Auto detailing
What does mobile auto detailing include?
A detail is a defined list of work, not a vague promise to make a car nice. Here is what is on that list inside and out, what normally costs extra, and what detailing cannot do at all.
Auto detailing
Detailing explained without the jargon — what it covers, and what it does not.
3 articles
What detailing is
What a detail actually consists of, how it differs from a wash, and what changes when the work comes to your driveway instead of you driving to a shop.
Auto detailing
Mobile detailing vs. an automatic car wash
An automatic wash is fast and cheap and it is the right answer more often than detailers like to admit. Here is what it does well, what it costs your paint, and where the line actually falls.
Auto detailing
How to choose a mobile detailer
Anyone can own a pressure washer and a van. These are the questions that separate a detailer from someone with equipment, and the answers you should expect to hear.
The short version
Before you compare two quotes
The word “detailing” has no agreed definition, which is the root of almost every disappointment in this trade. A gas-station vacuum and an air freshener get sold as one. So does two days of machine polishing. Both parties can be honest and still mean completely different things by the same word on the same phone call.
What makes a piece of work a detail rather than a wash is that it is a defined sequence carried out to a checklist, and that it puts something back. A wash removes what is loose. A detail removes what has bonded, cleans what is underneath, and leaves protection on the paint and conditioner on the materials so the result lasts past the first rain.
So the useful question to ask anyone quoting is not what a detail costs but what the steps are and what goes on at the end. A business that works to a checklist can answer both in a sentence. The pieces here are written to give you the vocabulary for that conversation, including where the honest answer is that you do not need us.
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