I used to spend an hour each day planning on what I could do to my car. Now I dry it occassionally and spend no time on it. How many hours a day, week, month, year do you slave on your car?

 

I spend no time modifying appearance for the sake of appearance.

Good looking cars all have one thing in common.... they're super clean. That's all it takes, seriously!

 

I spend more time on the track than I do polishing my car.

 

On modding the appearance? Zero.

On keeping it nice/clean etc? As little as possible, to keep it presentable.








.....Presentable enough, for a 220k mile DD'er....

 

Practically zero appearance time; I'm the original owner of a garage queen. While I drive it whenever the weather is nice, it's never seen rain nor snow. The last time I washed it was 3-4 years ago. I use a duster on it before it comes out of the garage.

 

The duster REALLY helps stretch out wash intervals!

 

I love to give mine a wash and wax. Therapy. I keep up regularly with the daily rides too.

 

Ok seems like 2 different questions here, 1 planning future mods and 2 detailing the car. Well the first one is easy, I play on the internet almost every day looking at parts and mods. Now my build is going on 5 years now, Now I'm not rich and parts and labor is expensive, I do what I can when I can. And for the second part.. not so much.

 

It certainly does for me. Just a few years after I bought the car, I bought one of those "California Car Dusters" I saw advertised in one of the car mags, and have been using it ever since. IMO, not having to wash the car frequently is one reason (besides garaging it, of course) why the original paint is in such good condition.

On more than one occasion, while refueling, someone will look at the car and ask 'who painted it?' They're usually surprised when I reply, "Chevrolet."

 

I need to buff and polish the Iroc. It has a lot of swirls in it. I clayed the entire car when I got it and went over with a mild compound to see if it would knock the swirls down. The paint is super hard so it's tough to correct. For now, I just blow the dust off every now and then and I'll go over it with some Ethos D3fy.

 

I don't know if this will be helpful, but this is the video I watched to teach me technique. I had never detailed my car in 30 years. I used a Bosch machine polisher with the recipe below. Jaw dropping results.

1. Wash with Dawn blue dish soap
2. Clay bar
3. Wolfgang Uber Compound 3.0, with Lake Country hydro-tech "cyan blue" pad
4. 3M Finesse-It machine polish, with Lake Country hydro-tech "tangerine orange" pad
5. Meguiars NXT 2.0 wax, with Lake Country hydro-tech "crimson red" pad

 

My IROC is purely a spring-through-fall nice weather car here in the Cleveland area. When I first got it back in '88 I washed it a couple of times a week and waxed it every six weeks or so for the first few years. That had significantly tapered off over the ensuing years. Maybe waxed twice a season, but washed three times a month. Since I ceramic coated (Armour Shield XL) it about three or four years ago it would get washed roughly every three weeks--unless otherwise warranted. It was due for a new coating, so in early October I spent the weekend lightly polishing (DIY Detail's Gold Standard) my car and my wife's Optiq, prepped them with APP, and coated both with DIY Detail's Graphite coating. Both cars look incredible. I had a burst of energy, so I did a one-day wash, clay, polish, APP, and Armour Shield coating of my Silverado a few days later.

Oh, I do not like interior "dust" due to driving with the t-tops off so my IROC interior is wiped/cleaned every few days.

 

None, detail mist off, that’s it. I only do cars and coffee, no goofy shows sitting in the sun all day.
I even took off my console lid to put a holder in for 2 coffees.
i use Griots Garage products, their spray wax gives you the all day wax job in 15 min.

 

I used to wash my DD about once a week. One afternoon while washing my '72 4-speed T/A, I actually heard a couple of kids ride by on their bikes and one said "That guy is ALWAYS washing that car!!"

Now that I'm much, much older, it's getting physically painful to wash/detail cars, so not so much anymore. Oh, to be young again......

 

I dry wash it once/twice a year, maybe 3x/yr. Vacuum inside more often though. Once/twice a yr ill actually wash it. Drive it daily though, rain/shine.