Craziest detailing "advise" you have heard...

Know-it all friend that washes his black truck with his hands, coin-op soap and rub the dirt, says it is the safest way. He didn't like my price for a polish.
 
Guy I knew used Windex and antifreeze to 'bring out the shine' on his cars.



I worked at a dealership washing cars for two summers and it wasnt all that bad. Of course they used crappy rags to take wax off, dirty brushes to wash with, and dirty chamois to dry it, but they tried.
 
lol my dad says that all the time. he says i polish and clean my car so much that the paint will just fall off one day
 
mirrorfinishman said:
It sounds like your boss knows a lot more about detailing than you think he knows. Although you may not want to believe it, that cold rain would help to cure the wax. And that my friend, is very good advice.





just curious. would cold weather help wax cure like cold water/rain? or is it something in the water/rain that gives t he help?
 
Guy I knew used Windex and antifreeze to 'bring out the shine' on his cars.





that actually might not be too far off. I believe that QD's use ingredients similar to antifreeze.
 
Worst advice I've heard was that I shouldn't bother waxing my car because "all the newer cars have paint protection built in".
 
keep_it_clean said:
just curious. would cold weather help wax cure like cold water/rain? or is it something in the water/rain that gives t he help?



I would lean towards the cold? Perhaps it helps it haze over faster?
 
Some of the old school ideas sound really crazy today. But I did some of those insane things and they worked. I remember we sprayed silicone on our tires to get them to shine.There was no such thing as Amor- all or Son of a Gun. We used new newspaper for our windows. Steel wool on the wheels and tires. Brillo pads! With todays new paint and fancy wheels we'd be foolish to use these things. But some of the simple ideas still work.

I just LOVE the DETAILING LIFE!
 
Some crazy people on here keep saying to use grout sponges to wash a car. insane I tell you.







;) OK just kidding with that.





Showroom Shine: I still use newspaper for windows. Easy, cheap (read free), and have never been disappointed. If I was working on a car with tint it would be a little different though.
 
I just seen a guy at the car wash the other day using newspaper to wash his windows. I have not seen that one in many years. It did work great back in the day though.



Years ago I had a friend who worked in a paper mill and he would get me newpaper without the ink on it. It was actually on a roll and it worked perfect. I wish I could get my hands on some of that again.
 
Showroom Shine said:
I remember we sprayed silicone on our tires to get them to shine.There was no such thing as Amor- all or Son of a Gun. Steel wool on the wheels and tires. Brillo pads!



I remember calling Dow Corning and them recommending #7 (a silicone dielectric compound) for tires...I bought some but I'm not sure if I ever used it (I'm imagining it would have been a greasy mess...well, maybe if you wiped off the excess...). And weren't SOS or Brillo great for whitewalls? Remember whitewalls?
 
Oh ya. This summer I was doing a job for a customer and his friend that was there was waxing his own car in the sun. He was trying to show me that he could detail too and did not have to pay to make a car look perfect. I asked him why he was doing it in the hot sun?

His reply was," I am baking the wax into the paint so it lasts longer".

I said," Your right it will last forever, cause it will never come off now". I watched him scream for 2 hours trying to remove it, but did not have much luck.



This guy was so clueless.
 
I live in Beautiful England and we don't have to wash our automobiles, we just leave them outside, it rains most everyday so not much need to dry them off. ANDY
 
I also had an old boss from almost 20 years ago (i was like 15) and he use to make me wash cars with ammonia to remove the black streaking and crud from the paint. It did work good but almost killed me from the fumes.



Also he use to use straight bleach and a brillo pad on white walls.



Well he decided to put some more ammonia in my wash bucket. But guess what? It was his bucket with bleach in it. All I here is WOOOOOOOOF and him screaming and running out of the garage like a little girl. We all got sick that day.



What an idiot he was.
 
rydawg said:
Well he decided to put some more ammonia in my wash bucket. But guess what? It was his bucket with bleach in it. All I here is WOOOOOOOOF and him screaming and running out of the garage like a little girl. We all got sick that day.



Good times! My cousin did something like that with a chemistry set in the basement when he was a teenager--cleared out the whole house. I notice now with companies trying to be all things to all people (they took that page from the politician's book), Tilex (main ingredient: bleach) now makes a soap scum remover (main ingredient: ammonia). How many people do you think are in the store and say "wow, Tilex works so good, let me get some of their soap scum remover too, I'll use it while I'm cleaning the tile!" :soscared:
 
What I've noticed with a lot of ppl in general is they seem to be "know it alls". I remember showing a co worker a dumbell workout for arm musicles that a world champion boxer showed me. The next day I see the co worker trying to do the workout but with his own version. I asked him what he was doing and he just said "I decided to change the routine since I saw an infomercial on TV about muscle confusion and they said not to just stick with a routine" lol
 
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