16 Fascinating Tips We Picked Up From A Professional Car Detailer
We hosted an AMA with professional car detailer Larry Kosilla, giving you the chance to ask questions about how to make your car look as good as new. Some of the advice given out was really insightful, so we've compiled the top tips in one place
1. Car cleaning for track day bros
2. Getting residue out of nooks and crannies
3. Common mistakes
4. Hand polish vs. machine polish
5. How to get started
6. Un-swirling shiny black trim
7. Cleaning your leather
8. Machine polishing for beginners
9. Be careful with underbody coating!
10. If someone gets stabbed in your car, here's what you do...
11. Car cleaning in hot weather
12. Getting wheel wells like new
13. How to save time on wheels
14. Fixing swirls in glass probably isn't worth it
15. Sorting the hard to reach spots
16. Getting rid of that smokey stench
Comments
Glad to have him here.
Pretty detailed explanations….
Overall, pretty well polished answers.
This is freaking gold.
always good to have professional detailer on the forum. though I must say a lot of “you can’t this” and “that’s bad” etc. in these comments
I detail the cars we have for sale and learned through following example and just practicing. I’m sorry but sometimes you can get pretty good results with braking 1 or 2 rules. It’s not like we all own show cars and every time you touch your paint you are damaging it anyway
its a very slippery slope. You’re testing in a lower-risk environment with cars that you don’t have an emotional connection to. Getting “pretty good results” and “if I screw this up, I’ve reduced the net value of this car by $50K are two very different things.
You want to teach me how to polish? Man, I AM Polish
I’m Hungarian so let’s be friends :D
Great stuff, But how do I submit a question about the stained roof rack rails on my Audi A4 Quattro avant?
You could just send him an email. Larry@ammonyc.com
He usually answers pretty fast and accurate.
In my experience in polishing glass scratches it’s defenitely worth a try with cerium oxide (ossido di cerio in italian) pouder. It has to be used with a big amount of water otherwise is going to “swirl” very badly the glass.
This tip could also be applied to whatches’ glass in the same way. I tried on both and it works well, using the pouder in the right way by hand takes a lot of time but is capable of removing also pretty big scratches depending on glass crystal strenght (remember that car ones are tempered so more difficolult to scratch and polish)
(My father works in a glass company)
All I would like to know is what is the ACTUAL BEST WAY to wash your car and it is possible for €15,- or less?
Here’s how I do t when I detail cars:
And, no. You will not get this done for under €15,-
Damn how did I miss this?:( Larry is like a legend to me.