Jamie, IMHO, as far as detailing is concerned, you have to balance the finish you hope to achieve, against your general useage of the car; ie: is your car your daily driver, or is it a Sunday driver that can be kept in out of the elements and only used when the weather is fair ?
My thinking behind this is that if it`s a daily driver then it may not be worth shelling out a few hundred quid for someone else to detail the car, only to find out that after a few days up and down the motorways, or some of Britain`s more "countryfied" roads, ie, caked in cow-dung, etc... :lol:, the car looks like it`s hardly even been touched ! If it is just a Sunday driver, then there are plenty of excellent detailers around the country who will do a fantastic job for you, without hammering your pocket at the same time.
On the other hand, if it`s a daily driver, then maybe do what I did earlier this year, and invest in a machine polisher of your own. You don`t need to be an expert to obtain some impressive results (although "expert" is way, way above my level..
), and as exmazdamx5 said, you can get yourself onto Detailing World, and get ALL the info you`re ever going to need from some of the guys on there. Honestly, to some of those lads detailing really is a science, and what they can achieve is amazing.
Once armed with a good amount of information from there, you`ll need to wash and clay your car correctly, and then even a basic machine polish will achieve far, far better results than you ever could by hand..............and this is coming from a complete novice, like myself, who had been under the mistaken impression, until about 4/5 years ago, that the the best way to wash your car was with a sponge and a chamois leather !
Whether, or not, the actual investing in a polisher is worth it for YOU, then only you will know, but I`ve already done my last car (before I bought my Zed a couple of months ago), my classic car, and now my Zed, in the few months that I`ve owned my polisher, and I plan to do the same again to my two cars, and the wife`s, after the winter, and so-on each year.............so yes, to me, it`s well worth the money.
