What detailing can and cannot do

Most disclaimers exist to protect the business. This one is here because the fastest way to disappoint somebody is to let them expect something we were never going to deliver. So here is where the limits actually are.

Cleaning reveals things. It does not create them.

A dirty car hides a lot. Once the grime is off, you may see stone chips, fine scratches, oxidised or failing clear coat, existing rust, a previous respray that does not quite match, or trim that has gone brittle.

None of that appeared while we were working. It was there the whole time, under the dirt. We will point out anything significant we find rather than quietly hope you do not notice.

Stains do not always come out

Hot-water extraction lifts most spills, and fresh ones come out almost completely. But some will not fully go:

• Dye stains — coffee with milk left through a hot summer, red drinks, ink
• Anything that has bleached or discoloured the fibre itself rather than sitting on it
• Sun-faded or UV-damaged upholstery, which is damage rather than dirt
• Old biological staining that has broken down the material

We will get it as far as it goes and tell you honestly where that is. Send photos when you book and we will give you a straight answer before you pay, not after.

Odour removal has limits too

Smell usually comes from a source, and cleaning removes the source. That handles most cases.

What it does not handle: smoke that has been absorbed into the headliner, the foam inside the seats and the ventilation system over years. Ozone treatment helps significantly. It is not guaranteed to eliminate it entirely, and anyone promising you that on a heavy long-term smoker's car is guessing.

Paint correction removes clear coat

Correction works by machine-polishing a controlled, measured amount of clear coat away so the surface is level again. That is why it permanently removes swirl marks — and also why it cannot be repeated endlessly. There is a finite amount of clear coat on your car.

We check paint depth before we start. If there is not enough left to work with safely, we will tell you and decline rather than take your money and risk burning through.

Correction does not fix scratches deep enough to catch your fingernail, chips down to primer or bare metal, dents, or cracked clear coat. Those are body shop work.

A ceramic coating is not armour

A coating makes the car far easier to keep clean and keeps it looking new for much longer than wax will. It does not stop stone chips, it does not stop scratches, and it does not stop someone reversing into you.

How long any coating stays effective depends overwhelmingly on how the car is washed afterwards. An automatic tunnel with brushes will do more damage in six months than the weather will do in three years. We will show you how to look after it.

Salt removal prevents. It does not reverse.

Flushing road salt off the underside stops new corrosion getting started, which is why it is worth doing every winter. It does nothing for rust that has already taken hold. If you have bubbling paint or flaking metal, that is a body shop conversation and we will say so.

When we are the wrong people to call

We would rather say this plainly than take a booking we cannot do justice to:

• You need bodywork. Dents, deep scratches, rust repair, respraying — that is a body shop, not a detailer.
• You want a fifteen-minute wash. A tunnel wash will do that for a fraction of our price. We are not the right value if speed is the priority.
• You need it perfect for a show tomorrow. Proper work takes the time it takes, and rushing it produces exactly the result you are trying to avoid.
• The vehicle has flood damage, mould, or biohazard contamination. That needs specialist remediation with different equipment and protections.
• You are hoping cleaning will fix mechanical or electrical faults. It will not, and steam and water near the wrong components can make things worse.

Photographs

Images on this website that are not photographs of our own work are marked as such. We do not present generic or generated imagery as jobs we have completed. As we build up real before-and-after photos, they replace anything illustrative.

Reviews and ratings

We do not display a star rating or review quotes on this site unless they are real and verifiable on a public profile. If you do not see a reviews section here, it is because we have not earned enough yet to show one honestly.

Prices on this page

Prices are current at the date above and exclude sales tax. Anything genuinely outside a normal job is quoted before we start, never added afterwards.