Detailing

This weekend I have mainly been washing a very small car. I'm not car-proud, but I am quite tight and I want to maintain as much of its value as I can. I’ve got a driving holiday coming up so I wanted to put a new layer of wax on the paintwork to protect it. The standard procedure for washing a car is:
1) cold water rinse
2) Shampoo
3) rinse
4) dry
That much was done in about an hour. Then the black marks from melted pieces of tyre and the desiccated insects become quite obvious. I do have both the right solvents in stock...
5) tar remover
6) insect remover
Both leave a residue that needs to be removed...
7) shampoo
8) rinse
9) dry
The car is now pretty clean but there are still little sticky bits of dirt that I don't want to trap under the wax. I have recently bought a massive lump of automotive blu-tack and its associated lubricant which you wipe over the entire surface of the paintwork to pick up little bits...
10) clay-bar
The lubricant leaves a residue that needs to be removed but thankfully it's water based…
11) rinse
12) dry
I was then able to do what I had originally intended...
13) wax
14) buff

It took me seven hours to wash my car.

Richard "at the clay bar, clay bar, clay bar" B