What is considered a, "detail"?

SATracker

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As I hear people talk about having their cars, "detailed", it seems "detailing" is a rather broad term. What some people say is a detail, I consider a real intensive car wash- and I don't mean that in an insulting way. I've heard folks say that they're having their car detailed at the car wash and it will take about an hour; I don't know how a car is detailed in an hour, but then it depends on how you define "detail".


Feed back please
 
Anything more than a wash, wax, vacume, and interior wipedown IMO. So claying, trim, steaming or extracting the interior, dressing, and paint correcton. Maybe tire shine, too.
 
good question. for me a "detail" consists of a good hand wash. wheels/tires cleaned. interior cleaned and dressed. windows if needed. wheel wells/frame dressed. finally tires dressed and trim if needed. and finish with a spray detailer after drying. to me waxing/polishing/sealing is a seperate process.
 
As the industry is not regulated the definition can take on broad meanings. I think (and this is just my opinion) that like many other things there are different levels of what some would consider detailing. If you wash a car and don't touch any more than say an automatic car wash, and maybe vac the
carpets/floor mats i would consider that a car wash very basic. But once you start doing door jams, including the trunk, wheel wells, wheels and tires, engine compartment, vac and shampoo carpets/floor mats, clean cracks and crevices in the dash, interior glass, polishing the paint etc., etc. Then your getting into what would be considered a detail. Which to your point is in its most basic form an intense car wash. All that being said there are different levels of detail that people offer or are capable of offering. ie some may have the skill to polish paint or offer higher levels of paint correction such as wet sanding others may not have acquired these skills yet so they are limited in what they can offer.but they can still offer what most would consider a detail. If you look at many of the pros on this forum on their websites they will offer from the basic car wash all the way up to a full on "detail". Even at that there are varying levels of what is offered depending on the customer, the car and what is expected. Again this is just my opinion. hopefully others will chime in as well.:xyxthumbs:
 
A detail is when a "Detailer" does any cleaning or correction process.

Otherwise it's a "hack job" by default. :laughing:
 
Sorry guys, not trying to create problems or controversy. I did a quick check of the threads and didn't find anything. It's an honest question on my part.
 
Ted S. said:
Anything more than a wash, wax, vacume, and interior wipedown IMO. So claying, trim, steaming or extracting the interior, dressing, and paint correcton. Maybe tire shine, too.
Click to expand...

Well,

I consider some vacumming jobs tougher than dressing a tire so thats sound a little odd to say the least.
 
What really got me thinking about it, a friend of mine knows that I like to work on cars. She asked how much I'd charge to do her car. I gave her a price & she said that she pays half that much, I walked her around my car showing her what I do. She said her detailer doesn't do half that. I suggested that she stay with her detailer because I do it as a hobby and he's a pro. But it had me wondering, what do people consider a detail.
 
Detailing to me is a complete cleaning of inside, outside, engine, front to back , top to bottom. Polish the paint to new paint gloss and seal the paint. Anything less is simply a deluxe wash and or a wax job.
 
SATracker said:
As I hear people talk about having their cars, "detailed", it seems "detailing" is a rather broad term. What some people say is a detail, I consider a real intensive car wash- and I don't mean that in an insulting way. I've heard folks say that they're having their car detailed at the car wash and it will take about an hour; I don't know how a car is detailed in an hour, but then it depends on how you define "detail".


Feed back please
Click to expand...
I agree that most of the general public think exactly the same thing. I like how Mike Phillips puts it. Polishing paint is polishing paint, detailing is getting the wax out of the cracks.

For me detailing should include some degree of paint polishing such as the application of a cleaner wax that will remove some swirls and of course a thorough interior cleaning to include door jams, hinges, seat tracks etc.etc.

I keep paint correction as a completely separate service with price quotes figured to cover my required hourly income needs.
 
When my customers get a "detail" that consist on me putting there car in a touchless wash with the doors open...for the carpet shampoo and interior cleaning, and dried while I drive it out with those little blowers, then wax, with multi surface pledge, which offers one day longer protection :)
 
Just by looking up the definition of detail should answer your question when you think about it in the auto detail industry.

(n.) detail
an individual part; particular.


detail
to appoint or assign for some particular duty.

If you do a hand car wash inside and out. Is basically washing the car quick, dry it, vacuum, windows, wipe down wheel and tire dressing.

That a basic wash to me thats as far and simple anyone can afford to at least keep the car somewhat clean and thats not detail because you are not really spending time in making sure there are no scratches, stains, water spots etc...

But of course a lot of people tend to confuse a basic clean up to being detail.

Detail is like the definition describes it. You are focusing in one thing at a time only making sure is where it got to be.

I hope this helps
 
From Law & Order:
Cop1: I wonder what a $200 haircut looks like.
Cop2: It looks like a $400 car wash
Cop1: I think that's called detailing
 
ExoticAutoDetai said:
Just by looking up the definition of detail should answer your question when you think about it in the auto detail industry.

(n.) detail
an individual part; particular.


detail
to appoint or assign for some particular duty.

If you do a hand car wash inside and out. Is basically washing the car quick, dry it, vacuum, windows, wipe down wheel and tire dressing.

That a basic wash to me thats as far and simple anyone can afford to at least keep the car somewhat clean and thats not detail because you are not really spending time in making sure there are no scratches, stains, water spots etc...

But of course a lot of people tend to confuse a basic clean up to being detail.

Detail is like the definition describes it. You are focusing in one thing at a time only making sure is where it got to be.

I hope this helps
Click to expand...

I will have to disagree with you here. Even a simple wash and wax by me is consider detail work because I clean everything from wheel/ties/wheels in between emblem, under carriage, gas tank, etc..... Not many people will put this much effort when washing a car, thats why I consider even a car wash/wax detailing.
 
I consider detailing the exterior to be a comprehensive wash, and a wax, with dressing on the tires, paying attention to all of the DETAILS on the car, making sure every crevice is clean before the wash, and making sure there is no excess wax left on the car when done, like on tail light lenses or badges. Whenever I see wax left on tail light lenses or emblems, nooks crannies, or obviously dirty area that got missed, I think it was done by a hack, an unprofessional job performed by a philistine. On the interior, it is vacuuming the interior, cleaning the widows, shampooing if needed, cleaning the dash, door panels, ect with a liquid cleaner, and possibly applying dressing. Those are my bare minimum requirements to define a detailing job. I also distinguish between exterior detail, interior detail, and engine detail. Detailing could also mean a comprehensive cleaning of ANY part of the car, like a wheel. What really distinguishes a detailer from a basic car washer is that a detailer pays attention to the fine details, and is thorough and conscientious, regardless of what part of the car he/she works on.
 
:iagree:

paying attention to the DETAILS of the car.

You can just wash the car then wax it, or you can wash the paint, wheel wells, wheel barrels, in-between the badges, door jams, exhaust tips, etc and that is where it becomes a detail rather than just a wash and wax.
 
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