How To Use Wheel Acid? Plus, We Talk About Towels, Ceramic Coatings, and Shop Flooring. Episode #949
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
How To Use Wheel Acid? Plus, We Talk About Towels, Ceramic Coatings, and Shop Flooring. Episode #949
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Concept
auto detailing
Auto detailing is more than a normal car wash. It’s a deeper cleaning and care process to make the car look its best.
Term
pressure washer
A pressure washer is a high-pressure water tool used to remove dirt and grime from surfaces. In detailing and related services, it’s often used for initial cleaning before applying chemicals or coatings.
Concept
paint correction
Paint correction is polishing the paint to remove visible defects like scratches and swirl marks. It’s typically done before adding protective products so the protection locks in a clean, glossy finish.
Term
fully lowered
“Fully lowered” means the car is set as low as the suspension will comfortably allow. It usually looks great, but it can make the ride bumpier and may cause tires to rub.
Term
wheel gap
Wheel gap is the empty space between the tire and the fender. People pay attention to it because lowering the car changes how much gap you see.
Part
coil overs
Coilovers are suspension parts that let you change how high or low the car sits. They can also affect how smooth or firm the ride feels.
Term
ceramic coatings
Ceramic coatings are products you apply to your car’s paint to help protect it and make it easier to wash. Different brands can have different formulas, so results can vary.
Concept
bonding issues
“Bonding issues” refers to problems with adhesion between a coating/film and the paint surface. If the coating doesn’t bond properly, it can lead to reduced durability, uneven coverage, or premature failure.
Concept
PPF
PPF is a clear protective film that you stick on your car’s paint, usually where it’s most likely to get chips or scratches. People often talk about how much protection it gives, and the speaker is saying some promises don’t match what they see in practice.
Concept
garages vs leaving cars out
They’re talking about whether cars are kept in a garage or left outside. Leaving a car outside exposes it to sun and weather, which can damage it faster.
Concept
cars that sit around
A car that sits still can still get dirty and start to look worse over time. Dust and grime can build up and cause problems even if you’re not driving it.
Term
dust and the dirt
Dust and dirt act like abrasive contamination when they accumulate on paint and coatings, especially when combined with moisture or frequent wiping. Regular removal helps prevent dulling, staining, and bonded grime that’s harder to clean later.
Concept
maintenance is still a thing
Even if you protect a car, you still have to keep up with basic care. Cleaning and checking it regularly prevents dirt from building up and causing damage.
Term
deep clean the wheels with acid
“Wheel acid” refers to acidic wheel cleaners used to dissolve brake dust and iron-based contamination. The speaker clarifies that the discussion isn’t about doing a full acid wheel decontamination every time, but about appropriate maintenance steps.
Term
abrasion
Abrasion is what happens when something rubs against the surface and wears it down. In car washing, rough contact can slowly remove protection from the paint. That’s why how you wash matters, not just what you apply.
Term
maintain the car
They’re saying the coating won’t last just because it was applied once—you have to keep washing and caring for the car the right way. Otherwise the coating can wear out faster.
Car
Chevrolet Avalanche
The Chevrolet Avalanche is a pickup truck made by Chevrolet. It’s built to carry cargo like a truck, but it also has features meant to make it more comfortable for everyday driving. Because it’s used for hauling and travel, it can get dirty fast, which is why it may come up in a car-care conversation.
Term
chrome wheels
Chrome wheels are known for developing oxidation and pitting over time, which can make them harder to clean with regular soaps. Acid-based wheel cleaners are often discussed as a way to restore older chrome, but they must be used carefully to prevent over-etching or surface damage.
Term
soft brush
A soft brush is a gentle brush you use to loosen dirt on wheels. It helps you clean better without scratching the wheel surface.
Term
towels
Detailing towels are the cloths you use to wipe and dry your car. The type of towel matters because some types are gentler and less likely to leave scratches or swirl marks.
Term
waffle weave
A waffle weave towel has a bumpy, grid pattern. Detailers use it for drying and cleaning, but some people don’t like how it can leave texture marks if you don’t get everything wiped clean.
Term
glass cleaner
They mention a cleaner made specifically for glass. Using it with the right towel helps prevent streaks.
Term
GSM
GSM is a way to describe how thick or heavy a towel is. Lower GSM towels are usually thinner and meant for rough cleaning; higher GSM towels are better for the final, cleaner steps.
Term
bird droppings
Bird poop can actually damage your car’s paint. If you don’t wash it off quickly, it can eat into the paint and even make the clear coat peel.
Term
power washer
A power washer is a high-pressure water sprayer. In car cleaning, it helps knock off dirt so you do less scrubbing.
Term
foam wash
Foam wash refers to applying a foam pre-soak or foam soap to encapsulate and loosen dirt before rinsing and/or contact washing. It can improve safety by reducing friction during the later wash steps.
Concept
pollen
Pollen is a springtime dust from trees and flowers that can land on your car. It can make the car look dirty quickly, so you may need to wash more often during certain seasons.
Concept
quick wash
A quick wash is just a fast car cleaning when you’re busy. It helps get the dirt off so your car stays in decent shape until you can do a deeper cleaning later.
Term
door jams
Door jams are the areas inside the door openings. People often skip them during quick washes, but cleaning them helps the car look properly detailed everywhere.
Term
heat shrink
Heat shrink is a protective tubing that is heated to form a tight seal over wiring or connector areas. It’s used to help prevent moisture and corrosion at the connection points.
Term
engine gets hot
They’re saying the engine’s heat changes how well the product works. So even if it looks protected right after applying it, heat can reduce that effect.
Term
epoxy
Epoxy is a thick coating people put on garage floors to make them tough and easier to clean. Sometimes it doesn’t turn out well, and then you have to remove it and redo it.
Concept
aesthetics
Aesthetics just means how something looks. Here they’re talking about whether making the shop look nicer is a good reason to spend money on upgrades.
LIVE
Welcome to the Pints and Polishing podcast, the most influential and listened to podcast
in auto detailing.
Welcome to the community.
Nick, sometimes you get these conversations, one that I had last week, Andrew, you listen.
Thank you so much for listening.
And this is great because you get to talk to somebody and they go, you know, well, tell
me your story.
I said Andrew, I meant Edward.
Apologies.
Andrew sent me a message about glass cleaning and stuff, my fault, Edward.
I had this great talk with Edward last week and, you know, he listened to me, listened
to me talking.
He goes, you know, let me tell you about me, let me tell you my story.
Now in podcasting, right, like this was the fun thing years ago, we would have these jokes.
But, but when you're looking at a man in his face, in eye to eye, and he goes, let me tell
you my story, I came from a mobile home park and didn't skip a breath and just kept going.
And, you know, if you don't come from there, you kind of go, oh, right, like I'm sure most
of us don't come from a mobile home park.
However, right, he was able to use detailing, clean cars, progressed through his life.
And that was his story to me, like, and proud, he wore it as a badge, like it was, it was
awesome to see.
I mean, now every weekend he takes his BMW to the tracks in Cali.
So he still is in the car industry, still loves to be around the cars and cleans his
own BMW, got us and came to us from one of our distributors in Cali.
So this is what makes it even cooler, Eric Hernandez.
Yep.
Also, you just go awesome, right, like community, right, to hear somebody who, who got from
where they were and we all have stories and you go, this man, this is what makes part
of what makes the industry awesome.
Yeah.
And it's also the part of the industry a lot of people talk down about, right, it's easy
to get into and we've kind of always rebuffed that and said, yeah, man, there's a lot of,
I mean, you can start a plumbing business with just, you know, a truck and some fittings,
you know, you can start a construction business out of a truck, you can start our business
out of a truck with some, some buckets and a pressure washer.
For some reason, we see a lot online people downplay that and talk down about it.
We've actually never done that.
Certainly I haven't is the low entry point of this business gives people opportunity
and some people squander it, more people squander it than make something of it.
So it's cool to hear stories like this that like, hey, this was a jumping off point and,
you know, I've made a life for myself and I'm glad it was a jumping off point.
But I also think if you're a person out there that always talks down about how easy it is
to get into this industry, you probably need to think of it from a different angle.
Yeah, talks down.
I never felt bad, right?
There's, there's people that you and I said, we thought it was interesting where,
I mean, this was years ago, somebody talked about, you know, hey, you know,
I used to feel bad that I was a detailer.
And I really didn't feel confident about who I was.
And it was like, what?
Yeah, and usually it's usually people that just were never good at it, right?
Like they, you know, some of those people are teaching classes, unfortunately,
which kind of, you know, for all of you that have spent money with those folks,
I feel for you, but there just comes a point in all of this that like these,
these stories are out there and they're not limited stories.
I mean, there's a lot of people in this business that have built million
dollar businesses that have extremely humble beginnings.
And there's no reason to say, well, anybody can start a detailing business.
I can list off a thousand businesses.
I mean, you need a lawn mower to start a landscaping business.
I mean, lawn mowers aren't exactly that expensive, right?
You can go get a lawn mower, start cutting grass.
I mean, so it was never something to me that I talked down.
It's always cool to hear these stories.
And, you know, I think it's one of the good things about our industry.
You can always see the negative in it, but the reality is the vast majority of us that,
that have gotten to some level in this business started with really not very much.
You know, we just were able to get into something and progress.
It's all about how much you progress yourself.
You know, you can make this as much or as little as you want,
but it's this is one of those industries is it falls upon you for sure.
Yeah, I'm thinking about, you know, the moment of somebody might feel down or where they were.
Not feeling down who, why, what, when, right?
I go, okay, somebody would have had to have had self confidence.
I was self confident.
You were self confident.
You could definitely see, you know, he was self confident.
This is what was awesome.
But because self confidence is built based on the value you interpret your own interpretation,
the value you give to other people really is right.
The more confident I feel about myself, I'm more proud because,
hey, I know I'm doing great things for other people.
If somebody's not proud of what they're doing, well, come on, what does that mean?
That's kind of what I was saying is like, if you were ever ashamed about anything that you're
doing that says a lot about you, that, you know, maybe you feel like you're ripping somebody off.
Maybe you feel like you're not doing the right things or you're not providing them what you told.
I never, you know, I detailed my first car in 1998 working for somebody.
I never felt bad about any of this.
I was amazed I could make money doing it.
I was sort of the other way.
I was like, wow, they're paying me to do this.
You know, like, I was ecstatic about it.
And to see where we are now, where we've said this a lot on this podcast,
for all of you that are newer in the industry, meaning the last five to seven years,
you never thought you'd be able to charge what some of us are able to charge now.
Like, that wasn't a possibility 15, 17, 18 years ago.
Like, so actually you look at this and go, what a break we've all gotten that ceramic
coatings and paint correction and, you know, PPF and tint and all this stuff has gotten to this
level. I kind of feel the opposite about it.
I, you know, I know we talked to a lot of people, especially guys that have been doing us a long
time. They all have the same story.
They're like, I never thought I'd be able to charge a thousand, 1500, 2500, 3500 bucks for
something. I just wasn't a part of the business back then.
I could greatly appreciate Edward, right?
Having the confidence.
I mean, it just rolled off his tongue like it didn't mean like,
so you just felt cool, man.
Like he knew where he came from, was proud of what he'd accomplished and who he was.
Like it is really cool, different than like we said, some other people that we see now.
I think, I think what we'll find out is whether or not he really cared for the Oklahoma rake
or he was just trying to, you know, you know, like he said he might try it in Cali.
I don't know.
I don't know.
He will not.
I do not know how that is still for all of you that were in the group.
I got, I got, well, fixed is a funny word.
Fixed is a funny word here.
Fixed, no, better.
That's something.
All right, cool.
Overs are on and I got the better arms.
So they're smaller.
They're not, it's not fully lowered to the, the true car guys experience.
Now, I know exactly what you're talking about.
That photo that I took, I put it out into the hyper clean specialist group.
We're going to get to quite a few comments and discussions.
We love these talks because they are direct from the hyper clean specialist group.
If you're listening and you aren't in the hyper clean specialist group,
you're doing yourself an injustice.
You need to go be a member.
It is the next part of our whole entire community, right?
It's different than other groups.
It's very different.
And we'll get into some of those differences here in a second.
But I posted a reply to your comment and then was driving down the road
and saw a wagon, a BMW wagon that was fully lowered.
And I did had like, what, another inch, inch and a half or so from that gap
that I have in my front.
And I just go, okay, proper.
Like, I get it.
Mine, mine is coil overs, but it's not fully lowered.
Yeah.
And you just got to adjust.
That's, that's, you can, you can adjust.
You can, you know, you can do what you got to do.
We're better.
I mean, for all those that saw it, you saw what's been hurting my eyes on photos for a while.
But we're getting there.
This is your first experience into the platform.
And so there's a growing pain here.
And we're good with that.
This goes back to the industry, right?
That word.
It's like, hey, it's still going to get a crap.
Yeah, we're good with it.
Yeah, but we're not good with it yet.
So don't, don't say it that way.
We got to get there and we're going to get there.
And we're all, we're all working towards a common goal here.
Oh, you're good with the getting there part.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm good with the, I'm good with the, hey, it's not right.
We're going to try to get it right.
We tried.
We're still not right.
I'm a very, I just need to see some effort.
We're seeing some effort.
We'll get it where it needs to go.
All right.
So he did, like, like I said, he mentioned that he listens.
And he was sitting there talking and he goes,
I found it interesting about the last episode.
I was like, okay, what was interesting?
He said, well, you guys were talking about the,
the amount of product to put on the applicator and put on to the paint, right?
Like, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, and we kind of went back over the joke about,
yeah, man, I just got tired of that.
He goes, well, you know, I just kind of was curious is what he asked me, right?
I'm just kind of curious, you know, because he knows there's this other company and he
listed the company.
We won't talk about it here.
He goes, they specifically say you just need a few drops.
You only want to add a couple drops onto, you know, the applicator and put it on.
So he was just curious.
Not, you know, you give your, your take my mind, you know, I, like,
I don't know exactly what I said in the moment.
I think a lot of times I go with a not all ceramic coatings are created equally, right?
Everybody's got different.
Just call it additives.
Okay, right.
I could, we can understand motor oil.
Okay.
Motor oil is motor oil, but then there's a bunch of different additives that go into motor oil.
Okay.
Ceramic coatings might, people might have different technologies that they want to claim
or fill in the blank.
And so sure, I guess if somebody wants to say that, maybe they, maybe they have it.
And I was just like, but I just at the same time go, I don't know, man, right?
Like, I think I just get the point going.
I don't know.
Yeah.
And it's also not right for us.
Look, I'm on calls all day every day with a lot of you that are, you know,
using it on your own cars or have questions about our system.
And I always say the same thing.
First of all, it's not right for me to talk about another company.
I'm not in that company.
I'm not using that company.
I can tell you that the same companies come up over and over as people that have experienced
failures of the coating.
Okay.
The same companies.
I can list you the same five to 10 depending on the week and how many calls I'm on.
I hear the same companies, the same problems, the same issues.
I've yet to meet people that I trust and you and I have a lot of connections in this business
with all the technology out there that go, yeah, when I do my car, I lay the coating on
that or lay the coating on them.
They don't say that.
And these guys, some of these people own other companies.
Some of these people test for a ton of companies.
Some of these people are in other companies.
Some of their companies have started to tell people to lay it on thin.
They've seen problematic results from that.
And I always go back to the poor situation, man.
I mean, the pores and the pain are what we're actually trying to fill in with product.
Okay.
That is what we're trying to do on a very, very simplistic level.
There's more to it.
There's bonding issues and all that, but just from a reality.
And the other thing is I've always wanted the most product left behind.
And when you're putting a coating on a car, you're trying to leave the active, the solids,
you're trying to leave those things on the paint.
So the thinner I lay something on, not to say it's good or bad, just think about
what is the result long term?
Is it what you want?
And when you're trying to get something to last three years, five years,
what does that really mean in the long term of how much was left behind on that paint?
Again, everybody has a different technology.
I'm not here bashing anybody else's advice.
I would say that I just have a more common sense approach that is largely
we find backed by science and the testing and the things that we've been a part of
could something pop up.
It's just like a lot of things, man.
I've been told a lot of things about PPF, having a lot of PPF on cars.
I see it very different than what's promised.
I see a lot of different things that don't add up.
I see a lot of things like that.
So I would say using our system, we're giving you the best way to use our system.
And there's a reason our systems design the way it is.
Yeah, and that is our system, right?
And, you know, he didn't have a point of contention.
You know, it wasn't a point of contingency.
Yeah, I mean, the point is, is it's real questions.
And I understand why people have them.
Yeah, I would say think about leaving product behind and then start working
backwards from there and say, why would I want to leave so little product on the surface?
There would be also the camp thing, right?
Sort of like what we said, like, which camp are you going to fall into?
I would say there's throughout detailing as to going to the next question with a kid that called
me and he said, you know, hey, I called you a couple of months ago when I was new to detailing.
And now I've learned a ton.
That was how he started, right?
Like, cool, great way to start the conversation.
And which is what I told him and congratulations.
Yeah, first of all.
Yep, started a couple months ago with nobody.
Suddenly he's here going, hey, man, he's almost like a fanning himself, right?
Like, so for everybody that gets in and questions, hey, I'm not sure.
Oh, I got a kid that just called me locally.
And he goes, remember, I called you a couple months ago.
Oh, man.
Yeah, I'm hot and bothered now.
Yeah, it comes fast and furious, man.
If you hit it right, you know, good job.
So I did tell him that and it was it was a true heartfelt congratulations.
So he said, I've got a customer with a small collection of cars
that don't get driven much.
Let's let's pause for a second.
This is Oklahoma.
Sure.
Small collection of cars isn't an underground, you know.
Yeah, I hear you.
It's cool when we get to see all that stuff, right?
Do we see photos from you, whether it's anybody on YouTube, right?
Like, we can all like, wow, he got a collection.
Whoa, whoa.
Yeah, I hear you.
It's a small collection in Oklahoma.
He listens.
So we're not downplaying your collection in Oklahoma.
I just want everybody to understand he's got a small collection of cars.
It's a customer and he had a very viable question.
Hey, if these cars are not driven much, they stay here, don't answer.
Will Uno last 12 months?
Just let's great question question.
I I understand why he's asking.
Agreed.
It's not about the the the interesting part is the cars are staying in the garage.
They're not driven much.
But you get a feel for Hey, man, I just started a couple of months ago and already
there's the part that I find interesting.
On the phone with one of the owners.
Hey, man, I just want to make sure because he already has in his mindset.
And not everything is what it is.
Yeah.
Well, when you're in the collection world or, you know, weekend cars or whatever,
you know, Uno is a great place to be, right?
Because you're talking about people that have lots of cars, whatever that means to them.
They know they don't get driven.
And the answer is, you know, the more cars are stored, you know, and I live in a sunny
place and California is this way and Arizona is this way.
You know, I think most cities are becoming this way where a lot of people don't use their
garages.
You know, they just leave cars out and you know, don't use.
Alcohol as we store more crap in our car.
Same here, Sammy.
It's as states get warmer.
It's actually, I mean, more of garages.
Like we're, we're, we're one of the few families on our street.
Like our garage has cars in it.
You know, I mean, we're rare.
We got one car and a two car garage.
Yeah.
So there we go.
So number one, yes, it's going to last way over the year.
You know, because you don't have any of the elements hitting it.
And that's sort of the point.
You know, you don't have the sun.
You don't have the rain.
You don't have the abrasion of driving and things hitting it on the same level.
And so the reality is it's going to last.
I mean, I have collections that have UNO on them that that UNO is never even degraded
one percent, right?
And that's a great place to be because it's high value to them.
The car is protected.
But here, here's the thing about cars that sit around.
If you're not going to move them, you need to be with something like eco one.
You need to keep the dust and the dirt off them because it also goes the other way.
You don't want things to go into disrepair and go, why didn't this thing do that?
Why didn't that look?
It's like anything else.
All of our collections we see weekly, you know, period point blank into story.
I have some collections in Southern California that we only do things quarterly.
But I do have collections that are not in my state.
I will say this, that it comes down to maintenance is still a thing.
Okay.
You want to keep the dust and the dirt and the things that fall off out of the sea.
And guys, I got collections that their garages are worth more than entire neighborhoods.
They still get dust.
They still get dirty.
That just takes them.
Interesting.
Yeah.
You're like, wait, how is this?
But I mean, it just happens.
I mean, there's no such thing as like a sterile environment.
We have some situations where it's as close as you could get.
I would need what the updraft like we talk about.
We have some collections with that.
But I mean, anybody that works in a body shop will tell you,
you can have all the filtration you want.
You're still going to have stuff fall in the cars and you want to see the cars
and you want to evaluate them.
You don't want to just set it and forget it.
That's not going to say that HVAC bill for a couple cars sitting in a garage.
Yeah.
And look, I got guys with real serious money that have serious filtration
and you'd still be surprised.
Again, are you going to have to deep clean the wheels with acid?
No, man.
That's not what we're talking about.
But you just want to give them a once over, learn how to do a nice
rinse list slash waterless combination wash.
Have some tools in your toolbox.
And the other thing is, is that you find out that people that own those cars,
whether they drive them or not, it's nice to look out there
and your car's not covered in dust and it is being maintained.
And but yeah, if you have questions about Uno,
I mean, you could say this about stack.
I mean, if cars don't move, man, throw Uno on there and you'll be just fine.
And nothing's ceramic coating degradation comes down to the elements that it's in.
And you know, that's why we talk so much about brush car washes.
Washing cycles.
Yeah, that abrasion constantly on someone's car is going to wear away a coating.
That's not a reason not to put a coating on, but you got to be realistic.
If this person's going through a really, really harsh brush wash once twice a week,
that abrasion is taking the coating off.
So coating largely is how it's cared for.
And in a collection setting, if cared for properly,
you could have that coating on indefinitely.
I mean, you would never really have to worry about it.
Yeah.
And so my sort of kind of what I said to him was, Hey, man, in real world,
right, like every day use Uno and anybody has a question hyper clean specialist on Facebook.
We Uno has been around a long time.
Plenty of people there can give you real world reports.
That's a great part of having the specialist group.
I mean, we have some Uno on heavily driven cars going two plus years.
Now those people wash regularly, wash properly, you know, use something like slick or spray coat.
I mean, this is, we've kind of muddied the water on the ceramic coating conversation
in the detailing industry as a whole.
Guys, a lot of this stuff is just common sense.
If somebody cares, and I ended up talking to somebody who was having one of our installers
put Sparta on and he emailed in some questions and he made some interesting questions.
But what I found was I could tell immediately where he was getting his information.
I could tell immediately.
I go, this guy watches all kinds of YouTube, all kinds of it because all the questions were
everything you knew he would be confused about like every little thing.
And so I get why people are confused about coding.
Guys, coding comes down to two things.
A great coding being being applied properly and how you maintain the car.
You can see a ton of benefits much longer than the years.
And that's not me saying a topper or this or this yearly thing.
Guys, I can make a coding like Uno even in Las Vegas where the heat and the sun are beating down on it.
I can make Uno last as long as I want.
And I've proven that.
I mean, I've shared stuff in a specialist group.
I've talked to many of you.
It's like, guys, I can make Trey last.
I can make Sparta.
I can do anything I want when if somebody is having a car maintained,
the skies are the limit with our ceramic coding lineup.
And anybody telling you differently just doesn't understand coding is in my opinion.
What I enjoyed about the finish of that conversation was because I really kind of understood.
He was like, hey, man, is it going to do what it says it's going to do?
I really kind of understood the question under the question.
You get what I mean, right?
Because there is, right?
We don't have to go back and hash it over.
We have plenty more episodes later where we'll probably go and talk about other people's
codings and if it's this, if it's that.
I just in the moment understood, I guess they call that empathy, right?
I empathized with his moment of going, hey, man, will it do what it says?
And so in there, you know, I pretty easy could say I got plenty of people here in our community.
It's what I love about our community.
Yep.
And just go ask the question.
I mean, you bet.
No worries.
We got plenty of data.
We got plenty of people.
And this is what's cool.
I just want to say it from this side.
As a person that doesn't have to then go out on social media, we've watched things a second
ago, right?
Like I'd have to like tell people like, hey, this is me.
Yeah, just go look at.
We don't have to do that is what I was like.
Hey, man, we don't even have to do that.
I don't have to go like somebody asked me that type of question.
I really appreciate it.
I just don't even have to then go, yeah, man, I don't have to do that.
There's plenty of feedback, guys, of anybody questions.
If you listen, you'll have not used our ceramic coatings.
You got to go to the hypergreen specialist group.
Talk to the people that have used them.
Hear their success.
Hear the way they've used them.
Talk to them.
They got a ton of information for you.
Yeah.
The inside of that specialist group.
Let's get to some stuff.
Okay, let's do it.
And this is what I want to know from you.
Well, did you want to keep going about that?
No, no, no, keep going.
All right. I want to know from you.
Which is more wild?
This is the big thing.
Oh, that's wild, right?
Which is more wild?
The Billy Stutz topless.
What was that?
It was a Nissan.
Avalanche.
Yeah, Avalanche.
Yeah, that's wild.
Yeah, that is wild.
They talk was Nissan Avalanche.
No, Chevy Avalanche.
You're right, my bad.
Or I think it was because I saw the next guy's Nissan.
That's why.
Wesley's the Nissan guy.
Yeah.
I can't, you know, that's the dyslexia of me.
Or Wesley's AWX on that exhaust from that Nissan exhaust.
Like both of those, both of those were wild,
which is more wild in.
Yeah, I think for those of you aren't in specialist group,
you know, Wesley has shared, I believe, a couple exhausts
that he's, you know, turning around with AWX.
And for those of you that have not been in sort of the benefits
on something like exhaust with acid,
maybe you just haven't been around acid,
you and I can go back to the old chrome wheels
and the specialty of acid with the old chrome.
We used to clean up back in the day.
That's not around so much anymore.
Acids, one of these things that, you know,
a lot of people don't understand.
And Wesley obviously cleaning up that exhaust shows
the sky's the limit with acid.
That doesn't mean you don't need to understand it.
You know, we are one of those people,
one of those podcasts that we're going to say,
proceed with caution.
You know, test some things out, dilute it a little bit,
make yourself comfortable.
Wesley with a very soft brush, by the way,
that he used on that exhaust.
There you go, great idea of that.
Curved while he caught it or something,
but it's very soft.
Very soft.
There wasn't a lot of scrubbing.
It's acids, one of those things that a tool in your toolbox
can really do a lot of different things.
So it's awesome to see that.
You know, look, we're using a lot,
since AWX has been in testing
and obviously now finalized it on the market and on our store.
You know, I'm using it a lot more at the shop.
That's been that way since we started developing it.
But it's an enjoyable thing when you understand it.
Really helped me on some quick cleanups I've needed to do,
where I could almost go completely touchless on wheels
all together.
We got some other things in testing
that are kind of making that possible.
But I look at it and I go,
guys, if you haven't ordered AWX,
I promise you it's different.
I promise you there's a more modern twist on acid
than what you see with these really harsh acids
that are out there.
Give it a shot.
Wesley and a specialist group, it was cool to see.
Don't get yourself.
You can clean some stuff, right?
You said you're we're on YouTube.
I'll go ahead and beat myself.
So YouTube doesn't have to censor it out, right?
You can really clean out of some stuff.
And that's what I thought was really cool.
And I wanted to, I'm glad you mentioned the soft brush.
That's what I wanted to bring up.
Like, I know you've talked about it.
We've all talked about it of,
hey, you want this, no touch.
You want that, you know, if you want to touch it,
all good.
I've shared with you publicly between,
especially even with me, you and Brian,
and you guys joke to me.
It's like, I don't mind going and taking my towel
after I've cleaned the car.
I know I'm putting on tire shine.
I don't mind taking my towel and wiping that just
a little bit of residue that might have been left over.
Let's say I went one to four instead of straight, right?
Nick is the straight guy.
Listen, I don't want to do anything.
So he's just going to throw it on straight.
Hey, I'm a one to three, one to four guy.
No problem.
Yeah, just so we're clear, my guys don't do that.
That's, that's, that's me like, you know, by myself,
I want to get something done quickly.
Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll risk it.
It's, you know, I mean, that's, I'm more like,
I would say two to one, one to one, you know,
if I was really, you know, trying to measure stuff out.
But yeah, have I been known to throw some straight acid
on some stuff?
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, you bet.
You know, but so if you don't pull the nick approach,
all good, right?
Yeah, matter of fact, I wouldn't.
I mean, I would say let's throw that out there.
Yeah, I wouldn't do that.
Go with the Wesley approach.
And here's the good news.
There's a lot of like the tide all together.
The soft brush is still viable.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
This is the beautiful part you get the very sun.
And this is why I think it's interesting,
because you can throw bristle with less chemical, right?
Let's look at that balance, right?
Let's think about this for a moment.
When you go hit it, I can go less chemical,
which we talked about these cheap degreaser or cheap cleaners.
And then you've got to go and you see these black rims
and they're all really now grade,
because I've got to use a scruff.
And or now there's a new balance.
I love that Wesley brought it up.
Love that you brought it up.
There's a new balance that has been curated with AWX.
I can balance that moment with soft brush
and a little more dilution that I'm more comfortable with.
Yeah, and I think anytime you make those exhaust, right?
Right.
Anytime you really start to put out there
that you're going to use a lot of elbow grease,
you have damage, right?
You have real, real problems.
So I think being able to use something like AWX
to lute it down, use a little bit softer wash media.
I think you're in a positive there.
All right.
So here I am Sunday morning and I get the next question.
I do because if you've ever been in my situation, right?
Everybody remembers Sunday morning.
This is my church.
I mean, I'm in my garage.
I'm cleaning my cars.
I use the stuff that I love to use,
something that hopefully will eventually get everybody's also
going to love to enjoy using it too.
And I don't have a moment, Nick.
I don't know if you've been there.
You look around, you go, crap, I don't have my drying towel.
Like, like fill in the blank.
Hey, I don't have my glass towel.
Hey, I don't have my interior towel.
Hey, I don't have my microfiber towels.
I get the next question, but I also want to preface
this moment of going, hey, sometimes when you ask,
the reason why I say the hyperclean specialist group
isn't like other groups.
So in other groups, I see these questions
where people just go lob this thing in and go,
hey, what do you guys like for microfiber towels?
And it's just like this generic open in question.
Right?
So it was asked in our group and, you know,
people would ask like, well, you know, I like this,
or like, but it's not specific.
And I think when people get into towels,
there's a reason why you and I pick the towels that we pick.
And there'll be a journey coming soon.
But, but we're pretty specific on towels.
And, and when you go lob this question of what kind of
you get generic, I think what I really love
and why we say specialist is you actually do get
to geek out here.
Like you can geek out of, hey, you know,
I'm working on glass, wait, a glass cleaner question.
I talked to the guy earlier.
He asked me, hey, is your glass towel waffle weave?
Well, no, it's not.
Was your glass cow double sided?
And then I had to work through that.
Well, what do these people mean by that?
Right?
And you just go, okay, I love that in depth of question
because now he's very specific on his microfiber towel.
So if you got specific questions,
you get specific answers inside of the specialist group.
Yep.
I think my entire career, I think towels have always left
a lot to be desired.
I mean, we need to say that like towels
are one of those things like people like what they like.
They have the reasons for liking them fits their process,
fits what they like.
And so I've never really enjoyed the, you know,
what towel should I use?
What, you know, how should I I've always felt
like everybody does their thing a little differently.
Right.
So for me personally, one of the most frustrating things
about towels is a lot of towels I've loved over the years
just magically don't get produced anymore.
And we've kind of run into that a little bit on our side,
which is there are things that we really love to a high level
and you don't control manufacturing.
And all of a sudden they show up and they're different.
And, you know, somebody's made a change.
You don't, they've made a change because that factory overseas
decided this is what we have today.
And this is what we're going to make.
Towels have just been one of those things in my career
that's been very hard to answer for people, you know,
for a variety of reasons.
I mean, a lot of the great towels I've used in my career
are no longer being made.
You know, I mean, you know that.
I mean, again, do I think it matters wholeheartedly
what you use on your glass?
No, man, there's guys that love waffle weave.
There's guys that love our towel.
There's guys that love all kinds of things.
But I think what people do with towels,
they do with everything else.
They continue to jump towel to towel to towel.
And they swear they got the latest and greatest.
But I've seen it my entire career.
A lot of the stuff that I love just never gets made long term.
Well, I think what's interesting, you mentioned waffle weave,
which is what, you know, there's a question I had earlier
with the guy back last cleaner, like,
wanted to know if it was waffle weave.
There's people that, as you say, die on the hill, right?
Like, there's listeners that just when we said camps, right?
There's people that they've, their camp is in the waffle weave towel camp.
All good guys.
I'm not going to throw a bomb in your camp.
I'm not.
I'm just not in that camp.
I was like, dude, I hate the waffle weave.
I've never, I've, I will say that I hate it.
Oh, I do.
I hate the little like, if you don't get everything,
like they'll leave that little, like you can see the waffle weave in the glass.
And it's like, yeah, I don't think I, I don't, I don't think I've ever had an issue.
I think they work fine.
I, like I said, I think what we try to do is towels that I would enjoy using.
I would never sell a towel I didn't like using for something.
Like I just wouldn't do that.
I think, and, and, you know, part of the issue in the towel business is nobody makes anything.
Right.
So that's all being made overseas.
You've got inconsistencies that have to be fought through.
It doesn't matter which company.
I mean, this isn't a shade.
I mean, they know what I'm saying is exactly what they deal with.
And it's just been one of those things.
Like we're going to, we're going to bring a specific company in.
We like the towels.
We like the packaging.
We, we, we like the experience.
But I think there's a, there's a whole host of, of things to have issue with in the towel business.
And I kind of sympathize with everybody on that.
But like you said, the generic question doesn't really help anybody.
No, but if you want to geek out.
Yeah, exactly.
You can and people just act like, and people just act like they're right about towels.
It's like, but I mean, I could get results with the Costco towel with the Walmart towel.
I mean, you and I grew up when a terry cloth towels were all you really had to work with.
You made things happen with that.
So I think it's just more about what you like separating things into the process, you know,
so you don't cross contaminate wheel towels onto, to, to the interior or paint.
I think the rest of it's just kind of preference at that point.
You said a word there process.
And it is one of our core things that we always talk about and process is our process.
And at the same time, just come down to your own process.
If you feel this other towel works great for, you know, glass and hyper clean glass cleaner.
Great man.
Wonderful.
You do you.
Yeah, we're not, we're not dying on you.
Yeah, I don't, I don't die on there's two hills in detailing.
I'm not going to die on what are three, I guess, what machine you like to use,
what pad you like to use and what towel you like to use.
I mean, to me, it's just pointless converse.
I'm like, okay, I mean, if that's what you like, dude, it doesn't matter to me.
And if you go in the specialist group, you're going to find somebody that probably
falls into your camp.
Agreed.
And then still uses the same product, getting the results they get because,
you know, as we'll get into the fun talk about, well, birds aren't birds in your area,
like birds here.
That was wild.
Yeah, no, you know, one of the things I saw recently, and we have workaholic towels,
which are like just red and black, what I call throwaway towels, right?
They're low GSM work, do all the dirty work.
If you got to toss them, you got to toss them.
I saw somebody said, if you clean carpet with a colored towel, that the colored towel is
going to come off on the carpet and I'm like, use what towels you're using.
I'm like, boy, you got some, you got some major issues, like whether it's the chemical you're
using or you got the least of your worries is the towel at that point.
Oh, I guess that's point.
Yeah, I didn't think of it like that.
You thought of it that way.
I thought of it like, damn, what towel do you get?
Like, yeah, you can go to Costco, right?
You got a Sam's anybody go to Walmart, the body shop.
I mean, where'd you go to get your towel that yeah, what is happening?
Yeah, what is going on?
It's wild.
But right.
Like so he had this, this post, right?
Like this, this is wonderful.
Love it.
Well, birds like y'all don't have birds.
You ever see the movie?
Uh, was that with was a Hitchcock, the birds?
I never saw it.
Yeah, classic old school classic.
Very terror for a terror movie, right?
Like birds attacking like, no, birds kind of birds.
Yeah, they can attack cars, right?
Oh, yeah.
He doesn't seem like they're attacking, but it's like, but did they like, did they mean to all
of them just drop these bar and and we get that like this is one of those moments inside
of what car, you know, culture community.
Like you just go, did those birds really attack the car?
Like, did they know?
I mean, they didn't, but comes across that way.
They left a lot.
Yeah, it's it's one thing like if you, you know, for anybody that goes to the beach,
like seagulls and stuff when they leave their trail behind, it's it's pretty gnarly.
Birds are one of those things completely misunderstood by the average consumer.
We think it's no big deal.
You know, a lot of car owners think it's no big deal.
Sort of like they think bugs are no big deal.
I mean, I've seen some real damage from birds.
I mean, whether that's they walk on your paint, you know, that that level of damage bird droppings
for anybody that's ever seen bird droppings go awry.
I mean, I've seen it peel paint, you know, because it's been left on there.
And sometimes it didn't take long.
That car was teetering on the edge, not protected.
And it was like, you looked at the person, they're like, this happened four and a half
weeks ago, you know, they're telling the truth by looking at it.
And you're like, well, bud, this is headed to the body shop.
Like this is so birds are just one of those things, man.
And the one that was shared in a specialist group was just just really got attacked.
Quick wash and back in business was actually his comment.
So yeah, what is a quick wash?
I just see that question.
Oh, well, what did you use?
Okay.
And there goes into what you talked about previously.
Hey, listen, I would not use eco one on what you're talking about pollen, right?
Like, wouldn't use eco one on pollen, you would go into a full contact wash.
Listen, the amount of bird droppings that were on there.
Here, I would agree with you too.
From the from the aspect of wiping up bird droppings, seeing the amount of bird droppings
on your towel, that's the moment.
It's not of what it's the at is the moment, right?
The process is the user experience I think we talk about, right?
The user experience of here's where you should use a power washer, use cleanse,
and hit the car versus eco one.
And here's the thing, even foam wash and a pressure washer, it's just it's just a cleaner
process, right?
Like, you know, bird droppings are, I mean, a lot of times, if caught very quickly,
just rinse right off.
You know, that's the other thing.
If you have a pressure, coated, not coated, you got some problems.
Yeah.
If it's coated or even if you had something like slick as your only protection, a lot of
times what you're going to see is you're just going to be able to pressure wash it off and,
you know, just go into a wash.
But yeah, look, man, I had the whole pollen conversation with somebody
yesterday that they couldn't go outside, you know, pollen so bad, and they were getting
rain or waiting for it to clear.
They're like, you know, you're lucky you don't have possibly have pollen here.
They're like, what?
I'm like, but I'm not sure of a city at this point that's not dealing with some type of
tree pollen, flower pollen, you know, it's kind of springtime.
But people are always caught off guard.
Like, you know, I did a quick wash here at the shop today.
My vehicle was covered in pollen.
I did a very quick wash.
And when I say quick, guys, not every, you know, especially during the week,
I don't have time to be back there for an hour and a half and fully doing,
you know, doing every bit of everything.
Like I do quick washes.
We advocate them.
It's better than nothing.
Not everything's going to be to your exact standard every time.
And it's one of the things I watch a lot online is that people go, well, my hobby is
detailing my car on the weekend.
And I go, but you have a life.
So do you get the detail every weekend?
Well, no.
Okay.
Did you get because a month just went by and people need to understand that when you
get good at taking care of cars, you find the places where everything fits.
That's what really makes you good at detailing a car.
Not I got to wet sand every paint job.
It's everything, including that, you know, how can you perform a one step?
How can you perform a one and a half step or a two step or a four step?
It's being able to have all those tools in a toolbox and washing is one of those things
that just talking to the average consumer that does love their car and a lot of detailers,
they don't understand how to get a quick wash done and go, this looks freshly detailed.
But yeah, I can see that I didn't get this part that I would like to get that extra 2%.
It's like, well, it's not about that.
It's just about keeping the flow and keeping this thing rather clean.
And then sometime during the month, whether that's one time or two times,
you're going to be able to go in and get all those final touches like really soak down your
door jams with something like slick or something like, you know, all those little extra little
things. But boy, I have that conversation more and more now, where people are, again, I call it
kind of like that YouTube cancer, where they think some guy's channel is like the real world.
And I go, Hey, man, you're only seeing him do that process.
There's a lot of things in between that they can keep your car looking great.
Marketing has its purpose, right? Like sure.
Marketing is and as we can all understand as as we continue to progress through the internet,
let's let's talk about right, right, like the internet continues to have its long in inside
of the internet. There's always going to be reasons for people to put quote unquote clickbait,
right? Some reasons something to have been said to get you to watch that video, right?
Like so, we're never gonna, you know, throw in it. We're not. We understand, right? We
absolutely basically just understand the moment. And then we unpack it, right? Unpacking it could be
like the question that we had. Hey, you know, I've heard this product on engines is supposed to
like, I think it was like, like protect seals and like, do all these special things for an engine.
And when you hear that question, then at the same time, I also then understand the guy earlier
that was here locally going, Hey, man, I just want to know what will last, right? Yeah, yeah,
right? Because because you got people that will say spray this engine dressing on. And listen,
we've, we've evolved into addressing onto the ego. Cool. Maybe you'll have
just right. Like, I'm not I'm not trying to get caught up in the weeds of marketing,
because I could understand silicone could also do some minor of whatever their marketing team
has decided that they want to go to and it did so well enough that somebody inside the groups
like, Listen, these people say this, but but what can I do? Like, yeah, so the whole argument
or the whole question, which was a great question is like, I heard it helps with connections and
connectors. And boy, you're going down a rabbit hole. You're going down a first of all, you have
hard plastics, you have heat shrink on those connectors, you have the most important part
of those connectors, which are, you know, the connection points that are sealed, you know,
which is really where you want cleanliness and protection. I mean, I always look for anybody
that wants to dress, you know, wants to dress a an engine, I always tell people take ultra dress
10 to one. While the vehicle's still wet, the engine's still wet, spray everything,
close it, go do everything else. If you have the car overnight or it's your car,
doesn't matter. Come back, you'll see some things puddled up from water and the dressing and things
like that, take a towel, wipe any excess and call a day, you'll have a factory finish engine,
no grease, no grime, you don't have to dry it off, you don't have to do any of that. And like you
said, there's some additives in ultra dress that are going to give you some protective qualities,
they're going to, you know, look, for those that don't know, a clean engine runs cooler,
there's a reason to clean the engine, nobody I'm going to do a a an engine detail here, I'm going
to I'm going to do it on my vehicle, where you don't have to use a pressure washer, I know there's
a lot of concerns is perfectly safe to use a pressure washer, we've shown that. But you go back to
what I put something on my engine and believe it's going to do all of these things by just simply
spraying it on or applying it, I would probably tell you no, that's not true. And I don't care
who makes the product what industry because look, we're not the only industry that makes stuff that
gives all these promises about, you know, protecting things in the engine, you would be in a very,
very pulling connectors, cleaning connectors, you know, putting specific products on those types
of kind of I mean, you would be really, really talking about work that 99.9% of people aren't
going to do. So just spraying something on ultra dress will give you a little protection, it'll
give you nice water behavior when you clean it up again. All that stuff will happen. But I just
need everybody understand anybody saying that it's like, you know, protecting anything on that
real level, that's that's not happening. Yeah, it goes back and what is quote unquote protection,
right? Like, what are we really talking about? Because let's let's use this analogy.
If you go to your primary care, and they want you to, you know, fill in the blank, you know, I
need you to do this, you go, Well, you know, I get it. But I've been buying these supplements
off Amazon. And I take these two pills a day. And they're supposed to whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
here, hold on. Yeah, these this isn't apples to apples here, right? This this isn't that, right?
It isn't is in marketing and then in silicones and it's is there, right? Can you say that if I
take this supplement is doing this? But as you and I've had it, well, what percentage? Well,
well, what is that right back? It's just said, and then assume that I can put this on my engine,
something my seals or whatever is protected. Whoa, whoa, whoa, loose term of protection here.
Is it being protected? Okay, I'm not I'm not going to say no. I'm just gonna go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
How long? Because as soon as that car gets heated up, that engine gets hot. That's a silicone a
protected like, right? Like, nothing. There's no protection. What are we talking about?
You just you just have to and I think we've said this throughout the episode.
I get the confusion. I get why people have these questions. But at some point, we need to back up
and go what am I trying to achieve? I want my engine beta look good. I want to take pride in it. I
just cleaned it up. Clean it up for a customer. That's really what you're doing things for. Now,
there's a benefit to cleaning a dirty engine. The cleaning part is the thing that matters here.
Beautifying it, making it look a certain way. And again,
ultra dress has some protective qualities to it. There's reasons to do this. There's not a reason
to oversell it in our opinion. From our company's opinion, I think it's a long lasting opinion that
we have is there's really no reason to over glamorize all of this stuff. I think it does a
disservice to you, the customer. Yeah, so they were confused. Could we take an UNO and say it
can last up to 24 months? Yeah, we could do that. Or we could say this is a really badass one year
coding. We have selected be every time, which is just like I just rather tell it's like when we came
out with awx, I know a lot of acid users that said to us, Well, is it really different than
they used it? And they go, Yeah, you guys weren't clings more. It's not falling off my wheel as much.
It's not as harsh smelling. The things you guys claimed is what I saw. Why? Because we didn't
claim anything that wild. We didn't say we have acid that nobody else can have. But we have
things in our acid that matter to you using the product and it being more effective to you.
I would say that if somebody told me they had a special thing you could spray on your engine.
I'm one of those guys that I would never unsee that. So I'm not I would never really use stuff
from companies like that. And I have a history of that in my company. You know, long before I was
a part of hyper clean, the products I used largely the company hardly ever talked about,
because it was in their pro line. All their marketing was like consumer grade stuff.
They never made me much much of a promise on their pro stuff. I enjoyed that. I was like,
they never oversold me. They said, This is what this product does. I've always just
lean towards the the men and women or the companies that were just told you how it was.
And so that's kind of why we do what we do is is I just don't see a need to tell you like,
hey, spray this on your engine is going to help connectors like that doesn't make any sense to me.
All right, I want to finish with this one from Drake. Listen, same as earlier, the guy been in a
couple of months. Great job. Listen, Drake, awesome job, man. New shop. Yeah, it's awesome. This was
really cool. I love seeing how he's climbed continue to progress. And he's got a new shop.
Love it. This is wonderful. I think it's great to the building he went into. Yeah. I think it's
super unique, very great idea. I love also that he stayed true to the uniqueness of this 100 year
old building. I agree. Right. And so he didn't put in all this like new style stuff. He kept it true.
And you go, Wow, even more interesting. Now there's a story, right, which we all know that in
business, you got to tell stories. Hi, this is a great story to tell. And he's able to show it
inside of listen, I didn't go crazy with what I put in here. Now, here's where I wanted to get.
And this is why I find interesting of those moments. Should he though, which I know a lot of people
will ask, he put out, I'm with him. Listen, Drake, I did what you did. I put the concrete sealer down.
I did. Where's where's our where's our diminishing return on a floor with, you know, the look and
then your style, right? The the other sort of that new age in a sense of what we would say.
I went, I'll say it again. Listen, Drake, I did what you did. I'm voting for you, man. I hope yours
last. Yeah. But but everybody said that to me. They told me when I put it in and you you remember
we we even but we even rented one of those like scrapers and grinders and grinders we we rented
it twice. Yep. Why we did multiple things. And then yet even later washing, driving. They just it
came up. Yeah. I think I think the flooring issue and I get asked this a lot, you know,
I like the flooring that I have here. I wouldn't I wouldn't mind, you know, polish concrete or sealer
or any of that, you know, I don't know what works everywhere. I know some people have a real hard
time getting epoxy where they live to actually work. We've had some really bad experiences with
epoxy and customers garages like where things went really hey raw. And by the way, some of this
stuff's like, you know, 8000 square foot garages where they like had to multiple times rip up all
the epoxy. I don't know that there's something that I prefer. You know, I just go this is what I have.
I have Swiss tracks. Would I tell people to get it? I'd be like, Yeah, man, it's cool for me like
it works. Would I be just as happy if I just had polished concrete? I'd be just as happy.
I think people get really caught up in this. It's just not something I care all that much
about. I just did it here because the floors were kind of banged up and I don't own the building.
So I'm like, at least I can take this if I leave. So that's kind of the decision I made was like,
I don't own the building. So, you know, this flooring can go anywhere with me. I've kind of
I've seen a million ways it's done. And I kind of see the reason for all of it.
Oh, well, I see that. I mean, I mean, if he's starting out, so we can all understand, right?
And then when we put it in here, I think that was them discussion. Remember, we did measurements.
We looked at the price. Oh, yeah. Is it justified? Right? There's the part of the discussion, right?
There's the aesthetics, right? This is your thing is aesthetics how how things look.
And when people walk into your shop and this is an open in discussion, if you guys think we're
actually going to get to an answer for you, there's no answer. You're wrong. This is open in the
discussion. This is why we're having it. This is for you to get to decide. And also to go follow
his his journey, go be a part of the specialist group. When you are wondering, hey, should I do
this? Great. This is a great time to go in and ask him, Hey, man, how's your floor? How's everything
looking? Do you wish you would have kept that? Or, you know, should I do this? I don't I don't think
I think anybody doing something because they think a customer's going to care all that much
is the wrong reason to do anything. Great point. You and I have have seen and actually talked to
people with some real horror stories of money invested into a shop and a lot of aesthetics.
And they couldn't afford to buy products to run the shop. I mean, that that actually happens more
than I think many people would realize. And I understand if you've never talked to those people
on the record, you know, in a private conversation, you wouldn't know that that stuff happens. But
I mean, you and I knew somebody that invested 80 grand into a building they didn't own. You know,
I'm flooring. Yeah, couldn't afford. Yeah, couldn't afford. Like,
was that a Florida ride? I was down there for training. I called you and I was like, dude,
you realize what he's spent on this? It looks awesome. Put designs like an actual concrete
company coming. I mean, but just just think about that number for half a second. Yeah. And we're
not exaggerating either. No, no, this is not an exaggeration. It was 80 grand. And he was like
begging us to front him product because he was out of money, like in a business setting.
I would say that I've also walked into businesses that had nothing done to the floors
and, you know, just had a decent lobby and those guys crush it. You know, I just don't think,
you know, we have to understand that if you look at my shop as an example, if a customer drops
off a car, largely we meet them at the car, they got an Uber coming or somebody's there picking
them up, they hand me the keys, they hop in it, they leave. You know, that's the kind of clientele
I have. I mean, in a lot of cases, they're assistant or somebody else is dropping the car. They
obviously don't care about the shop. So I understand taking pride in your shop. It's a place you're
going to spend a lot of time. I think this conversation's gotten completely out of hand.
I actually think a lot of businesses have sunk themselves with what they've spent on building
out their shop. And we have evidence of that, you and I privately. But I've seen a ton of
businesses with just normal concrete floor. They didn't even stain it. They didn't even seal it.
They're just back there, you know, doing PPF, doing tint. You know, we got a tint guy two
doors down. He's been in town 30 years. His flooring is just the flooring that came with the
building. I just don't think if you want to spend the money, you want to beautify it, totally
understand that as well. My flooring works great. I like Swiss tracks. What I, you know, put myself
into financial problems, putting it in my shop in no way shape or form, like it's just a flooring.
I mean, it's not something I would be all that concerned about. And I think it's just something
you have. And if it's no big deal for your business, then you buy it and you enjoy it.
But yeah, man, people get way too down the rabbit hole with this stuff.
And if you are one of that wants to get down the rabbit hole, cool, hyper clean specialists. Yep.
Ask him how it why he chose and then ask other people, there's plenty of people that listen that
also are inside the specialist group that have chosen things that they chose. Like,
I think you can get and it's like you can geek out and then also understand people are opinionated.
Don't pay people's opinions personally. Yeah, it's just geeking out, you know,
this is what worked for them. It might not work for you all good. Go into the specialist group,
get opinions, their viable opinions from people that also want to give you the opinions if you
ask the right questions. So we'll see everybody there, hyper clean specialists on Facebook.
See you guys.
About this episode
Nick and Eric kick off with a community story from Edward, who started detailing from humble beginnings and now tracks his BMW—used to argue that the industry’s low entry point is an opportunity, not something to be ashamed of. The bulk then turns to practical detailing: how to think about ceramic coating application amounts (and why “few drops” can be risky), whether coatings last on garage-kept cars, and how to approach acids like AWX with caution and smart dilution/soft brushes. They also debate towel choices, quick-wash strategy for pollen/birds, engine dressing “protection” marketing, and shop flooring ROI.
Original notes
Discover the nuances of professional detailing, from selecting the right microfiber towels to understanding ceramic coatings' real benefits and limitations.
Plus, inspiring stories of industry growth and tips for managing shop setups. Perfect for enthusiasts and pros alike looking to deepen their industry knowledge.
In this episode:
The importance of specific questioning in detailing groups to get the right advice
How towel preferences vary and the challenges with ongoing manufacturing changes
The truth about waffle weave towels and their impact on glass cleaning
The realities of bird droppings and their effect on vehicle paint
Insights into ceramic coating longevity, application tips, and misconceptions
The value of community stories and how industry entry points shape careers
Shop setup choices: floors, aesthetics, and cost considerations
The importance of real-world testing and avoiding marketing hype
Tips for maintaining collections and understanding environmental impacts on coatings
Timestamps:
00:00 - The significance of asking specific questions in detailing groups
00:29 - Why towel preferences should be discussed with expertise
01:26 - Challenges with towel manufacturing changes and long-term product availability
02:21 - Geek out about waffle weave towels and their effectiveness in glass work
03:02 - The realities of towel quality and consistency issues in the industry
04:06 - Different camps in towel preferences: waffle weave hate or love
05:26 - The impact of towel choice on interior and paint cleaning processes
06:29 - Process-driven detailing vs. opinion-based preferences
07:28 - The myth of colored towels staining carpets
08:11 - Cultural references: The movie "The Birds" and vehicle vulnerabilities
09:04 - The dangers of bird droppings and their lasting paint damage
10:13 - When and how to properly wash bird droppings without damage
11:11 - Using pressure washers and the importance of choosing the right decontamination method
12:06 - Handling pollen and seasonal challenges in detailing
13:34 - Quick washes and the importance of balancing quality with time management
14:22 - The influence of online streaming and misinformation on detailing practices
15:17 - Growing skills and confidence in the industry over a few short months
16:18 - Managing car collections, storage conditions, and product longevity
17:47 - The importance of maintenance and environmental factors on coatings
19:00 - Environmental influences: garage conditions and weather effects
20:15 - The impact of washing cycles and abrasion on coatings lifespan
21:48 - The science behind ceramic coatings and proper application techniques
23:00 - Debunking marketing claims about coatings and product efficacy
24:29 - The value of community feedback and real-world testing data
25:45 - The importance of community, stories, and shared experiences in industry growth
26:42 - Wild examples of car modifications and detailing challenges with extreme vehicles
28:50 - Proper use of acids and tools in detailing, emphasizing caution and knowledge
30:15 - Balancing chemical use with physical tools for safe, effective cleaning
31:56 - Reflections on Sunday mornings and the real moments that define us as detailers
Pints and Polishing Auto Detailing Podcast
Nick Walters and Marshall Hill
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63:35