’s unlikely you’ll even see what’s in the bottle and what stuff they’re spraying onto your car but remember that if you’ve paid just a couple of quid for your car wash, it’s extremely likely that all the cleaning chemicals they use will be cheap and designed to clean without much regard for safety. Ultimately, they need to maximise their profit so they won’t be using the best detailing products designed for safe cleaning.

That’s not to say that harsh chemicals won’t actually clean away the grime. It’s simply that they tend to use heavy-duty alkaline or acidic formulas to clean in the wrong way, putting all surfaces at risk. By using these kinds of industrial cleaning products to strip away dirt they can also strip your protection layers and damage the surfaces themselves by degrading the top layer of lacquer, rubber, plastic and even glass. It’s common to see harsh chemicals leave marks on sensitive wheel finishes, paintwork and all kinds of plastics. And while your car may look clean for about 5-minutes there will be little left in terms of protection. That means no water beading and plenty of grime sticking to surfaces, needing more frequent cleaning and potentially causing damage along the way.

Our surface-safe wash stage products that are used by professional detailers are the exactly same as the ones we supply to you. Generally speaking, these are known as aqueous cleaning agents and use a mixture of special surfactants and degreasers to safely lift and encapsulate grime in their own solution. This allows it to be rinsed or wiped away safely without touching the surfaces. While they cost a little more to produce than many chemical cleaners, they offer the only way to get the safest type of cleaning.

Suffice to say that these are the type of products you want your pro detailer to be using.

Second, the wash techniques. And when we talk about these you need to remember that hand car washes and automated washes do not typically account for the level contamination on your car, and how safely it’s cleaned away.

A production line performing tens of quick washes in a matter of hours, is another method that's used to maximise profit. And it means that them dragging a gritty wash mitt or leather chamois across your paintwork, or those big automatic brushes being dirty, is highly likely. And that’s going to cause damage. Cleaning multiple cars quickly doesn’t lend itself to changing your rinse water and shampoo for every car, and you have no idea how contaminated the car just before yours was, or if any heavy soiling is being transferred to you car. Cross contamination of grit and other heavy particles is perhaps the biggest problem, and the most common cause of damage to sensitive surfaces.

But that’s not all. Many hand washes and automated car washes skip stages that are essential for safety - such as a thorough pre-wash, snow foam, drying and even deep cleaning wheels first - so the results aren’t going to be the best, are they? Scratches, swirl marks and water spots can be the only result. And, what's more, professional detailers tend to make sure that they complete every detail with extra finishing stages, such as glass cleaning or tyre dressing. You just don't get that with a cheap car wash.

The bottom line is that pro detailers trade off their reputation, it’s how they make a living. So, they’re not going to risk scratching your pride and joy during any car wash. Any good detailer will be happy to tell you the products they use and what techniques they’ll utilise to safely wash your car. In fact, they’ll be proud to tell you. It’s a badge of honour.

Establishing Your Needs

And that takes us onto establishing exactly what you want from your professional detailer. The detailing service you choose can be anything from bi-weekly or monthly safe maintenance washes to a full-on multi-stage paint correction. Of course, it could also be a combination of services, first to get your car fully detailed, protected and in tip-top condition, and then to maintain the finish for as long as possible. When you think about it, it’s pretty sensible to get your car looking its best first off and not to skimp on the maintenance after that.

And what about the type of car you’d like detailed? Is it a show car that’s garaged and used only on summer weekends, or it is a year-round daily driver? This can affect not only the frequency of maintenance required, but the kind of detail you’re after and the type of protection that’s best to apply. You may even have a specific type of protection, such as a favourite hard wax, you’d like applied at the end of the detail. It’s all relevant when making a decision on choosing the best pro detailer for you.

Types of Pro Detailer

Although there are pro detailers out there that offer both, we’ll generalise a bit for our purposes and say that most services are either mobile or unit based.

In a similar way there are professionals that can ‘do it all’, and by that we mean that they offer more intensive services such as extensive paint restorations, deep cleaning, wet sanding and ceramic coating, as well as maintenance washes. But, with that said, you’ll find that many prefer to specialise in one or the other.

Again, we’re generalising a little here but it’s most common for detailers that are mobile, or van-based, to make their living purely from safe maintenance, interior deep-cleaning and the odd single stage machine polish or enhancement. In most cases they’ll want to get set up and all the work complete in a day, and the weather will also affect the services that they can offer. Other studio-based operations have the ability to offer more intensive treatments such as full restoration and multi-stage machine polishing, purely due to the nature of being inside and being able to control the environment for multiple days. But don’t forget that overheads, whether that’s a van or a studio, will always come with a cost.

The point is that a unit-based pro detailer that specialises in lengthy restoration services may not be the best fit for your needs if you’re simply looking for regular maintenance on your drive, and vice versa. Equally you may not have the space at home for a pro detailer, the van and often a canopy. Or you may not be keen on the idea of dropping your car to a detailing studio because you haven’t got the time or any change for the bus fare home. Some of the best specialist mobile detailers will be willing to travel across the country to detail your car, too. But don’t forget to factor-in the traveling time and cost into what you’re willing to spend. Again, all this will inevitably affect the decision you make.

Making The Right Choice

So, there’s a few things to think about then. But getting the fundamentals of what you require straight in your mind, makes the decision so much easier. That said, don’t rule anything out until you have all the information.

We recommend getting together a list of local detailers – or show car and restoration specialists if you’re willing to travel a little further – and then doing your research on the ideal company for your specific needs. The best thing about the here and now is that we have plenty of social media and websites to check out, as well as the age-old (and arguably most important) word of mouth recommendations. Ask your friends and other car enthusiasts, and always look for honest independent reviews.

Most of all, ask the detailers themselves. Nowadays everyone is contactable, and any good professional will be happy to take you through your options, tell you how much they cost, and ultimately give you confidence in the fact that they know what they’re talking about. Remember that the best professional detailers are trained in every process, and we’ve trained hundreds ourselves, many of which are certified members of our own Accredited Detailer Network. If they have Auto Finesse ADN graphics on their van or unit, and it’s stacked full of our products and accessories, you know you’ll be off to a good start.

But the real point is that professional training and certification is as important as on-the-job experience. It simply means that they’ll know what products to use, how to use them, and why they’re using them in the first place. A good professional detailer will always be happy to help you understand why they do what they do, because it helps you understand the effort that goes into the job and ultimately their pay check.

To give you little a head start on our accredited detailers, check out our page: Find A Local Detailer Near Me. And for more top detailing guides and how-tos, be sure to check out the Guides Section Of Our Blog.