Ceramic coatings work wonderfully at providing a water-resistant coating that lasts a long time. However, there are times that a ceramic coating must be removed from a car. Since ceramic coatings provide a semi-permanent physical layer on the car’s paint that protects the vehicle from a host of different contaminants, it is difficult for car wash soaps and cleaners to chemically remove the coating. That is why the general consensus is that physical removal of the coating is necessary in the form of either clay bar or polish in order to remove a ceramic coating.

If your headlights are foggy or hazy looking, it may be possible to polish them using something you might find laying around the house: toothpaste. Surprisingly, toothpaste can actually work quite well as a polish on headlights. Using toothpaste alone on the headlight lens can make a big difference in polishing the headlights, but polishing once more with a final polish like Meguiar’s PlastX can really make the restoration look complete.

Birds leave droppings on our cars all the time; dealing with the problem is easy. Most people would go get some water and wipe the bird dropping with whatever rag or paper towel they can find. Something so innocuous can actually cause damage to your car’s paint. If you know how to properly clean bird poo off your car’s paint, you won’t have to worry about creating scratches in your car’s paint. It doesn’t take much more effort to properly clean off bird poo, so its worth doing every time you encounter bird droppings on your car.

Using a clay bar prepares a car for further car detailing that may be needed. Whether you are doing paint correction with polishing or compounding, or maybe you just applying a wax, you will be doing it using an applicator that abrades against the surface of the vehicle. If the car wasn’t clayed prior to doing those things, then very particles will still be on the surface of the paint. Therefore, doing any sort of detailing work will effectively take those particles and scratching them all over the surface of the paint. Using a clay bar (after an exterior wash), is a critical first step towards preparing your car for additional detailing work.

It can be argued that detailing the interior of a car is just as important, if not more important, than detailing the exterior. The reason being that if you are the owner of the car, you’ll be spending more time inside the cabin than outside. With the interior of the car cleaned and detailed, you’ll not only be able to appreciate the refurbished interior, but also prolong the life of the materials in the cabin for years to come.

Tires can essentially be washed at the same time as the wheels, and dressing the tires involves applying a tire dressing to the surface at the end of your car detail. This tire dressing can vary in sheen, catering to your preference of gloss, satin, or matte. This guide goes over tire blooming, water-based v. solvent-based dressings, tire sling off, and how to properly clean and dress your tires.

Washing wheels is an important part of cleaning your vehicle. Neglect the wheels and the car won’t appear to be completely clean with just a car wash alone. Cleaning and protecting the wheels can be approached in a similar way that you wash the car’s paint. The wheels are typically much dirtier than the car’s paint surface since the wheels not only collect dirt and abrasives, but also collects brake dust that comes off of the brake pads. These particles are much more abrasive than the typical contaminants because they can be made up of may organic materials, as well as metallic ones.

Washing your car is fundamental to maintaining your vehicle whether you’re doing an occasional maintenance wash or getting the vehicle ready to perform a more involved detail. The main purpose of washing the exterior is to remove light contaminants on the surface of the paint. This is done as a general car wash to make your car look clean again, but it also prepares your car for more detailing if you decide to go that route.