You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
We've decided that we are keeping the 8 year old, 95k miles Octavia estate for another 5 years.
Its been the family runabout so is pretty grubby albeit undamaged. Wondering if splashing out on a full valet/detailing to properly freshen it up would be worthwhile - neither of us have the time or inclination to have a go ourselves, so might be a Christmas present to ourselves.
No idea how much it costs, but could be a good idea. Combine it with a service for that full "just bought a new car" experience.
Might be if you can't do it yourself. I tend to look after my cars, so weekly wash/hoover then a wax/polish 3-4 times a year saves time (for three cars though). Likely it will be a few hour job and cost a bit, but worth it if you've not got that time to clean and polish the body work. 8 isn't exactly old. Running 3 'old cars' here, 22, 13 and 11
If you go to someone whos going to detail it youll be looking at 500-1500 quid! for someone to valet it up to 200. A massive difference.
My brother in law get's their cars done a couple of times a year. They look dirty the rest of the time.
Wondering if splashing out on a full valet/detailing to properly freshen it up would be worthwhile
No, spend the money on something nice for Christmas. The car will be grubby again shortly after spending money on someone cleaning it for you.
Valet and detailing are totally different things. The first is a slightly more intensive wash and vacuum, the latter is like a class II service, but for your paintwork and interior. The former will be ~£50-£80, the latter will be £300-£400.
EDIT - No, it's not a good idea. You're trying to make yourself feel better about not having a shiny new car by making your old one shinier. Just forget about it and and you'll soon totally forget about it.
No, it’s not a good idea. You’re trying to make yourself feel better about not having a shiny new car by making your old one shinier.
It's a good idea to do it yourself. An old car (it's not that old) made clean and shiny is lovely. It's not that hard to polish and wax it either which is also nice. Even clean windows and mirrors to look through help.
I am about to change the control arm bushings on my 10 year old nice car because cars need work to stay nice even if they still work fine, and it's a damn sight cheaper than a new nice car.
depending on how you use the car, the interior might stay nice for a while so it can be worth getting someone to deep-clean that. Wouldn't bother with the outside though
Detailing / valet is one of these things that get advertised on our local face book group all the time; there’s a young lad that set up a car washing business in our village. Seems a decent idea ‘till you look and he’s wanting £75 (for the basic offering) to pop round and wash your car
Feels like bonkers money to me but then I’ll only wash my car once every six months when I happen to pass one of those car wash forecourts / money laundering emporiums
It’s a good idea to do it yourself. An old car (it’s not that old) made clean and shiny is lovely. It’s not that hard to polish and wax it either which is also nice. Even clean windows and mirrors to look through help.
Which was exactly what the OP said he WASN'T going to do...
exactly this. What are people like 😂 Rain is enough to clean a car. I haven't washed or had washed my current vehicle in the 8 years I've had it. Looks fine. 😃No, spend the money on something nice for Christmas. The car will be grubby again shortly after spending money on someone cleaning it for you.
Which was exactly what the OP said he WASN’T going to do…
He said he wasn't inclined to do it - I'm gently suggesting he re-evaluates that stance because it can be a worthwhile experience.
What are people like
Do you clean your house? Your clothes? Do you cut your hair or shave/trim a beard? You might not, but these are hardly activities worthy of ridicule as they are quite popular across humanity.
I'd hardly say an old car with a wash was lovely.
It's a tool for a job.
Give it a run around with a hoover and a bucket and sponge you'll get 90% of the dopamine hit of the clean car for 1-2% of the cost of the detail.
Rain is enough to clean a car
I assume you leave the roof down in the rain then ?
car once every six months when I happen to pass one of those car wash forecourts / money laundering emporiums
Ah yes the ones that come with free scratches and swirls usually with grit/gravel in the bottom of the bucket.if your using those guys I suspect that like me your not a detailers target market.
It’s a tool for a job.
Yes, and no. I mean, a house is a tool for a job - it keeps the weather off you and gives you somewhere to keep your food and clothes and stuff. But a nice one is nicer to live in than a dump. Similarly, if you are going to drive a long way, it's nicer to be in a nicer car but any car can be made nicer with a bit of a clean.
Give it a run around with a hoover and a bucket and sponge you’ll get 90% of the dopamine hit of the clean car for 1-2% of the cost of the detail.
This I agree with though.
Give it a run around with a hoover and a bucket and sponge you’ll get 90% of the dopamine hit of the clean car for 1-2% of the cost of the detail.
This.
I view 'detailing' the same as people who view private registration plates as a worthwhile purchase - both utterly baffling. Each to their own, but I could spend £500 getting someone to 'detail' my 13 year old Volvo, but by the time I've driven to and from my next ride, with my boys dumping stuff in the boot, dog covered in mud etc I literally might as well have thrown that money in the bin.
I do it with motorbikes and have charged £300+ for cleaning and polishing motorbikes for people, they've always been stunned at the level of finish. However i'd say to do a motorbike well is 20+ hours of work. Wheels, forks, bodywork etc all off the bike to do the engine...bodywork is an hour per panel at a minimum to machine polish.
It looks great though.
My Transit gets a Tesco machine wash for a fiver every 4-8 weeks and cleaned inside after every weekend which is 30-45 mins.
because it can be a worthwhile experience.<br /><br />
😂😂😂
is it? I call it a complete waste of time and money. I’d rather wash the cat!
Doesn't seem worth it to me. This is more car-show prep level of stuff. Heading to an 8yr old octavia used car meet? Crack on then. If it will be filthy from usual family duties in 2days time...seems pointless.
If you never clean it, then doing it yourself or a tesco £5 wash is probably a good idea. The problem is that removing muck might expose rust...then you'll be dealing with that... see there's an unwanted can of worms there.
is it? I call it a complete waste of time and money
I have colleagues who take this view with their car interiors .
I'd rather walk than risk tetanus from the state of their car interiors.
weeksyFull Member<br />I do it with motorbikes and have charged £300+ for cleaning and polishing motorbikes for people, they’ve always been stunned at the level of finish. However i’d say to do a motorbike well is 20+ hours of work. Wheels, forks, bodywork etc all off the bike to do the engine…bodywork is an hour per panel at a minimum to machine polish.
Sorry @weeksy but a proper detail is way more than an hour a panel. And the Pro's charge a lot.
Watch this guys videos. Generally he works on a full detail for a week. And that's full time. He's booked months in advance so people obviously value the service from him.
Probably not worth a "detail", would you really care enough? It's the new fancy word for concourse condition, poking flies out of the radiator with a cotton bud, correcting the paint so it's better than new etc.
If you're not a car person, and don't know the difference between a valet and a detail, just pay £20 to the local car wash to give it wash and a hoover.
Every so often I'll get one of our cars on the drive and give it a real deep clean where I take out bits of the interior to get the grime out of the crevices, blast the crap out of the air vents and upholstery seams with an airline, carpet shampoo the seats, etc and it does make it a nice place to be, so I'll usually do it if I've got a big trip planned. The rest of the time I just spray it with truck cleaner and blast it off with the jetwash.
Watch this guys videos. Generally he works on a full detail for a week. And that’s full time. He’s booked months in advance so people obviously value the service from him.
"People"
They probably also value four figure bottles of wine, yachts, planes, C&H, and their collection of cars costing 6 figures each.
Outside the 0.1% people drive Skodas and probably do think £300 to spend a day washing and polishing a car is outrageous 😂
I think giving a car a good clean, in and out, makes them feel fantastic...
I find it therapeutic!
I'd pay a mobile valet £150 or less to clean in and out, scrub the plastic and trim, and polis.
It won't be detail spec, but will be lovely.
DrP
Getting a £x00 'detail' is IMHO a waste of money for a normal family car (unless you're doing it therapeutically for yourself!). But it's nice to have it cleaned by somebody a level up from the local modern-slavery-£7-whole-car-boss-scratch'n'shine). They do things like cleaning the cup holders etc that I can never be bothered with but actually make the car quite a lot nicer to use.
I'm with DrP. Especially at this time of year.
Merry Christmas to yourselves now go spend the money saved on festive coke and hookers.
[url= https://i.ibb.co/fY0B1r7/IMG-6631.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.ibb.co/fY0B1r7/IMG-6631.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
Sorry @weeksy but a proper detail is way more than an hour a panel. And the Pro’s charge a lot.
well yes.... but people aren't going to pay £2000 for a motorbike valet 😀
If your keeping it for 5 more years then it won't need cleaning til then is my rule of thumb
If it truly is minging then a hot bucket of water and rag is golden. Hooveing takes 30 minutes, use a small paintbrush for crevices in one hand
New wipers always makes my car like new! Spend the money on them, decent screen wash and decent tyres is my suggestion
You're all confirming my doubts...
Most of the cost of detailing is the prep and paint correction. On an 8-9 year old skoda that’s gonna take some work assuming it’s pretty swirly/ contaminated. It will look amazing (skod paint is so nice), but honestly I’m not sure it’s worth your while. I think my Giulia cost £600 to do and was away for 4 days last time. And that’s with me forbidding anyone from touching it in between times outside of me, my two buckets and fastidiously cleaned and stored cleaning materials. (Ask @lister as he’s been punched / kicked for breathing slightly too close to it ) .
Instead I’d look out for an enthusiastic youf setting out with a new detailing business, give them the car for a day and get them to valet it. Might be £200, more likely £50 though. Can often be found on local Facebook groups. The other shortcut if you’ve a pressure washer and snow gun would be to try something like autoglym’s polar blast/wash/seal. Bafflingly good no-touch washing. Will still set you back £50 + a good hour of your time and you’d still have the interior to do afterwards.
Just to be clear I'm not saying spending £500 on a detail is worth it. I'm saying it can be worth cleaning and tidying a car to whatever level you feel like, if it pleases you to do so. If not, don't.
I don't care if you are bothered or not about the state of your car but I do care if you're mocking people for the things they like.
Clean it yourself using decent cleaning products, like Autoglym , along with quality sponges and a pack of microfibre cloths. My EcoSport was given a thorough clean and polish with a paint sealant when I bought it, and it basically takes me an afternoon to do, every three or four months, longer duration winter, for obvious reasons. Hose it off, wash down with a quality shampoo, rinse off then use a good spray wax with carnuba wax, the Autoglym one I use is sprayed onto the wet car, a panel at a time, then polish off, using the microfibre cloths. <br />The Autoglym kit I was given with the car has an upholstery cleaner as well, which works well, spray onto the stains then use a damp nail brush to work it in. It might take several goes, but I had some stubborn stains that hadn’t been removed when the car was valeted initially, ex-Motab car, so not too surprising. They’ve gone now. Took me about three hours to do the car, including vacuuming the whole interior.
It’ll cost you nothing but your time and the initial expense of the cleaning materials, and those will last some time, a couple of years, maybe even longer.
Apart from applying decals to AA/BSM motoring school cars as part of my last job, I frequently had to valet them before they went out to the instructor, usually had about thirty-forty minutes or so, so it’s luxury to have an afternoon to do mine!
Sure, it’s quicker to go to the nearest garage jet-wash, but inevitably there’s going to be long mucky streaks left behind afterwards. And that’s after coughing up £6 for the privilege. Having said that, it does let you clear the worst of the crap from underneath the wheel arches.
You could invest in a Kärcher sprayer, with a soap facility; the one I had access to at work was diesel powered… 😁
well yes…. but people aren’t going to pay £2000 for a motorbike valet 😀
Some people would. Depends on the bike and customer. I can do cars pretty well but I wouldn't even try a motorbike so I take my hat off to you there. I did see some pictures of your work from the KTM forum. I think it was that forum. And the results were amazing.
the interior might stay nice for a while so it can be worth getting someone to deep-clean that. Wouldn’t bother with the outside though
+1 this! Who cares about the exterior?! Maybe in the height of summer a washed car looks good.
But a nice medi-clean interior will feel lovely. That'd be worth paying the labour for if you don't have the time (or just want someone else to do it as a treat!)
Whatever the answer, I sure as hell wouldn't be doing it in December right before gritter season.
If the paintwork is feeling rough from iron deposits etc, spray the car with Auto Gylm Magma - bloody magic stuff. Car bleeds red. Happened to my car this summer - doesn't get used much, paint felt gritty (never had it before) so Magma was applied. Magic. Spray on, let it work for a bit, washed ar, rinsed no gritty feel, and didn't take off the wax.
I was thinking about detailing for my old Aygo spare car as it could do with it as I don't wash cars very often and I bought it new 12 years ago. Hadn't really though about cost but I now know the detailing would cost almost more than the car is worth so at least I know not to bother.
Detailing is an extravagance probably wasted on your car, if you don't want to wash it yourself why not pay the local car wash guys £10 every week to do it - it'll cost you £520 for the year.
* I've never really cleaned my cars but did clay bar and polish my son's 2002 Polo when he got it, it had been sat for some time. I found it quite satisfying seeing the gunk that came off and the smooth feel to the paint after.
Also.. As there are a few of us here who enjoy a clean car..!... Go and try Glaco DX glass cleaner and water repellent ..it's amazing!
In heavy rain at high speed, it's like warp drive on the starship enterprise!
Also..a clean car in winter stays cleaner as the water beads off it...
DrP
I’ve had my cars done by https://autodetox.co.uk/ in the past, and they’ve looked amazing. One of them was brand new and came out looking even better than it came out of the showroom.
It’s not cheap though, but to me, someone who doesn’t treat his cars like a tip even though they’re well used, it’s worth it.
He’ll be doing my wife’s car next year for its tenth birthday. A full interior and exterior detail, plus having the wheels refurbed will make it genuinely look like a new car and good for another ten years given its mileage. Well worth a grand.
I did ask him once if people detailed ‘normal’ cars and he said he did more of them than flash cars, as more people want to breath new life into an older car when they’re not in a position to replace the car.
@qwerty I clay barred our van once. Took me two days. My wife was so unpleased. It did look and feel incredible though - as if it was actually frictionless.
Whatever the answer, I sure as hell wouldn’t be doing it in December right before gritter season
Ironically it's probably the time of the year the car would see most benefit from having a renewed protective layer over it*
* But if your not lanoguarding the underside it's largely pointless . Sub frames rust faster than bodywork these days.
I think I prefer the Italian approach to car maintenance.
If it works, don't touch it.
Detailing is an extravagance probably wasted on your car
Agree, if probably just needs a proper valet as th inside looks 12 year old and the outside has green stuff in the sills and so on. It has been a spare cars for 5 years now so doesn't get much time spent on it!
it can be a worthwhile experience.
Whatever floats your boat I suppose, there's a hundred other things I'd rather do than clean a car (hence mine is an utter pit) let alone 'detail' one...
Differing priorities is the root of it ultimately, to me a car is a tool (and I appreciate tools), other people invest a bit more of their time/money/personality in their car(s).
In the OP's position, yeah I would pay £50-70ish for a basic valeting (a decent clean and vacuum out), but if it's an actual working family car it'll be minging within a fortnight, and odds on you won't have that spare half day to get it re-valeted for another month or two...
I pray I never become enough of a car ****er to get into detailing, I think it takes a 'unique' sort to even appreciate it, let alone take it up... So long as they're happy.
I get my base spec 13 yo car valeted (to an ott level, but not what I would call detailed), every year. And a hand wash every payday.
Valet is nearly £200, car looks immaculate for ~3 months and good for another 6 or so.
Worth it in my opinion because I can't be arsed to do it.
I used my Wife's car when our daughter was born, while she used the Shitroen we bought for baby duties.
This was for about 4 years or so.
When we got rid of the Shitroen, and she had her car back, it needed a bit of tlc.
We had the wheels completely refurbed and I bought some decent cleaning products from an online detailing place to give it a once over.
Probably nowhere near what a professional place would do in terms of outright quality, but for a day of my time and about £65 worth of cleaning products (which will probably last 5 years or more) it really improved the look of the car.
I did a thorough clean, then a clay bar over the whole thing with a medium compound clay. Then it got a polish, and finally a wax.
I've also got a wax stuff for the wheels and some of that stuff for the tyres to make them jet black.
It's a black car and it really improved the appearance of the paint, removing most imperfections and giving it a mirror like shine.
So, I'd say it is worth it, but would prefer to do it myself than pay someone several hundred quid.
I'll try to dig out a picture...
I'm struggling a bit with the concept that a detail makes an old car feel new again.
Might make it look and smell ok, but running gear and mechanicals deserve far more pampering and looking after than an OTT wash.
Each to their own of course, and if it floats your boat then great. My view is that unless it is show car or similar, what is the point in going to the extreme on something that will get as 'dirty' as it would have been following a good wash and valet very quickly.
Give it a good going over mechanically, seal the underside (if it needs doing) and clean then protect the interior and exterior. Probably still £500 if paying somebody to do it, but no toothbrushes involved 😀
ultimately, to me a car is a tool
They are and yet they're so much more. My wife and I bnought our Prius a year after we were married, we went exploring all over the country in it. It brought my first kid home from hospital, saw both kids grow up. The Passat took us on family holidays all over the place. They were part of those memories. Once I was on a ride in the Brecon Beacons, it took me way too long. It went completely dark when I had miles to go, I was cold and exhausted. When I finally made it back to the car, turned the lights on and started up, it was such a relief as to be a memorable moment. It was definitely more than a tool that day.
there’s a hundred other things I’d rather do than clean a car (hence mine is an utter pit)
I own a 16year old Peugeot partner, used principally for taking house renovation debris, hedge clippings and the dandelion harvest to the tip (or bringing compost back from the tip) or as a mobile tool box when its smarter to use that than my van for work journeys .
Recently I picked up an old friend from Spain at the airport and she said the had pretty much the same car, same age, as me but remarked how much cleaner, tidier, smarter and newer (and posher) my one looked than hers. "That" I said "is because I own a leaf blower"