Like many car owners, you’ve likely heard or seen professional car detailing businesses in your area. These places often look shiny and expensive, but what services do they offer? More importantly, what can they do that your neighbourhood car wash can’t?
You get a lot more than just a regular clean with professional interior car detailing, which will restore and recondition your car’s interior to as close to new as possible. The service includes vacuuming, brushing, steam cleaning, leather trimming, and air sanitising.
That’s a lot more than the vacuum and wipe that a standard car wash might offer!
This guide will talk about professional interior car detailing to help you understand why those detailing businesses exist, and why you should use them at least twice a year.
Let’s get started.
What Is the Difference Between Cleaning and Car Detailing?
The difference between cleaning and detailing a car is the level of work that goes into them.
How Do You Clean a Car?
You do regular car cleaning to remove any surface-level dirt from your car's interior and exterior.
For your car’s interior, that typically means giving your car a good old-fashioned vacuuming to get all the dirt out from the floor and seats. Plus, you’ll probably remove the floor mats so you can beat the dust out of them.
Cleaning your car’s exterior means washing the vehicle and maybe even giving it a polish or a wax.
How Do You Detail a Car?
The overall goal of detailing a car is to bring it as close to showroom quality as possible. The process begins with a regular clean and includes restoration and reconditioning on both the car’s interior and exterior.
Here’s another way to look at it:
Detailing is about removing as much evidence of wear as possible. That includes normal wear on the paint outside the car, on the upholstery, and on the panels inside the vehicle.
If you’re up to that task, you can refer to this post about DIY car detailing.
What About Professional Detailing?
Anyone can wash a car, but not everyone can detail one. Sure, you can detail your car at home by yourself if you have the energy, willingness, and a few of the best interior car detailing products available.
Take note, however, that we’re talking here about detailing the interior of a car, which requires you to be extremely meticulous and thorough.
Granting you’re willing to do that yourself, you still won’t get the same quality outcome as you would by hiring professional car detailers.
For starters, professional detailers have mastered the trade, so they know which products are effective and safe to use when detailing your vehicle.
They’re also experienced in using the best practices in car detailing without causing any damage to car parts.
The interior car detailing cost you pay might sting at first. But once you see the result, you'll understand why it's worth it.
What Does Car Detailing Include?
When you bring your car to a detailer, you can choose from a long list of services for the car’s interior and exterior.
But in this guide, we will focus on what’s available when you choose to detail the vehicle’s interior specifically.
What Does an Interior Car Detail Include?
A typical interior car detail will include:
- Seat Removal: Depending on how dirty your car’s interior might be, a professional detailer might decide to remove the vehicle’s seats before beginning. Separating the seats will allow them to clean and detail both the car interior and the seats as well.
- Vacuuming: A professional detailer will use a wet/dry vacuum to remove large bits of dust and debris. In addition, the wet/dry vacuum helps remove moisture, like for vehicles with flood damage.
- Glass cleaning: At some point in the process, the detailer will also clean all the car’s windscreens and windows. They’ll use specialised glass cleaning chemicals from their interior car detailing kits to clean the windows effectively.
- Brushing and steaming: Vacuuming will remove large bits of dirt but not the smaller particulates trapped in the upholstery fabric. That's where brushing and steam cleaning come in. These methods will loosen and remove stubborn dirt and stains in the car's interior.
- Leather cleaning: For cars with leather trims on their interior, the detailer will use special interior car detailing products for cleaning and conditioning leather materials.
- Wiping: After all the detailing tasks are complete, the detailer must give the car and its glass panels a thorough wipe-down to remove any remaining specs of dust that might have settled after performing the other detailing tasks listed above.
- Air freshening: Last but not least, professional interior detailing will also include the air. Some places might choose to give you that new car smell again, while others might offer you a few different scents to choose from. In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, many detailers will also sanitise the air inside your car.
How Often Should You Detail Your Car?
There’s no hard and fast rule about car detailing frequency. Still, many experts would tell you to get your car interior detailed at least once every 6 months or twice a year.
Still, you should think of cleaning and detailing as two sides of the same coin. So, clean your car regularly (perhaps every 2 weeks or so), and then deep-clean your vehicle with detailing every 6 months.
Bottom Line: Is Detailing a Car’s Interior Worth It?
It’s only natural to wonder if detailing your car’s interior is worth it. Well, the answer is a clear-cut YES.
There are several ways to look at the value of a car detailing. Firstly, detailing the interior maintains it over the years. So, no matter how old your vehicle might be, the inside will still look as close to new as possible.
That means you’ll get to maximise your comfort inside that car for as long as you own the vehicle.
When the day comes to sell that car, it will fetch a much better price with a well-maintained interior than without.
In other words, regularly detailing your car’s interior will help you maintain its resale value.
Now that you know the value of professional interior car detailing, it’s time to find your closest detailing professional. Of course, you could try a simple ‘interior car detailing near me’ Google search, but we’ve got an even better solution.
Check out the directory at CarpartAU. Whether you’re searching for interior car detailing in Brisbane or interior car detailing in Melbourne, the directory will help you find the detailers in your area. Then, you can grab the contact details and give them a ring.
By Ray Hasbollah