Combine time efficient tools with the right process. Pressure washer (electric ones do just fine), blasts a lot of the grime away, quick engine bay cleaning. Nanoskin mitt or sponge as a clay substitute is a time efficient beast product, worth the price at any level of car cleaning. All-in-one products for polishing, there are some new ones coming out, or Meguiar's M100 for higher quality fast compounding for one steps if you have to tear through a lot of swirls. Play around with glazes too, Poorboy's Black Hole for dark cars and Poorboy's White Diamond for lighter cars are excellent swirl fillers. Utilize rinseless solutions for multiple uses - exterior and interior cleaning. Compressed air is a must for engine detailing and drying, interior cleaning, you can't go without this if you're looking for efficiency.
Keep your job location as a high volume dealership detailer in perspective. It doesn't need to be perfect so don't spend much time on any one thing. Blow the crap out the interiors with compressed air and spray down soiled areas with your safe rinseless solution that you can use on most vinyl, some leathers, exterior paint, door jambs, carpet, windows. I use Optimum No Rinse, there are some other great ones as well. Use that compressed air to help spread whatever you're using to dress the vinyl into where it needs to go, especially in the engine bay and in those pesky honeycomb type exterior grills. Extra microfiber towels are your friend. Buy a lot, use a lot, wash a lot. If you're not using an all-in-one polish and wax product, get some D156 from Meguiar's and that's your new last step product. Easy, quick, slight swirl filling, paint looks great - can't beat spray wax efficiency.
There are a lot of hacks in the dealership industry. They do a quick rinse down, they dry the car with an old chamois, they then proceed to use M85 compound without claying and spend 5 minutes over the entire car and there you go, outside is done. Then they proceed to go to the interior with undiluted degreaser and spray it all over the place and literally destroy the leather and vinyl and dress it all down with greasy crap and do a finishing vacuum and that's it, job done. Engine dirty? No problem, that chamois is then used to spread that nasty stuff they dressed the interior with.
There are ways to do it quickly without compromising the finish of the car like hacks do. Figure out the color light or dark, figure out after the Nanoskin step if you're going to go with Poorboy's Black Hole filler glaze, or an all-in-one polish and seal product, or something like Meguiar's M100 for a quick one-step and then wax/seal with Meguiar's D156 spray wax. This is going to depend on the level of swirls in the car. Extreme swirls you go with Meguiar's M100 and depending on how significant the holograms you create with that step you can proceed straight to D156 spray wax or do a very quick one over with a Poorboy's glaze with a finishing pad at low speed. That's going to give you acceptable results at a time efficient pace. Watch your back too, if you're not careful you'll end up with a slipped disc before age 30 like I did. Keep it straight and careful on the crazy contortion twisting.
