How long does it generally take you?

I

imported_sal3291

New member
To fully detail the outside of your car? Wash, clay, polish, glaze, wax, wheels, tires, glas, etc....?

For those that do this as a Mobile detail job how long on avg does it take you to do somethin like this for a customer?

Brief description on your process



On my 99 Accord I washed, cleaned wheels and tires, clayed, used scratch X (no PC at the time), cleaned windows, dressed tires topped with Meg NXT 2.0, total was 5 hours



My 94 Lincoln Mark VIII I did last weekend I washed, cleaned wheels, tires, wheel wells, clayed, polished the hood and fenders, broke PC, dressed tires, cleaned windows, applied NXT 2.0 total time 4.5 hours.

I couldn't imagine trying to polish the entire car in one day lol. Curious to see where I stand or if Im doin something wrong.
 
I can do it in about 5 hours. Just take practice which make perfection.



Edit: That is for the whole car inside and out. 2 hours or less just for the exterior by rotary. I use mostly ValuGard, Megs, 3M and Souveran.
 
Just this week I was polishing my grandmother's metallic burgundy Grand Am. Hard as hell clear, should be done with a rotary really. I spent probably 5-6 hours just doing the entire car with a Meg's Burgandy pad and OHC (Porter Cable, no rotary). I could see cutting that time down if I had a rotary. I still only had maybe 80% swirl removal after all that.
 
Chris223 said:
How do you spend FIVE hours using SIP? I mean really, FIVE hours? What are you doing... a bus?
Click to expand...



it was a bmw 3 series and i did the hood and trunk twice. a lot of time is spent inspecting the results and going back over small parts that i wasn't happy with.
 
Too long!

Really depends on the condition and sometimes I think you can spend as much time cleaing the inside as cleaning, polishing, 'waxing' the outside.
 
It usually takes me b/t 1 - 1.5 hours just to wash the car, depending on the size and dirt level. This includes windows, tire and wheel well dressing. My wife thinks i'm nuts.
 
Typically on a simple process like wash, clay, seal and interior on an average car about 3 hours. If you add in swirl removal, figure at least 7-8 and 10-14 hours for perfect paint. For show car detailing 25-30 hours.
 
how it is taking you so long...



one step outside only:

ONR

wells

tires

glass

trim

poliseal

total time - 2 hours max on a car, add 1.5 hours for the interior



two step - one compound, one polish, one wax - about 4 hours (note: this is not full swirl removal as it can take 3-4 steps to remove all swirls on most of the cars I see)



perfection - a long *** time





and another thing...if its taking you 5 hours working with just SIP, step up to a more aggressive compound, M105, then work away the haze and compound induced marring with a lighter polish and you should be sitting around 3 hours...I dont understand why some people will work a compound 4 times over to remove defects with the same compound...lots of wasted time there...
 
I agree about the end results. I misread the question. The 5 hours included the entire car inside and out, bumper to bumper with full paint correction by rotary and that's just taking my time. FYI, I use mostly ValuGard, Megs, 3M and Souveran products, No SIP here. So just wash, clay, polish, glaze, wax, wheels, tires, glass could be done in 2 hours or less.
 
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