What we actually use on your car

Who makes the chemicals we wash with?

Bilt Hamber, mostly. They are a British manufacturer and, in our view, the best chemistry available in this country. It is what we reach for from the first pre-wash through to the decontamination stage.

• Surfex HD - the all-purpose cleaner. Dilutes for everything from arches and engine bays down to interior plastics.
• Korrosol - iron fallout remover. This is the one that runs purple down the paint. Brake dust and rail dust bonded into the clear coat dissolve and rinse away rather than being ground across the paint by a sponge.
• Auto-Wheel - the same chemistry aimed at wheels, where fallout is worst.
• Touch-On - a light ceramic sealant, roughly four months of protection. Available as an add-on at £15.

Interiors are Valet Pro and Koch-Chemie - German chemistry for upholstery, leather and glass, where a wrong product is the difference between a clean seat and a bleached one.

What water do you wash with?

Purified deionised water from Spotless Water, carried to every job at zero TDS. Nothing is dissolved in it, so when a droplet dries there is nothing left behind - no spots, no streaks, no towel dragged over a wet car chasing them. Tap water leaves its minerals on your paint and those rings etch into the clear coat if they sit.

We bring our own. The only thing we need from you is an outside socket.

Which wax do you use?

Fusso Coat, a Japanese hard paste wax rated at around twelve months. It is the longest protection available short of a full ceramic coating, and it goes on the Make Over as standard. As an add-on to any exterior service it is £40.

Which ceramic coatings do you apply?

Three, and they are not all the same brand. We pick per tier rather than buying one range and selling it three ways.

Could I not just buy the coating and do it myself?

Yes, you could. All three are sold retail and the bottle is somewhere around £90. We are not going to pretend otherwise.

What you are paying us for is not the bottle. It is the day in front of it. A coating is a clear, hard layer that locks in whatever is underneath it - so if it goes onto swirled, contaminated paint, you have sealed the swirls under a finish designed to last seven years.

Every coating we apply includes, before the bottle is opened:

• A safe wash - pre-wash first, separate wheel tools, two buckets with grit guards, clean media. No sponges, no brushes.
• Full chemical decontamination - iron fallout and tar removed chemically.
• A clay bar over every panel, lifting what the chemicals leave behind.
• A Stage 1 machine polish, which takes 25 to 35 per cent of the existing swirls back out. This is the step that decides what the coating locks in.
• Controlled application under a 6x3m gazebo, then the car stays put overnight while the coating hardens.

That is a full day of work and it is most of what the price is. The chemistry is the cheap part of a coating. The preparation is the job.

Why does any of this matter?

Because most of the damage to a car's paint is done by the washing, not by the road. Those fine circular scratches you see under a street lamp are not dirt and they will not wash off. They are thousands of tiny cuts put into the clear coat one at a time, usually by a gritty sponge. There is only so much clear coat on a car to give back.

Good chemistry exists so that dirt can be lifted off rather than dragged across. That is the whole argument, and it is why the product list is worth publishing.