Warren Tsang's Custom Car Detailing Process

Let me first start by giving a general overview of the process & purpose of the system I came up with for detailing my car. The way I came about my custom process was because I moved to an apartment that didn't have a "car wash" area, which made it harder for me to wash my car the traditional way.  But then I discovered that I could keep my car just as clean, if not cleaner, if I just followed a simple maintenance schedule & used a few special products.  Realize that my process is geared towards keeping the car showroom clean.  For those of you who just want a way to keep your car modestly clean washing it once a month, this is process is not what you're looking for.  My process is for people who truly take pride in the presentation of their vehicles, for those of you, my process should save you time & effort by showing you how to keep your car clean through the majority of the week,  Thus making the actual washing/detailing that much easier & less time consuming because you have a cleaner car to start with. -

The key products to my system are:

1) Zaino Brother's line of waxes & polishes 2) California Car Duster 3) Zaino Z-6 Quick Detailer -

The basic process:

(This is just the overview, I'll go into specific detail about each step after this). 1) Thoroughly clean & wash your car the traditional way with soap & water. You should only have to do this once, from then on only if your car gets really dirty do you need to actually wash it the traditional way. 2) Fully clay & wax your car. I use, and HIGHLY reccomend the Zaino Brothers family of waxes & polishes. But you can use any other reputable line of waxes that you want. If you car is properly maintained, you shouldn't have to clay it again, and depending on how many coats of wax you put on, you shouldn't need to reapply any wax until at least 6 months later. 3) Your car is now looking beautiful, clean, and shiny. Now your goal is to maintain it. Each day after you get home from work & have parked your car in the garage, go over it with the California Car Duster. It only takes like 2 minutes and makes a world of difference. You could also do this step just before you drive your car each day, either way. This also doesn't have to be done everyday, every other day is fine. Just depends on how dusty your particular environment is. 4) The final step is to use Zaino Z-6 , or any other reputable quick detailer, to quick detail your entire car each weekend. Or sooner if conditions require. Quick detailer not only removes dirt & dust from your car, it also reconditions your wax & leaves a showcar shine. It's the finishing touch to keep your car looking freshly waxed and is taking the place of the car washes that you no longer have to bother with.      The most important element besides the products, is the maintenance schedule.  If you want to keep your car clean, and save yourself the extra effort & complexity of washing your car the traditional way, you MUST stick with a proper maintenance schedule. I clean my car every weekend, unless I haven't really driven it, or if it for some reason has stayed really clean (haven't been that lucky yet). If the car has gotten dirtier than normal, then you'll need to compensate by cleaning the car sooner. Now I'll go into detail about each step. -

1) Washing Your Car

Wash your vehicle thoroughly with Dawn (or comparable) dish soap to remove any wax, grease, and oil from your paint. It's said that' it's bad to wash your car with dish soap, and in general this is true, it's a stronger soap, &  if you use it all the time it can be bad for your paint. But you're only gonna do  it this once. We use Dawn because it's extremely effective at removing any old wax off your paint.  After you've dried your car, it should literally be "squeaky" clean.  Now you have a clean slate to start on.  There will be times after you've finished my detailing process, that your car will get dirty enough that using just the quick detailer to remove the grime is not reccomended. Like after a rainy day, and you've got all the water spots and dried road grime along the lower parts of your car. In these cases I get a large sponge or wash mitt, dip it in a bucket of water, and gently wipe the dirt off.  If your car does get so dirty that you need to wash it again, make sure to use a proper car wash solution, NOT Dawn. And also remember to try to not wash your car in direct sunlight, it makes the soap/water solution dry prematurely, leaving spots & swirls. For more detailed car washing instructions you can goto the Mother's site or the Meguiar's site, they give good step by step info. -

2) Claying, Polishing, & Waxing Your Car

After you've washed your car, the paint surface is ready to receive the wax.  But first, I'd reccomend claying the car. For those of you unfamiliar with the use of clay bars, this clay has a special property so that when it's rubbed back & forth against your paint (with quick detailer as a lubricant) it shears off any deposits stuck to the surface of your paint.  It truly does make a difference.  I was amazed the first time I clayed my car, the surface was so smooth after!  Claying benefits older cars more, because they're likely to have more deposits on the paint. But even a brand new car could have deposits. After all, it's not like car dealers park all their cars in a huge garage. For the most part, they're left outside in the elements. So I'd reccomend claying for all cars new or old.  You should only have to clay your car once a year at most, because if you keep your car clean, new deposits shouldn't form.  When I clayed my car I used Mother's California Gold Clay Bar. But I think you can use the ones Zaino & Meguiar's make with the same results. After claying your car you can  immediately follow it with either a pre wax cleaner or swirl remover.  This depends on the condition of your paint, if you don't see swirls in it, then you can probably skip this step. Then you apply a sealer glaze, or if you're using Zaino, you apply the PolishLok.  I've used many different brands of car wax, from Simoniz, to Mother's, to Meguiar's Gold Class & Zymol. In my opinion, none of these give results as good as Zaino Brothers.  I personally have made the comparisons, and stand by Zaino all the way.  Tons of other Supra owners, as well as other sports car owners swear by Zaino.  Zaino doesn't cost any more than your typical Meguiar's wax, so give it a try, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the results. After applying the sealer glaze or PolishLok, we now move onto the actual wax.  What type of wax you choose is up to you & the individual needs of you & your car, but as you know, I use & reccomend Zaino. How many coats of wax you end up putting on is also up to you, if you use Zaino it's reccomended you do at least 2 coats.  I put on 5 coats, 2 coats in the first 2 days, and an additional coat each following weekend.  Zaino goes on & comes off much easier than typical waxes I've used, so it doesn't take all that much time to put on additional coats. One very cool trick I learned from Zaino's Tips & Tricks is "When applying Show Car Polish do the following; On all Top surfaces of vehicle, use a back and forth motion (from front bumper towards windshield). On all Side surfaces (doors, fenders, etc.) use a vertical motion, up and down. This technique will increase the way light attracts and reflects off of Show Car Polish. The body lines and contours of your vehicle will seem to glow. This trick really works." For more detailed info on how to apply waxes & polishes, goto Zaino's  Tips & Tricks page. -

3) Maintaining with the Car Duster

Now that you've got your car looking totally pristine, you want to maintain it.  And that's the goal of my process as well.  The first step is to keep dust from collecting on your car.  You may wonder what's the big deal, it's just a little dust.  But ask yourself, how does your car get dirty over time?  Assuming you're not running through mud puddles, it's because of  the accumulation of dust.  So one of the simplest ways to keep your car looking clean is to prevent dust buildup.  That's what I use the California Car Duster for.  I'm sure there are other car duster brands out there, haven't tried them or really know anything about them.  So all I can say is that I use the California Car Duster and it's worked wonderfully for me the whole time.  After you get back from work or whatever, & you've parked your car in the garage for the day, go over it once with the car duster.  It only takes 2 minutes and is well worth the simple effort.  Or you can also do this before driving your each day, it's up to you.  It's also up to you to decide how often to use the duster.  I'd say at least every other day, but do it everyday if you can.  It's especially useful after long drives where dirt, tire & brake dust tend to accumulate. -

4) Weekly Cleaning with Quick Detailer

Each weekend I quick detail my entire car.  This is the primary reason you don't need to wash your car, so by all means don't be lazy and skip it.  For those serious about keeping their car's spotless, you're all familiar with the long hours we spend washing, drying, waxing, detailing our cars.  A big reason that we spend so much time on the actual washing & stuff is because the car is pretty dirty.  But since you've been using the car duster, the car should be much much cleaner than usual by the weekend.  As a result you shouldn't need to wash your car the typical way.  By the typical way I mean: 1) Rinsing the car  2) Applying soap 3) Rinsing again  4) Drying  5) Quick detailing the whole car to recondition the wax & leave that extra shine With my system, you go over the car with the car duster, & then all you do is step 5.  You can imagine how much time it will save. I reccomend using Zaino Z-6 because I've tried many other quick detailers, from Mother's to Meguiar's to Armor All & Eagle One, and they all gave fairly similar results, though the Mother’s left residue that was much harder to remove. The Armor All stuff smells funky, and the Eagle One has Teflon or was it Silicone in it? Which I heard is not good for paint. In the end I decided to just use Zaino because if I’m using the wax & stuff already, might as well use the same brand quick detailer which was made to work with the wax, just to be safe. Use a terry cloth towel or applicator pad to apply the quick detailer in 1' x 1' areas, immediately wipe off & buff until slick.  Don't over do it though, you don't need that much quick detailer, so don't go spraying the stuff like it's water.  One light spray should be enough for a 1' x 1' area.  After you've done the whole car, your paint should be in excellent condition & ready for another week. Although my actual system focuses just on the paint,  below I'll talk briefly about the processes I use to keep the other parts of my car clean. -

Cleaning the Engine Bay

I've had a few people ask me how I keep my engine bay so clean.  And to be honest, I didn't realize my engine bay was considered that clean.  I only clean it about once a month & don't use any special techniques.  I use Armor All to dress all the rubber & plastic parts &  Mother's Aluminum Polish on the shiny metal parts and on the exhaust tip too. Any other parts I just wipe with a damp rag, that's all. -

Cleaning the Interior, Windows, & Headlights

I just use Lexol leather conditioner for the interior. Wipe on, buff off.  I Armor All the dash, but I use a rag to buff it off a little. I do this because you don't want your dash to be too reflective, it can cause "veiling glare", especially if your windshield is steeply raked like the Supra's.  Veiling glare is when your dash is refelcted onto your windshield & impairs your vision out the windshield.  Keeping your dash clean, but not glossy, helps reduce this type of glare.  For the windows I use good ol' Windex.  Spray it on, wipe it off, flip the towel, wipe again, and use a separate towel for the final wipedown. Every now and then I will use a glass polish to recondition the windows. I used to put RainX on all the windows, it really does make a difference in the rain. But I found that RainX immediately strips wax off any area it touches. And as rain goes over your windows it unavoidably will wash off some RainX with it & deposit it all over your car, mainly over your roof. After applying a fresh coat of RainX at the start of a rainy day, when I came home I was upset to find my entire roof had lost all it's slickness. So DON'T USE RAINX! To keep my lights in good condition I will intermittently use a plastic cleaner & polish on the headlights & tailights. -

Cleaning the Wheels & Dressing the Tires

I used to use Meguiar's Endurance Tire Gel, and it was pretty decent in keeping the tire looking nice over a longer period of time.  The way it works is by leaving a kinda sticky coating over your tire.  The bad thing is, the coating collects all the brake & road dust it comes in contact with.  It ends up getting your tires coated with an icky muck that you have to scrub to take off.  And if it gets a little wet, the gel tends to splatter off the tire and onto the surrounding paint, leaving ugly black blotches, quite annoying.  I've switched back to good old fashioned Armor All. No it doesn't really last weeks like the Endurance gel, but it doesn't have all the annoying downsides either.  And if I'm cleaning my car every weekend anyway, it only takes 5 minutes to put some on each tire.  To clean the wheels I just use a damp rag & dry rag.  My wheels have bolts all along the circumference, and these can be really tough to clean.  This may sound funny, but I found that one of those Oral B cordless, electric toothbrushes will do the trick.  They only cost like $15 anyways & you don't even have to brush because it does it for you. They have a circle shaped brush head, and it fits perfectly into the niches that the bolts sit in.  I just wet the brush head & let it do its thing.