How to Detail Your Car at Home and Save Money – 2020 Guide


A purchase of a vehicle is not the same as buying a new piece of furniture, a new kitchen apparatus, or a new computer. It is something much more important and a lot more expensive. When making this kind of investment, you become a lot more emotionally invested in it. That is the reason why a lot of people love to take care of their cars. Even if you do not have any kind of connection with it, it is still best to detail your car to maintain its value.

However, detailing your vehicle is not an inexpensive task. Usually, this kind of service costs around $200 or more, depending on your vehicle. Keep in mind, I am sure that there are companies out there that offer a much better price, but this has been my experience with these types of services.

So, with such a hefty price tag, it can be difficult to have that level of maintenance every few weeks or every month.
But, there might be a solution to this problem. Instead of paying that kind of money every month, you could start detailing your vehicle at home. Yes, believe it or not, but with the right guidance, you will be able to properly detail your car at home while saving a lot of money.

Although, you will have to spend a few extra dollars first two by all the right tools for this kind of clean. Once you have those tools, you can reuse them hundreds of times which will ultimately save you thousands of dollars.

1. Frequent washing

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This is something you will not hear when you purchase a car from a dealership. They will never tell you that you should wash your car frequently to avoid damaging the exterior, or more specifically, the layer of paint.

Yes, that is actually true. The more dust, dirt, or any other material is left stuck on the exterior of your vehicle, the faster the paint will start to deteriorate. Making it weaker and more susceptible to damage after a few years or even months. That is probably the reason why brand-new cars have chipped paint.

To reduce the chances of your paint deteriorating, you just need to start washing the car as frequently as you can. Of course, I am not talking about every day or every other day, but you could do with once or twice a week.

Keep in mind, we are talking about detailing at home which means you need to wash it at home. Look at it like this, the average price for a regular carwash in the United States is $15. The cost for you to wash your vehicle 10 times is probably less than $15. You can save so much money by doing tasks like these by yourself instead of relying on expensive services from companies.

2. Get some wax

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Now, this is that “secret sauce” that protects your paint and keep it as fresh as possible. A high quality can of wax will cost you somewhere around $20. Keep in mind, there are some options that are more expensive which can go up to $50 or $100. There are also choices that go as low as $10. But, I do not think there is a reason to buy the expensive ones and you also should not by the cheapest one. $15-$25 is the price range you should be looking at.

Applying car wax is quite simple. Most of the time, the wax itself comes with a special pad that is used for applying. There is also the possibility to get a spray. But, either way, you will have to use that special pad to apply it on every single inch of the surface. Of course, this will take you a little bit more time than just regular washing. You have to ensure that it is properly applied it everywhere on the exterior.

However, if you simply do not have that free time to deal with this kind of task, you should probably consider hiring a full detail service. Not only will they wash and wax your vehicle but they will also disassemble the seeds, the carpets, but central console and clean every single item both on the inside and on the outside as you can see likecardetailing website. They have listed every single thing they do during the full detail service.

3. Take care of the leather

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Now it is time to get into the interior. For those that do not have any kind of leather pieces inside of their car, I recommend skipping this part of the article. For those that do have leather, I highly suggest that you invest enough time into the leather of your vehicle.

Leather is a very durable and sturdier material, but only in the right conditions. Being exposed under the sun every single day is not exactly the perfect condition. For this exact reason, a person needs to invest a little bit of time to ensure that the leather inside of a car is always maintained. Otherwise, it will start to crack and tear very soon.

So what you will need to do is grab a leather conditioning cream. These creams are usually around $10 or $20. It is an inexpensive investment that will last you for the next year or more. Fortunately, you will need to apply this cream only once in three or four months. Some even apply it twice a year.

4. Vacuum

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If you do not want the interior of your vehicle to look like a children’s playground, you should get a vacuum and start vacuuming. You should first remove every single rubber mat and then start vacuuming the carpet. To make things easier for yourself, you should try and get off all dirt and crumbs from your seats onto the floor.

Once every single crump is gone, you can return the rubber mats, and you are done.

After vacuuming, you are finally done. As you can see, it is not that complicated to do a full detailing job for your car at home. Not only is it easy, but you have also saved some money.

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