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Great or at least really good car detailing tools and products you may have found?

15K views 166 replies 18 participants last post by  EvoBrian 
#1 ·
Along the way we have all found car detailing tools and products that work really well and I think it could be useful to many of the members on this forum if we gave one another tips/suggestions of cool tools/products that are effective and time savers.
Also are there car detailing tools/products that you have bought that are not all that great and that are to be avoided?
 
#2 ·
Costco microfibers are good quality and a great deal. A 36 pack is usually around $15! Meguiars Gold Class car soap works great for me (saffron colored). I really like Meguiars leather cleaner that comes in a black bottle. Using a clean leaf blower to dry the car really helps reduce swirls. I try to wash the car very little to avoid water getting into places you can't dry like the engine. The car stays perfectly clean because I use a spray "quick detailer" from Meguiars after almost every drive. This sounds like a Meguiars commercial I'm sure, their products have worked for me and I have tried a lot. I look forward to hearing from others.
 
#4 ·
My H is ceramic coated and I never drive in the rain so I only need to wash every 2-3 months. I also like using Meguiar's products including Ultimate Wash and Wax, Rich Leather Wipes and Supreme Shine Protectant Wipes. I like wipes out of convenience. If I were more particular I would use microfiber towels.

Use Sonax Alcantara cleaner.

Rinse with very slow stream of water via RV/Marine Water Filter attached to garden hose. The water/soap easily beads off with low pressure rinse.

Use McKee's Turbo Car Dryer which has 6.5 HP for easy, no contact drying.
 
#6 ·
I created a car detailing thread on the 718Forum. I have since replaced the Sunjoe with the Kranzle power washer, though the Sunjoe was good enough. I also purchased an MTM PF22 now PF22.2 foam cannon which I like a lot.


Also very impressed with the Aero Wash and Wax All.......

 
#7 ·
At the risk of sounding like advertising for Griot's Garage: I really like their Spray-On Car Wash. I use it with their PFM Terry Weave Towels and in 15 minutes my Huracan is clean, shiny, and smelling great! No water, soap, hose, drying, ..., and I can do all that inside my garage, rain or shine!
 
#8 ·
All my tools are either German made Hazhet or Japanese KTC. They are the best in tooling business IMO. Also, all my cabinets and racks are from Japanese Trusco. And, my floor jack is from the famous Japanese Nagasaki jack.

I avoid mostly any tools made in China because they are not precise, is not well made & can cause potential injury even death. For example, a simple set of Chinese socket wrench leaks plenty of oils & some of their sockets aren’t precise (their M4 is either a tad too small or too big). Another example is, their aluminum jack stands do not have proper weight distribution that can cause one end to crumple & kill you if you are under the car.

Also, I am now buying my stuff directly from the tools dealer. I avoid Amazon because their tools sometimes come like used (I think it’s because of their return policy and restocking) and most of their deceitful sellers reside in China. I ordered few set of tools in the past & they either came with scratches & looked used. Caveat emptor.
 
#12 ·
Tools....A inexpensive disposable (and new LOL) foam headed toilet (sorry) brush to clean in between the wheel spokes and reach the rim barrels.

There can be many to list, including a chair to sit on while doing the vehicle sides, but that brush is my favorite.

Have fun, detailing is therapeutic :)
 
#13 ·
Many of you probably have chairs you like but the Griot's detailing chair is very nice. I saw this chair being used by Matt from Obsessed Garage and I bought not one but two.......that way I don't have to wheel the chair all the way..........around............the car. Oh, BTW, get the cushion and the extra cup holders.......the cushion is a real good idea especially if you don't come equipped with built in padding.
 

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#21 ·
A lot of good product recommendations. Once you have c-coating and PPF, just some basic tools that are good for any washing that will cut down on time and aggrivation are: No Spots Pro, Master Blaster, and some Detail Guardz. If these have already been mentioned, I apologize for my lack of searching skills!
 
#29 ·
I am not this crazy..... 😂

 
#30 · (Edited)
Heads up for people with sloped driveway that want to move their wash/rinse buckets around the car as you wash it and not have them run away down the driveway. The bucket buddy is a great option. I will post gadgets from time to time that are helpful and hopefully other forum members can post useful gadgets they have discovered to make our collective hobby more enjoyable.
 

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#31 ·
I found this detailing cart that looks very useful. I already have a cart but I am tempted.

 
#34 ·
In another thread I recommended the use of the duster (pictured below) but it probably belongs here. I generally am opposed to dusters but this one is so soft, low impact, and I found it to be useful. I first came across this duster after watching a video by Scott (Dallas Paint Corrections), and then went and bought one from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

 

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#37 ·
I found this headlamp by Scangrip Lighting about 2 years ago that is very helpful when detailing the interior of the car. The interior detailing was always challenging because of the poorly illuminated dark colored interiors that we find in sports cars. It has two levels of brightness and it can be turned on and off either with a button or you can turn the light on and off with a wave of your hand (light sensor). It's rechargeable and has excellent battery life.

 

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#38 ·
I use a swifter Duster on my rims to collect the brake dust. Works really well.
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#39 ·
Interesting suggestion. Are you concerned about producing micro scratches on the rims or are you careful to use minimal pressure? Generally I wait to clean the rims when I am doing a complete wash. Of course, as we all do, I clean the wheels/rims first to completion then going on to wash the rest of the car.
 
#40 ·
Footwear is also important when washing the car to prevent slipping & injury. I always wear sandals when detailing my cars. My first was Nike Solarsoft sandals (sole was too soft - made in China), then Nike beach sandal (sole was too hard, tripped & almost broke my ankle - made in China) and the latest Birkenstock classic Arizona (just perfect, very comfortable- made in Germany).

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#51 · (Edited)
Haha call me breaking bad Sakura. Brake dust is more or less 90% iron oxide of about mostly 150nm in size (about the same as the smallest asbestos). Iron oxide is used as pigment in paint. This means it can stain unprotected paint surface if left on for long period of time. Most paint these days are sealed and coated so it is harder for it to stains (takes years).

Brake dust on car rims & body will stain if left on for very long period of time (years). But it is safe to say that brake dust does nothing to the car rims & body (other than making them look funny) because most car rims & body paint on modern cars are already sealed, coated & people wash their cars more often than going to church like me.

Pesticides are way more deadly. If you park the car near a plantation when they spray the pesticides, the chemicals will penetrate the coating & stain the paint in less than 24 hours. So it is best to hose down the car once in a while in case some strange chemicals are sticking to the car.

I read something that iron oxide binds with PEG (Polyethylene glycol which is a polymer) which means that we can maybe use our toothpastes with peg to clean brake dust fast 🤣
 
#48 ·
Glad my 580 came with CCB's. I haven't washed the rims in the 19 months I've owned the car aside from hosing down with water. Black Giano's still look clean.

The black rims on my GT3 with steel brakes would get dirty within days of cleaning the rims, I just didn't bother.
 
#49 ·
Glad my 580 came with CCB's. I haven't washed the rims in the 19 months I've owned the car aside from hosing down with water. Black Giano's still look clean.

The black rims on my GT3 with steel brakes would get dirty within days of cleaning the rims, I just didn't bother.
Agree CCBs are the way to fly but alas not this time around.
 
#54 ·
Here's few photos of the MH10 Ledlenser!

The product is very light and has bright led. It doesn't have an on/off sensor. I can only turn it on/off by pressing a button. Maybe it's not that important during detailing since the battery can last 10 hours straight on max setting and much longer like 20 hours on medium or low setting :eek:

I think its battery length and brightness are the most important features of this product. 10 hours at 600lm are very long. Not many headlamp can do this.

I don't know about its durability. Only a time can tell.

Everything else is just meh...

First, design issue. I'm not particularly fond of the hanging cables outside. Honestly, it feels a bit cheap with all that plastics. Second, price issue. Retail is about $80 to $120. It's quite expensive considering that the product cost about 10 bucks to mass produce: $5 for non-uv 600lm led, $3 for battery, and $2 for cheap plastic casings, cheap rubbers, and cheap cables. It feels like a cheap watch with bright led and fat battery. Third, I got offended with the packaging. Who still use cellophane tapes to secure the inside box? And the cellophane tape has fingerprints too o_O

Using this for car detailing maybe a bit overkill. I think It's more suitable for trekking or for fishing. But I bought this for other reason too. Say if I got a power out during earthquakes, tornadoes, or doomsday at pitched black midnight, I can just pick this up and run to safety while looking cool.


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#55 · (Edited)
I will read about the LedLenser. The brightness is hard to compare to my Scangrip from the picture but I see the lumen rating of the LedLenser is 600 verses the Scangrip 160/80 on the high and low settings. The Scangrip is fine for the interior car detailing but not as useful for exterior car detailing. One thing though, the LedLenser is a tad more pricey about 3X the cost of the Scangrip and given I use the Scangrip works for the interior detailing I wonder if it would be worth the additional cost to buy a second headlamp? Let me know how the light performs when doing exterior car detailing.
 
#58 · (Edited)
Hi Albert, this is the comparison 600 vs 100 lm. You can see that the MH10 has better focus and is much brighter. The 100 lm is too weak for exterior detailing.

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For exterior detailing, this is what shows up with MH10. I can see the dirt hiding in the grilles clearly. I'm getting a detailing q-tips (cotton swabs) for cleaning the grilles.

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#61 ·
BTW, here is how I protected the engine bay; used large towels and clear plastic over the towels. The combo of towels and plastic sheets worked like a charm. Today I christened the Huracan with its second wash.
Take a look at the first picture (red arrow) it's the wife in her Trump hat and if the neighbors have a problem well then they have a problem. 😂
 

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