Who do you use to detail your car.

[schnazzy]

First, let me say, I wash my car about 20x a year and have it mini-detailed 3-4 times.

March - September about once a week to once every 2 weeks with 2-3 details.
October - February once every 3ish weeks with 1-2 details

When I wash I rarely wax (usually only at detail), never clay, and never polish. But I do the windows, vacuum, wheel wells, wheel barrels, and dry wipe the leather.

Unless there is a an issue I only clean the leather every 4k miles or so. Leather masters, cleaner and protector.

When I get it detailed all that really is a hand wash (no machines), complete exterior cleaning, vacuum, windows, clay, and wax. I don't have it polished. note that the whole car has XPEL.

First, who details your car? What do you have them do?
Again, I have them fully wash the outside, windows in/out, wheels including barrels, dress the tires (with my product), clay, and wax (with my product). I do the leather myself.

[F83]

I hand wash about the same frequency as you, include the wheels each time (which take as long as the rest of the car). I wax about once a month in summer with Tech Wax 2 (Xpel Ultimate Friendly). About once every 2 months in winter. I also vacuum each time and do windows throughly about every second time. About 4-5 times a year I do an extra thorough job which is basically a self detail. I've not had someone else detail it for me. No need, I keep it pretty spotless. I only have someone else detail my cars when the carpets need cleaning. Chemical Guys stuff up and down the line (other than the Tech Wax).

[Shanh81]

Wash myself. Car has XPEL and Opti Coat including wheels which makes life easier to clean. Adams car shampoo via foam cannon. With Opti Coat it's a quick wash for NW. Use Kenotek shine from time to time.

[AIRPOWER]

I do all my detailing by myself and find it enjoyable.

Wizards Auto detailing products for washing and spray detailing in between washes. I use it for auto shows on my '74 vette and it makes a freakin unbelievable shine. For wax I use Swisswax oil pre-wax cleaner and then Swisswax 40% carnauba. That % was recommended to me by Swisswax based upon the BMW water base % and YMB color. Tire shine I use Swisswax as well because it leaves a medium gloss shine. Leather care is BMW OEM product line.

Also if your investing in a expensive wax like Swisswax, apply with your bare hand/fingers for more control and you get 100% of the wax on the car....not in the pad.

Shine on the Vette after Wizards.

[schnazzy]

As for products I used:
Adams - shampoo
Foam cannon with Ryobi pressure washer (using a lower 1k psi nozzle when rinsing)
Adams - microfiber mitt and 2 buckets with grit cards
Carpro Perl - all rubber including tires. It's semi gloss and won't sling
Spray Away - foam glass cleaner
Leather Masters - protectant, cleaner, dye remover and alcantara cleaner
Armor All all wheel protectant - I can't find anything better for keeping brake dust off of silver rims. (besides Carbon Ceramic Brake kit
Meguiars Tech Wax 2 - wax
IPA - 90% alcohol I use to clean contaminants and fully clean the rims after wash/dry before spraying protectant on them. I only use IP if after I put some sort of quality protectant like when uber cleaning the tires. The only time I don't add protenctant (rubber or otherwise) is when using IPA on the wipers.
1Z einszet/Adams- bug and tar remover
Adams wheel cleaner (I like better than 1z)
Adams quick detail
Adams under carriage cleaner

And I have a whole series of microfibers depending on what they are for.
Interior (super soft white)
Exterior for detail spray (super soft grey/red)
Wipe off wax (super soft grey/blue)
Dry off car... usually a leaf blower but sometimes I will blot off the water with an adams waffle towel.
wheels/exhaust - yellow costco lower quality mf towels.

I might have forgotten something.

[schnazzy]

So there are some quality detailers around here. Now I mean consumer quality detailers. There are a couple that do concourse level stuff (1 week, $1k+), I am not talking about that. Metro, NWAS, etc.

I just took mine to Dr Buff in Edmonds near Dicks. This is a converted quarter operated hand wash. No frills. They don't do clear bra or opticoat or anything extra, only detailing cars.

I liked that they had a package called the mini Platinum detail. This is a real hand wash, clay bar, wax, vacuum, wheels, windows in/out, and wipe down the interior. It was like $82 with tax (they also have wash/wax that is less, and full details that are of course more). Takes about 2-3 hours. For this entry level detail, they don't polish, take out carpet stains, treat leather, clean engine, or air out vents etc. Perfect that's not what I want.

I tried them out and I will be going back for sure. I was really looking for a place that would just do what I want. I want them to use my wax and carpro perl. I don't want them to touch the leather (at this time). Dr Buff was like, no problem whatever you want. I also asked for them to tell me if they saw any damage (dents, rock hits on the xpel, etc.). They showed me around the car when it was done (a couple places where there is a very small mark from a rock skip off the xpel.

I like the other places too, but I want to use some of my own items, clean only what I want and not argue with me as if they know more than me (even if they do.

Anyway, so I definitely liked Dr Buff. Note, they even fully cleaned the barrels in the wheels (which I have found doesn't always happen for a hand wash). I even swiped under the fenders and my finger was clean.

This is not an endorsement of them, I get nothing from posting this. They don't even know I posted this or that I am on this forum. I am only posting this because I had a good experience, it is close to me, they had many detail options and had one for me and were happy to do what I needed.

Metro and NWAS are also great places but for the reasons I mentioned here, I'll be using Dr Buff for my 3-5 details a year.

If you have good experiences here or at other places, please post.

[Donger Kim]

I wash/detail my own cars about the same rate as OP. Probably wash my car 1-1.5w in nice weather, 2-3w in the winter. I do however wax my car every other wash, and if I'm lazy, every 3-4 washes. I have not really gotten into the "hardcore" stuff such as polishing etc, just a simple wax with Adams buttery wax (its so easy to take off). Some of my previous cars being black, I am not such a slave to my car as I once was (AW F80). I think I would wash/detail my car more often if I wasn't living in a condo. It is weird being the crazy guy who washes their car at 1AM w/ 2 buckets at a coin wash.

I have hired a professional detail services in the past, but I just cant remember who I used, its been so long. I do think that its worth every penny for those who are busy/have a dark color/ don't have the time to upkeep their car. Call me crazy but I do enjoy detailing my car.

[m4pewpew]

I've been doing everything myself. I wash my car every weekend. Depending on how dirty it is, I do either dry-wash/detail-spray or just water wash just to keep it clean. And then sometimes I use this: http://www.chemicalguys.com/White_Ca...s_p/hol204.htm

[TTG]

No one but me, I gave up on this long time ago in PNW.

There are no decent car wash places like they do in CA where you can just drive and get a nice car wash. I have seen couple of cars detailed by NWAS & Metropolitan Detail and was not that impressed for what they are charging.

Over the years, I became near professional detailing my cars. I have all the tools and do my own now. I wish I did not have to!

[jwzimm]

I wash my car myself using the 3 bucket method. When I need more intense work done (Xpel, paint sealant, etc...) the only place I go is Metropolitan Detail. I work with John Kleven there and him and Ben are master's at their craft.

[Xtabi]

I hire Lefty and Righty to detail my car. They require that I supply them with the finest, and over priced, snake oils available on the market!

[Donger Kim]

Wow a 3 bucket method.. I thought I was hardcore with with two buckets at a coin wash

[jwzimm]

Originally Posted by Donger Kim

Wow a 3 bucket method.. I thought I was hardcore with with two buckets at a coin wash

Yup:

Bucket 1 - Top half of car
Bucket 2 - Bottom half of car
Bucket 3 - Rinse bucket only with grit guard on the bottom.

I like to keep my car swirl free.

[schnazzy]

My car is swirl free because it's hard to get scratches if you have XPEL or for them to linger after an hour in the sun. And you wouldn't see the swirls unless you were in the sunlight.

[andiriahi]

for all the PDX drivers the only place I have taken my car to since my first BMW has been uptown auto detail. Phenomenal work done all by hand and the owner is an extremely nice guy.