Most full-time professional detailers in Ireland at the moment started out with regular valeting, and due to having a high attention to detail, slowly progressed to what we now call 'Detailing'.
Valeting businesses aim to clean a car as quickly and as efficiently as possible, as cheaply as possible offering the customer the best value for money possible to clean their car and put a shine back in the paint work, even if the shine is only short lived. You would regularly hear of valeters doing 2 or 3 or even 4 full valets in a day.
Detailers on the other hand, go into much finer detail when cleaning, and take their time to clean even the most hard to reach areas and then focus on protecting the car and making sure the car stay clean and protected for as long as possible. A full detail on a car can take some detailers 5 or 6 full days.
For me personally, detailing is all about using the safest practices possible to clean a car, with the safest products possible, to get your car or your customers car as clean as possible and protecting the car for as long as possible within the customers budget.
For example, during the wash stage of a valet, a valeting company will generally spray on either an acid based wheel cleaner or a strong acid free alternative onto the wheels, and spray a strong TFR onto the paintwork to lift as much dirt off the car as possible using just the power washer. They will then generally use a wash brush or sponge to wash down the car and wheels before giving it a final rinse off. A valeters wash may take 10-15mins.
A detailer will generally start off with an acid free wheel cleaner on the wheels to lift the heavy dirt, and an APC for the wheel arches and a tyre cleaner on the tyres. Once that has been rinsed off, they will use an iron removal type product to deep clean the wheels and a combination of detailing brushes for the wheel face and conical wheel brushes to clean the inner barrels. If there is still stubborn baked on brake dust on the wheels, an acid based cleaner may then be used, or else additional applications of the iron remover. A detailer will then use a citrus prewash or snow foam prewash (or both) before rinsing and then two bucket wash using wash mitt and grit guards and changing the water out of the buckets with each wash. The car will then be dried off using an air blower or a plush drying towel. Total wash time for a detailer may be in excess of 1.5 hours.
When it comes to paint correction, its a similar issue. I dont want to tar all bodyshops with the same brush here because I know a few very good panel beaters and spray painters who take extreme pride in their work. But, what makes a detailer doing a paint correction different than a panel beater giving a car a buff?
Again I think it comes down to the thinking and thought process. A panel beater will see swirl marks and scratches and attack the paint with a heavy cut compound and heavy cut pad, and they may or may not refine down this heavy cut step. The reason I dont like to give the bodyshop industry a bad name for this practice is because generally the public will not pay them enough to put in the time that a detailer will to achieve the desired finish.
A detailer, again in my opinion, should be always thinking about how to improve the appearance of the paint as much as possible, while removing the least amount of paint as possible. A detailer will try different pad and polish combinations, starting at the least abrasive and gradually stepping up the grades until the desired finish is reached, while all the time checking on the paint depths and making sure that you leave enough paint for the next time the owner wants the car detailed.
I have observed a number of valeting operations where they only use 1 product for cleaning interiors; APC or All Purpose Cleaners. In fairness, this product has been a staple of the valeting and detailing world for many years, and it certainly has its uses. But, it is not suitable for a lot of interior jobs. It should not be used on upholstery, and it should not be used on leather. Yes, it will clean these items, but it will also do damage to them in the long term. It can even be very bad on plastics and dash boards when used regularly on them by drawing out the oils from the plastics and making them dry and brittle. And the other party trick from using an APC on dash boards is that it will corrode the electrical connections from all the buttons and switches on the dash.
A detailer will have a better understanding of the surfaces that they are working with and a better knowledge of what product is safe to use on which surface. A detailer will also not just throw on a dressing onto plastics to give it a 'shine' but will put on a product that will feed the plastics and provide UV protection for the plastics to stop them drying out. A detailer will investigate safe leather cleaning procedures and leather protectants to safely clean and maintain leather to its best, and a detailer will use only a proven safe upholstery cleaner which will not damage the seat foam and will not corrode the electrical connections in the seat and airbag sensor modules.
These are only a few examples of where detailing differs from other similar industries and why a detailer charges more for what they do. Some people will have no desire to get into the detailing side of valeting and thats absolutely their decision and I respect them in their own industry 100%.
Detailing is a growing industry in Ireland and many of us will hopefully make a decent living for ourselves out of it for many years to come and many of us will just be plenty happy to look after our own cars as safely and as well as we can.
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