7 Detailing Products I'll Never Buy Again...

There are so many detailing products

that I've bought in over the years

that have been a complete waste of money.

In fact, some of these things I'm so dumb

that I've bought in twice or more than twice

and had to learn that lesson multiple times.

And there's a whole host of these products.

I could probably make a multi-hour,

multi-part series on this,

but today I wanna talk about kind of the five top products

or categories of products or tools

that I've purchased over the years.

Let's see, I started my detailing business in 2008,

so we're coming up on 18 years of doing detailing professionally.

I know that really doesn't mean anything.

People say that like it's bragging rights all the time,

and I'm actually a little embarrassed

that I'm old enough to have been detailing that long.

So what's funny about that is I remember

when I first started detailing,

I would tell my customers,

oh, when they'd ask, oh, how long have you been doing this?

I always said like, oh, right about a year,

because I felt like that year gave me like,

there was something magical about like,

oh, some credibility I guess that I'd been doing it a year.

But now I've been doing this so long

that I actually don't even wanna tell people

how long I've been doing it.

I know a lot of people do the opposite

and use that as bragging rights, but I don't.

But anyway, over the course,

I say that because over the course of all these years,

I've not only seen brands come and go,

I've seen fads come and go,

and I've tried a bunch of things myself.

I also have a ton of experience.

I've consulted with brands like Turtle Wax

for multiple years, helped them with product brand launches.

I've worked at multiple blenders

and for multiple blenders, developing products,

sampling and getting products from them,

helping develop their own in-house lines.

And then ultimately, as I've a couple of years ago now,

I'm actually going into my third year,

I've developed my own product line.

And so my own product line is a culmination

of everything, all my experiences,

and then kind of doing how I feel is right.

And I don't have any investors,

I don't have any silent partners, it's all me.

I ship everything out of my warehouse.

Got that wrong again, right here.

And I do all the film myself.

I actually do all the bottle filling in-house as well.

So the blends are made to my specs,

exactly how I want them, I work directly with a chemist.

And then I bottle, label, pack and ship everything out

from my own warehouse.

It's actually a big thing that I've been doing

and changing this year is everything is done in-house.

That gives me more control.

I did have a 3PL helping me with fulfillment.

And the problem is I just need more control, so brought it in.

But that's not why you're here.

Why you're here is the five detailing products

that I personally will never buy again.

I wanna do a little caveat.

This is just products that I would never buy again.

I think the fun part about the detailing industry

and detailing our car and the hobby of it

is that everyone has a style

and you will develop your own style in detailing.

So just know that this list is just my opinion.

These are products that don't work for me.

Does that mean that you shouldn't buy them?

No, I mean, I would say yes,

you shouldn't buy them, you shouldn't waste your money.

But that's up to you.

You have to develop your own style.

And this is just based on my own style

and things that work for me,

which I think is the best way to go.

So anyway, the first one,

the first thing that I would never, ever, ever waste money

again on is a pad washing bucket.

They're not super popular.

Some people like them, some people don't.

I think it's a complete waste of space.

It's a complete waste of time

when there's better alternatives.

So my personal style when it comes to the hobby

or the profession of car detailing

is I like as few amount of products as possible

that are multi-use.

I like to get to the end result as quickly as possible,

but make sure that end result is as best as possible.

So I'm not willing to skip steps

when it affects the long-term result of something,

but I do look to skip steps

and I do look for efficiencies

when the result can be maximized

and equivalent to a multi-step process.

And so what I think with the pad washer

is that it adds an unnecessary step

when there's actually better alternatives.

The main better alternative is just an air compressor

and blow out your pad instead of having this bucket.

And the reason for that is,

and I'll get into a subsequent video

of five detailing products that I keep buying,

that will be a separate video.

But at least for this video,

I do not and will not buy a pad washer

because a pad washer bucket serves one purpose,

cleaning a pad.

And that is not enough purposes for me

when an alternative could be a air compressor

which can do a whole host of things,

including filling up the air for your clients' tires, right?

Which may not happen a lot of times,

but you can blow out an interior,

it can speed up your interior detailing,

you can hook it up to a tornado attachment

and clean out the interior.

You could help people out by filling up their tire

because their tire pressure monitor and light may be on.

And that's like an added bonus if you're, you know,

hey, you could throw that into a client.

Hey, I noticed when I started your car

and moved it that your tire pressure monitor light was on

and it told me that it was your driver's side

right rear tire was a little low,

so I went ahead and filled that up, right?

The customer goes, oh, wow, that's amazing.

Like, thank you for doing that, right?

Or you could fill up your own tires,

you could fill up your kid's bike tires,

you could clean out the garage with compressed air,

you could do a whole host that you could hook it up

to a piston bottle filler like I do

and fill up my own bottles, right?

And so there's, that's a good example

of how one thing can do a whole host of things

while an alternative to it like a pad washer does one thing.

It just cleans pads and that is not even

the most efficient way to do it.

It's not even the best way to do it

because some compounds and polishes,

not the picture perfect polish, which is mine,

it has no bearing on it,

but some polishes don't work well with water

or moisture in a pad.

It's not true across the board,

but it's true for a lot of them.

They just are so heavy in oil,

they don't really work well

when there's moisture and water in the pad.

Also, introducing water

or some sort of cleaning solution in that

can really mess with the bonding of the glue on the pad,

so it can actually degrade your pad a little bit faster.

I think that gets into the weeds a little bit too much,

discussing that and going down that rabbit hole,

but again, the main thing behind it

is it just only serves one purpose

and I don't like things that only serve one purpose

and I'll actually get into another product here.

I'm gonna check my notes.

Another product here that is the same way,

it's actually a specific product

and that is another main reason why I don't like that.

Actually, the next one is too

and that is a carpet extractor.

I think I've mentioned this before,

but again, a carpet extractor is sometimes necessary,

very few times.

A carpet extractor is bulky, heavy,

takes up a lot of room,

can take up a lot of time to warm up

if you're using a heated extractor,

which if you're gonna use an extractor at all,

make sure it's a heated extractor,

but one thing I found using an extractor in a car

is it's really good for big flat surfaces,

i.e. like a floor mat,

and really not good for like anything else.

And you also really run the risk of over saturating a car

and if you live in a wet, cold environment,

you're gonna need additional things

to help dry out the car,

whether that's like heated fans or fans just in general,

because that's gonna help you dry that car out

after you put down so much water from an extractor.

And again, when you're trying to work between seats

or even on seats in general,

seats aren't just flat all over, right?

Carpeted seats or fabric seats.

And so an extractor is bulky, it's heavy,

and it doesn't meet my criteria, personally,

again, my personal criteria, of multifunction, right?

It does one thing.

It shoots out water and sucks it up, right?

And I remember I was experimenting

with pressure washing floor mats specifically,

and I thought I was kind of being a hack doing it.

And then a long, long time ago on the podcast,

I had a guy by the name of Scott Perkin

with Scotty's Shine Shop up in Canada,

deals with a lot of weather, right?

More so than I do in Southern California here.

And he talked about how he pressure washed floor mats.

And so, I mean, talk about putting down a lot of water.

It is when you pressure wash floor mats,

but you already have a pressure washer.

So pressure washing a nasty floor mat

is the fastest, most effective way to do it,

and you'll get a better result

than trying to extract out all that dirt.

Why extract it out when you could pressure wash it out, right?

Obviously, let them hang, let them dry out.

That's gonna be very, very important.

But a better alternative to a carpet extractor

is a steamer.

A steamer works incredibly well

at removing dirt stains,

not putting down too much water,

but you could also use it

in a whole host of other areas in your car.

Cup holders, shifter boot, moldings around the window,

the rubber moldings to get in the crack,

around the bolts where the seats bolt down.

You can use it so many other areas, so many other areas.

The engine compartment.

Steam is way more versatile than a carpet extractor.

And if you're dealing with really nasty seats

and nasty interiors,

a drill brush with steam and a pump sprayer

is gonna be your best friend,

because you're putting down way less material,

you're agitating more.

Yeah, and you could use your shot back

if you're worried about getting that dirt out,

but I'm telling you, between a drill brush and a steamer,

you're really never gonna see the need

for an extractor.

And if you're working on those really nasty cars

that you need an extractor,

it won't be long before you don't wanna work

on those cars anymore, right?

It just won't.

And if you're a DIYer at home,

you can get one of those little bristle,

I think they're bristle carpet extractors,

and they work okay,

if you really wanna extract something

and see the dirt coming through the wand.

But again, it's kinda like the bucket pad washer

for the bulk that it is, the weight that it is,

and the time it takes,

and how it really only works

for a very specific subset of things.

It's just not worth it.

Just get a steamer, get a drill brush attachment,

and get a pump sprayer.

You're gonna use all those things

in other areas of the car, four different things,

and you're gonna be much more satisfied with that.

Next on my list, and number three,

gets into more of a product,

and that's a detail spray.

I never find myself needing, wanting,

or desiring a detail spray.

Why? Because it's like, what is it doing, right?

It's not quite a waterless wash,

it's not a ceramic spray,

but if you use a high quality ceramic spray

like my toughest shell,

it applies like a detail spray.

It doesn't streak, it's very simple to apply,

but you get the added benefit of the ceramic protection.

So you get that three to six months,

you get that heavy water beating,

but it works on glass, it works on paint,

it works on trim, it works on rims.

It works like a true detail spray,

but it's actually a ceramic spray.

So I never find myself reaching for a detail spray.

In fact, you can even use toughest shell as a clay lube,

and you can clay and seal your car in one step

because it has so much lubrication in it,

like a detail spray,

but it'll help glide a clay cloth

right over the surface of the car,

and then you wipe it and it's bonding

to the surface at the same time.

It's cross-linking and doing a really good job.

So I never find myself, personally,

reaching or needing or even desiring a detail spray,

and I will never ever buy something

that calls itself a detail spray

because it's 99% water.

Unfortunately, so what I would buy as an alternative

is a waterless wash,

and I would just add like a half an ounce of that

to a spray bottle,

and the rest would distilled or deionized water,

and that could be your kind of polymer detail spray, I guess.

But again, with products like Tough Ashell,

I never find myself even needing a detail spray.

If I'm gonna do a light wipe down on a car,

I'll just take Tough Ashell and do it,

it has encapsulates a little bit of dirt.

It's not its main purpose,

but it does work as a quick wipe down, right?

I just never find myself needing to waste the money

or effort on a detail spray.

I'll either go waterless wash and make my own detail spray

or just take Tough Ashell and do it like that.

If you want, and I've shown this in another video,

and I think it's really, really efficient and effective,

when I have my bottle, my 16 ounce bottle of Tough Ashell,

and I get down to about halfway through the bottle,

it's about eight ounces left in a 16 ounce bottle.

I fill up the remaining bottle with distilled water,

I have deionized water, so I use deionized water,

and so it's 50-50, right?

It's cut one-to-one of Tough Ashell with deionized water,

and then that becomes my ceramic detail spray,

and then I crack open a new bottle of Tough Ashell

at full concentration, and that becomes my ceramic spray.

So it's kind of a quick, easy way

to create my own detail spray.

If I just don't need the robust protection

that Tough Ashell offers, it's just a simple way

to kind of utilize the rest of the bottle,

then I refill or I have a secondary bottle

with my full concentrated Tough Ashell.

If you buy the gallon of Tough Ashell,

you could obviously do this yourself,

you can even dilute it down a little bit further

if you wanted to, but again, the point is,

is that it's serving multiple purposes,

where a detail spray is just like the pad washer,

it's just like the extractor,

it's really serving one purpose,

and that's not enough for me.

Another one kind of in that same vein,

I guess I have more than five here,

but in that same vein, and I just talked about this recently

on a YouTube video, but like graphing anything,

I don't care if it's a graphing detail spray,

I don't care if it's a graphing car soap,

I don't care if it's a graphing ceramic coating,

I'm not spending any extra money

or thinking that graphing anything is any better

than non-graphing whatever that is, right?

So a graphing car soap is no better than my Super Super,

it's just not.

There's no added benefit to a graphing,

and in fact, I'll add triphine and borofine to that,

so I'm not just picking on graphing, right?

Borofine, triphine, graphing, jimbophine, doesn't matter,

I'm not buying it, okay?

And I don't think you should either

because it doesn't have any added benefit.

Everything in my personal product line,

everything that I use personally to detail cars professionally

and as a hobby serves multiple purposes,

I'm beating the dead horse with that,

but I think that's what it should do,

the product should work for you,

you shouldn't have to overwork the products,

you shouldn't have to have crazy special instructions,

the product should work for you,

and you should buy the most robust products you possibly can

that serve the most amount of use cases possible

that give you and deliver the best result possible.

That's pretty common sense to me,

that's how I operate,

and that's what I would encourage you to do.

So graphing doesn't have any added benefit,

why am I buying it?

It doesn't.

If you like the name, if you like the brand,

if you like the result that you feel borofine

or graphing or triphine or jimbophine gives you,

absolutely buy it, 100%.

For me, there's no added benefit,

and if there was, you would see toughest shell with graphing,

it just didn't add any benefit, right?

In fact, I think it definitely didn't make anything worse,

it just didn't add any benefit.

The next one is like any sort of odor bomb or odor gasser,

I think of those like, not to pick on a brand,

but like the McGuire's odor, I forget what they're called,

I don't think they call them odor bombs,

but they're like odor, they come in a little can

and you like put it in the cup holder

and you press the button and it like shoots something

out of it and sprays the whole car and blah, blah, blah, blah.

But like anything in that category

of odor masking, and that's the problem.

And really the reason for this,

and I actually had started a whole business,

I don't run it anymore, I shut it down,

but I ran a entire odor removal and sanitizing business

back in 2010, if I would have waited for COVID,

I probably would have not been detailing anymore, right?

But I did a deep dive on how to actually remove odors

at the source, I took multiple courses on it,

had held some certificates in odor removal

and sanitation or sanitizing.

And so I learned that the most effective,

the most efficient, the only way to guarantee

that you're actually removing smells

at a molecular level and at the root source

and giving a surface and sanitizing surface

is through ozone.

So because of that information,

because of that education that I got,

I never would buy an odor bomb, a gas thing,

I don't know what they call those,

like the McGuire example, I forget what that's called.

I would never buy any of those

because it's not actually removing the source of the smell,

it's not getting down to that level,

like ozone can and does to not only remove the smell

but also sanitize the whole entire surface.

So it's something a lot of those companies

don't wanna mention is that they're just simply

masking the smell.

So when someone throws up in the back of an Uber,

do you really think setting one of those things

and pressing the button and letting it shoot up

mist into the air is really gonna resolve that issue?

No, obviously you have to clean the surface first,

but you need something that is gonna get down

on the level of that and actually oxidize the smell

and that's exactly what ozone does

is it actually oxidizes the bacteria

and that's why you could actually sanitize,

it sanitizes surfaces as well.

So for the example of hey, my buddy threw up

in my car last night or the Uber driver calls

and hey, someone threw up in my car,

my dog was sick and threw up in the car,

my baby spilled their bottle and it's July

and now my car smells like rancid milk.

The only way to actually remove that

is to obviously clean it first

and then hit it with ozone.

Ozone generators are relatively inexpensive,

at least on Amazon.

If you're running this as a professional business,

this is the most effective way to do it.

You can guarantee that you're gonna remove the smell.

If they don't, they can bring it back.

It's also not labor intensive.

Set up the ozone machine in the car,

turn it on, let it run for an hour, check it out, right?

The advice that I would put on that one

is that get the highest output machine you possibly can.

So how ozone works most effectively

is you need to have total O3 or ozone saturation

for a long period of time.

So a lot of these machines that are underpowered in cars,

we don't have to worry about this as much.

I was doing it in houses, townhomes, apartments,

offices, stuff like that.

But what you would wanna do,

or what you need to do is reach a saturation point

and then hold it at that saturation point

for as long as possible without damaging materials.

So in cars, I usually run it for about an hour

to two hours at a time.

And when you know you're at that saturation level,

you'll open the car, smell it, smells like chlorine.

And then sometimes you even see

a little bit of a purple haze.

And if you do that, there's no chance

that it smells coming back.

But it doesn't take a lot of labor on your end.

It doesn't take rebuying things constantly.

There's no flavor in the car.

Someone who's interested in getting an odor removal

in the car, the last thing they want

is like a fresh laundry scent.

So there's no reason to do that.

Ozone is the way to go.

It's the best way to go.

You can do it as if you're doing this as a professional

as an add-on service for used cars.

I get a lot of calls for detailing used cars.

This is a perfect add-on for that.

Hey, for an extra $7,500, we can do an ozone treatment.

It's not only going to remove any old smells,

but it's also going to sanitize

every single surface inside the car.

Is that worth $7,500?

I think so, right?

And the last one, this is kind of a fringe thing,

a little bit in the weeds,

so I'm even a little bit hesitant to mention it,

but it really just comes from experience.

But solvent-based tire dressings

or any tire dressing that turns my tires brown.

So when I worked at one of the manufacturers,

one of the blending houses, for whatever reason,

I never asked Walter, who's my main chemist now,

I never asked him why this happens

and maybe someone will chime in.

Oh, actually I have two more,

or one more aside from this.

I never asked Walter why this happens,

but at one of the blenders that I worked for,

there were water-based tire dressings

and solvent-based tire dressings.

Always turned brown, they turned my tires brown

after a rainstorm or after I would wash the car

and not reapply it.

Now that blender made a lot of the Chemical Guys products,

so I stay away from all Chemical Guys tire dressings

for this reason, right?

But for me, if you apply a tire dressing, it looks great,

and then you don't reapply after a couple car washes

or you go through a rainstorm and your tires turn brown,

I'm staying away from that tire dressing.

So with all dressed up, which is my tire dressing,

you never get that browning of the tire

after using the tire dressing,

especially after a rainstorm,

your tire will just slowly fade to like a matte black

and then stay there.

It never turns brown, which is very weird.

I should follow up with Walter on that,

but so for me, I'm staying away from any Chemical Guys

tire dressing because I know the source

of where that stuff is being made,

and I know that that blender, for whatever reason it is,

maybe some will chime in in the comments and tell us,

but for whatever reason that is,

that tire dressing always turns brown.

So mine, all dressed up, doesn't do that.

That's not a key feature that I highlight,

it's just an added benefit that your tire doesn't look worse

after a rainstorm after you've used the tire dressing.

Why? Because that sounds silly to me.

That sounds kind of dumb.

Seems like it defeats the purpose.

Last one also might be a little controversial.

I should have talked about it after the detail spray,

but another product that I'm never buying

is either a paste wax or a liquid wax.

Again, there's no need for it.

Why are you gonna spend so much time

hand waxing your car for that wax

to last two to three car washes tops?

Less than a month, because you want the glow.

Maybe you just need a better ceramic spray like Tuffa Shell.

I don't know, I don't see it, I don't get it,

I don't enjoy it, I'm not reaching for it.

So again, that's just my list, all right?

That's just, those are just my seven or five,

or I think it's seven, one, two, three, four, five,

six, seven, perfect, seven detailing products

that I don't buy, and I'll never buy again,

and I probably would suggest you don't buy them either,

but that's just my opinion, right?

So hope you guys enjoyed that episode,

hope you guys enjoyed that list.

Am I wrong?

Am I right?

Do you agree?

Do you disagree?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, feelings,

and emotions in the comments below.

I love interacting with you guys,

so please reach out via email, leave a comment,

buy some Jimbo's detailing products,

I'll make sure to link everything below.

That helps the brand, that helps these videos

and podcasts to keep going.

I really, really appreciate it, we're going on year three,

let's go.

This February of 2026, as I'm recording this early February,

I'm right about my third year, going into my third year

with the full completion of year two

for the Jimbo's detailing brand,

and we are really picking up steam.

I mean, really picking up steam.

So I'm excited about that, and it's all because you guys,

so I really appreciate it.

Looking forward to a couple of product launches this year,

and just keep it on, keep it on.

So with your support, that'll keep going.

So I appreciate it.

Hope you guys enjoyed this one,

and I'll catch you on the next one.

See ya.

7 Detailing Products I'll Never Buy Again...

ceramic protection

detail spray

clay lube

solvent-based tire dressings

ceramic spray

About this episode

Original notes