Detailing Techniques

PROTECTANTS

Congratulations if you've made it through the first four steps in one sitting without your arms falling off. Yes, it's a big job consuming hours and hours. But in end, it should be worth it when people start to notice your car for its shine instead of thinking it must be some kind of a automotive dirt experiment conspiracy by the government. But wait, you're not done yet! Get back here! The only thing left for the exterior is the tires and the plastic trim.

For the tires, spray a light to moderate amount of tire shine product onto your tires. Try not to overspray the tires or get any of the chemical on your painted surface or wheels. An alternative would be to spray the product onto an applicator pad and then apply the pad to the tire. This will prevent any overspray from getting onto your painted surfaces. Another alternative would be to apply the tire shine product after you have just applied wax to your car and waiting for the wax to haze. This puts a protective layer of wax on your car if any overspray occurs, which you will buff off later along with the wax.
Allow at least 20-30 minutes to dry. Otherwise it will splatter onto your car when your wheels start spinning.
For plastic trim, apply the protectant onto an applicator pad and apply to the area needed. Small wedge shaped pads can be used for those small, hard to apply areas.
Again, allow for 10-15 minutes to dry.

Shiney tires are a big plus in helping a car look clean and presentable. The same goes for the trim. This certainly helps to give your car a newer look. Essentially protectants can be used on either trim or tires, and vice versa for the tire protectants. Here is a small listing of the tire dressing products I've come across:

For the tire dressing, I like to rotate products every so often. My rotation includes No Touch Wet 'N' Protect, Tire Treat, and Snap's Silicone Tire Shine. The best one out of the lot would probably have to be Tire Treat, which you can only order from the Harrington catalog. But it gives a great shine that outlasts the other products. Plus it won't wash away too soon like the others do. As for Snap's Silicone Tire Shine, it gives a very nice and clean shine. Unfortunately it doesn't last too long (2-3 days at most), but it sure looks great! I've been getting conflicting reports of silicone being bad for your tires, but so far I haven't seen any detrimental effects caused by the Silicone Tire Shine.

Here's a cheap trick. To avoid overspray of tire dressing onto your wheels and brake components, make a wheel shield. It's easy. Just take a big, flat piece of cardboard paper or some other stiff material and measure a circle that's equal to the size of your wheel. In my case, I measured and cut a 17-inch diameter circle. Then cut two holes in the center, these will be your finger holds. So, take your thumb and index or middle finger and insert them through the holes. Grip the wheel shield, cover your precious wheels and spray away at the tires! Of course you'll want to be careful of overspray onto the car too!

Ok, so here is a small list of the protectants made specifically for trim:

As for the trim, I like using Armor All's Flashback and Turtle Wax's Top-Shine. Both are pretty good at restoring the darkness of the trim. Some of the specialty trim products that are supposed to restore the original darkness of your faded trim work just ok. Doesn't last too long, but I guess they do their job. I don't have a preference, but I've had a bad experience with Black Magic's Trim Restoration.