Mobile detailing means the car is cleaned at your home or workplace. It’s often about working efficiently so the job can be done quickly without sacrificing results.
Carnauba wax (often spelled “Carnubo”) is a natural wax commonly used for shine and traditional paint protection. It generally takes more time to apply and remove than faster spray products, which is why the speaker contrasts it with spray ceramic for speed.
They’re talking about washing your car quickly—like a fast routine you can do without spending all day. The key is doing it fast without skipping the steps that prevent damage or streaks.
Instead of waiting until the car is really dirty, you clean it a little bit more often. That way, the wash is quicker and you don’t have to work as hard to get everything off.
A mobile detailer is someone who comes to your house or workplace to clean your car. The idea is to do small, repeatable steps so the car stays looking good without a huge weekend project.
“Dressing the tires” means putting a product on the rubber to make it look darker and newer. It also helps protect the tires from drying out and getting dull.
“Off label” means using a product for something it wasn’t officially made for. It can work, but you should try it carefully on a small hidden spot first to make sure it doesn’t stain or damage anything.
Efficiency just means you can do the job faster without doing a sloppy job. The goal is to save time by organizing your steps, not by skipping important parts.
Carnauba wax is a popular wax used to make your car look shiny and add a layer of protection. Some waxes take more steps to apply and wipe off than newer spray-on products.
Dilution ratio means how strong a cleaner is when you mix it with water. If it’s too weak it won’t clean well; if it’s too strong it can waste product or be harder to rinse.
Dilution bottles are bottles you use to mix cleaning chemicals in the right strength. Using the correct mix helps it clean well without being too aggressive.
Pre-rinse is the first step where you spray the car with water before scrubbing or using soap. It helps get rid of loose dirt so you’re less likely to scratch the paint.
The wheel “barrel” is the inner curved surface of the rim that faces the suspension and brake components. It’s often where brake dust accumulates heavily, so cleaning it thoroughly is key for a truly clean wheel.
A pre-soak is the first step where you spray cleaner on the car before you touch it. You let it sit briefly so it loosens dirt, which makes washing safer and easier.
This is a specific cleaning product the host uses on the car. The point is you spray it on, let it sit briefly so it can loosen dirt, and then rinse it away.
Lubrication from soap refers to the slick film created by car shampoo/cleaner that reduces friction during washing. More lubrication helps the wash mitt glide and lifts dirt without as much risk of scratching.
Deionized water is water that’s been cleaned so it won’t leave spots when it dries. That’s why detailers use it at the end—so the car looks cleaner with less effort.
Dressing the tires means putting a product on them to make them look nicer and stay conditioned. It takes a little extra time compared to just washing.
Tire dressing is a product applied to tires to restore a dark, clean look and add some protection. Re-diluting it takes time, so pre-mixing or planning ahead helps keep the process quick.
Microfiber towels are used for drying and wiping because they trap dirt and absorb water without scratching as easily as rough materials. Keeping extra towels on hand lets you swap to a clean one and avoid re-depositing grime.
Polishing is like using a gentler “scratch remover” on paint. If you only polish one spot, it can fix small marks, but it takes more time than just washing.
They’re talking about a quick way to wash your car without spending hours. The goal is to do it fast by prepping first and using the right steps in the right order.
LIVE
Most people think that when you try to wash your car
very fast or quickly or efficiently, I would say,
they feel like you are cutting corners,
you're not doing something right,
you're doing something wrong
because you didn't spend enough time detailing the car.
I used to run into this, in fact,
this was a big hurdle that I had to overcome
when I was mobile detailing
because I got a lot more efficient with my time.
That's actually something that I see as a major problem
with detailers is that they're not efficient
and they don't know their chemicals correctly
and so they spend a lot more time doing things
than it need to.
A good quick example of that is using a paste wax
for a simple wash and wax service
when you could use a spray wax.
You're gonna get essential or even a spray ceramic.
You're essentially gonna get better protection
much quicker using a spray ceramic
than you would with, say, a Carnubo wax.
But I still see it,
detailers out there using a Carnubo wax,
a hand wax, a liquid wax.
It is actually worse for the customer.
It takes way longer than it needs to
and you're actually getting a worse result.
So a lot of people think that taking more time
means you actually did it right
when that's not necessarily true.
Of course, there are some instances where that is true
and things just take time.
But for the sake of this podcast
or for the sake of this video,
I wanna show you and let you know of a couple quick hacks
that you could do to really wash your car under 20 minutes.
Now, this may not be something that you can do
every time you wash your car,
but I think it is something that you can do most often
because I think if you're like me or like most people,
you either can't, even if you want to,
or you don't want to, spend hours and hours and hours
every weekend maintaining your car.
I personally would like to spend a little bit more time
than I do washing my car,
but one of the hacks that I found to do a quicker car wash
is to actually maintain the car
throughout the whole entire week.
So this is something I used to do as a mobile detailer.
This is something I currently do on my own personal car
because I'm very, very, very particular
about the condition of my car pretty much at all times.
And so when I was a mobile detailer,
one of the hacks and the hack that I found
to work very, very well is I would just clean the rims,
glass and dress the tires.
And every day I would do some form of that.
So that was mainly like wiping down the rims,
maybe cleaning the front windshield.
In fact, that's exactly what I'm gonna do today.
And so what that does is when you go to your weekly wash
or bi-weekly wash,
you've already kind of maintained everything
through the week, right?
And so for me, with the interior of my car,
because I have the complete cabin cleaner
and I actually use Tuffa Shell off label
on the interior of my car,
I pretty much wiped down the inside of my car
every other day and then I'll vacuum it,
usually every three to four days,
kind of depending upon what I did, right?
But chances are you don't have just endless amounts of time
on the weekend to maintain your car.
If you do, hooray, congratulations.
I think that's what we all aspire to do, right?
Be able to take as long as we want.
But just because you don't have a ton of time to do it,
doesn't mean that you can't still get
a very good service on your car.
And really the core is efficiency.
It's not necessarily skipping steps.
And this is what I tried to explain to my customers
when I was a mobile detailer.
I kind of got to this predicament in mobile detailing
where I felt like the market in my current area
really couldn't support a higher per detail range.
And so I came to this crossroads
and maybe it was through a podcast
even when I was interviewing someone,
but I thought, man, there's two things I could do.
I could rate to make more money.
I could raise prices or I could get more efficient.
If I feel like I'm already kind of capped out
at the price range, then I need to get more efficient
and have that four hour detail take me two hours, right?
Because essentially you make more money per hour, right?
And so the thing I kept budding up against though
is that when you detail a car too fast
and by too fast that is so subjective
but faster than people think it should take,
you start getting complaints about, wow, that was quick.
Wow, how did you do that?
And so what I used to always constantly have to explain
is that with a system and efficiencies,
I could be faster and give a better result
even like the Carnuba wax compared
to a spray ceramic example that I used.
And what I realized is that the process
and the products that you're using always matter
and that's how you're gonna be able to speed up your game.
So I just realized most people are wasting time
without even realizing it.
And one of the areas that they're doing that
is either with over complicated steps,
they are not using the right chemicals
or the chemicals that would actually make them more efficient.
They're constantly jumping to and fro from product brands.
And so depending upon the product brand,
they have different dilution ratios.
Some products of product brands just don't work as well.
And so I think dialing in your system efficiently
is really the key.
And also kind of having everything prepped out.
So if you know that you're going to be washing your car
kind of pre-setting out your stuff,
pre-filling your foam cannon,
pre-getting your dilution bottles ready,
your towels ready, kind of staging everything ready
will really, really help speed up the process
when you go to actually wash your car as well.
So I think having the proper setup,
then like laying everything out, right?
It's part of being efficient.
And then having a product brand that you're dialed in with
that you know works,
and then making sure that the chemicals that you have
are doing what you want them to do.
So I think as we kind of get into the process
of washing the car, I think one of the,
there's two major things that I see people
still make the mistake on.
The first one is that they pre-rinse the car.
I've talked about this at Nazium, I really have.
And there's really no hang up on it.
I think it's just different.
And so people are hesitant to it.
But pre-rinseing your car, and I really don't see anyone,
it's kind of not my hill to die on,
but I really don't see any pushback on it either.
I actually see a lot more acceptance than pushback.
Foaming a dry car and not pre-rinseing
with a steady stream of water will not only speed up
your detailing time, but actually gives you a better result.
And it's one of those things I think it oversees in the UK,
pre-soaking and pre-foaming a car is very, very common.
In the US, it wasn't as common as a process.
I think it's becoming more common
and kind of becoming the norm because it's just better.
And you use less water.
I realized in doing tests myself that doing a side-by-side
on the same car, like pre-rinseing
with a steady stream of water virtually does almost nothing.
And so, and I used to say,
and I'm actually changing my stance on it quite a bit,
if you have heavy buildup,
go ahead and pre-rinse and knock that off.
I'm personally actually changing my stance on that
slowly, but surely because even if you have a bunch of mud,
you have a bunch of caked up dirt,
getting full concentration or the maximum concentration
of foam and cleaning ability on that
is gonna help break it down
so that when you do go to pre-rinse
with your steady stream of water,
it's gonna be even better.
So before I used to be like,
oh, if you have heavy buildup with mud
or something like that,
go ahead and pre-rinse that off, then foam.
I'm actually saying just completely foam a dry car,
regardless of the condition,
because I think it's that much more efficient
and then that much better,
that much quicker to get to the result
that you're looking for.
And then another area that I see a lot of people
spend just an ungodly amount of time on, frankly,
that they don't need to, is around the rims and tires.
Alkaline cleaners and APCs or whatever
can be just as detrimental to wheels as an acid can be.
The only difference is that acid is going to
or an acid-based product used correctly,
of course, followed the manufacturer's guidance on this.
An acid-based cleaner, though it has limitations
and it can damage some surfaces,
from a straight cleaning standpoint,
is so much more effective than an iron remover,
than a dedicated wheel cleaner.
Now, the tire is a different story, I will say,
but I just don't think you need to scrub your tire endlessly.
But I see people use a wheel cleaner,
a wheel and tire cleaner, an iron remover,
maybe both at the same time,
and they spend forever on each wheel and tire,
literally minutes and minutes and minutes and minutes.
When it's like, you could just use an acid-based cleaner,
like pure magic cleaner, and that would clean up
in a heartbeat, and in fact, it would clean the barrel
even faster too, and you may not even need to scrub it.
So, there's where you could save a ton of time
with wheel cleaning.
Again, follow the manufacturer's directions
of the wheel cleaner of your choice, obviously,
but people have been scared of acid-based cleaners
for so long, and we're kind of seeing
a resurgence of them, I think,
pure magic cleaner leading the way,
but because they are so good and so effective
at cleaning rims, and so, yeah,
those two areas are major areas.
So, what I would do is I would use pure magic cleaner,
diluted 4-1, making sure that it's safe on your rim.
I would spray all the rims, or if you're working
in direct sun, spray the shaded side first,
and then the sun side first, and second,
foam the entire, from the entire dry car,
this would be considered your pre-soak, right?
And so, this is where everything's starting.
You need to cover the whole entire car,
including the rims and tires, and let it dwell.
Let it dwell for as long as you can.
I recommend, for my product, pre-soaks
may have different recommendations,
but I noticed that if you can let it
dwell three to five minutes,
this is gonna take care a ton of the dirt first.
See, traditionally, you would pre-wrench with water,
and then you would have your two-bucket method,
and you would go directly into a contact wash
with, after just a steady stream of water,
but that doesn't remove nearly enough buildup on the car,
so you really need a pre-soak.
But really, if you're not pre-wrenching,
and you're pre-soaking instead,
it really doesn't take any more time.
In fact, it's faster, right?
Now, you rinse all that off.
You rinse off your pre-foam,
you rinse down your rims and tires
that you sprayed Pure Magic Cleaner on,
and honestly, within a matter of minutes,
call it, I don't know, six or seven minutes,
because you let the foam dwell for five,
and so you really only have about three minutes
of working time, two or three minutes of working time,
your car is going to be very, very clean.
Now, what you can do, if you want to make it 100%,
foam a second time, but now on this foam,
you're getting tons of lubrication from your soap,
especially if you're using a super-sober,
and then you've already knocked off
the vast majority of the dirt on the car.
When you go in for your contact wash,
you can literally buzz around the car so quickly,
and you have no buckets.
You do not need any buckets.
Saving time, saving water, saving energy, right?
Now you do your light contact wash, minimal pressure,
and you're just really finishing the job off, right?
And then you do your final rinse,
but your rims are gonna be clean,
your tires are gonna be looking good,
the paint and windows are gonna be looking really good,
and after that final rinse,
you can, if you're using deionized water,
you can go in and just drive off and be done, right?
Literally a 10-minute car wash.
If you need an extra five minutes
to take a massive drying towel
and go around the whole entire car,
that's how you could do it,
and you're literally in it 15, 20 minutes
to do the whole entire car.
Obviously, if you wanna dress the tires,
it's gonna add a little bit more time.
I suggest all dressed up, obviously,
but the tire shine is your choice,
and obviously, if you wanna kinda wipe the door jams,
do a little bit more vacuum interior,
it's gonna take a little bit more,
but again, if you're kinda dialing it in
little by little all week,
maybe spending a few minutes here and there,
a few minutes every day,
just kinda taking out the trash,
maybe doing a light vacuum on another day,
that's another thing that I find myself doing a lot
is I won't do the complete package at one time,
but I'll do like, okay, I'm gonna do the interior today,
and then tomorrow I'm gonna wash the car, right?
I'm gonna do the outside today,
and tomorrow I'm gonna do the car.
I'm gonna clean my rims and tires today,
because tomorrow I'm gonna wash the rest of the car, right?
And so actually breaking it up across multiple days
and just doing little by little is one hack
that I found to stay really consistent
when I'm in a time crunch,
because then you don't have things build up,
and when you have things build up,
it takes just much longer to go through it, right?
And so I know that that's harder to do with some people,
but a couple things that I've found is doing that,
just obviously being efficient with your stuff,
setting your stuff up so it's ready to go,
so you're not filling your foam can,
and you're not refilling your interior cleaner,
you're not re-diluting your tire dressing,
kinda taking time throughout the week to kinda do that,
because it only takes a couple minutes to even do that,
and then cleaning out the trash in your car,
I keep extra microfiber towels in my car,
and so if I'm at like a red light,
and the dash is getting a little dusty for me,
or the tech screen has a bunch of fingerprints,
I'll just go in and kinda touch it up,
even at the red light, right?
It's not taking any time for me to do that,
but I know it's kinda pennies in the bank,
and it's gonna save me a ton of time later, right?
Getting IROC all weather mats,
so all weather mats are easy to take out,
I even will take them out and foam them
on my first foam of the car wash,
and then rinse them,
and those are pretty much taken care of,
then I can let them out to dry,
that's another hack for all weather mats,
but again, Pure Magic Cleaner and Acid-Based Wheel Cleaner
is gonna save you a ton of time,
pre-soaking, pre-foaming a dry car
is gonna save you a ton of time,
and kinda working through the week to maintain it.
If you have a lunch break,
you can wipe your car down on a lunch break,
keep a microfiber towel,
and maybe a complete cabin cleaner
pre-diluted in your glove box,
that's another hack,
and you can kinda touch it up as you go.
If you have kids sports like I do,
drop them off at practice,
you're looking to kill a little bit of time,
you could wipe down the interior,
you can clean your front windshield,
you can clean your windows,
all these in-between times really add up during the week,
and then when it comes to the weekend,
or whatever day your weekend is,
it can really speed up your wash process,
so those are ways and hacks that I found
to kinda really cut down the time it takes,
the time I've dedicated to wash my car or detail my car,
and then of course,
if you need to polish out a section,
or you need to re-coat a panel,
those things obviously will take more time,
but there are these little hacks that I've found
that I've incorporated because I'm a busy guy, right?
And so even though I'm operating in this detailing space,
and it's still a high priority for me
to have a clean car pretty much at any given time,
these are the small ways that I've tried to incorporate
into my kind of daily life so that I'm not required
to spend an hour and a half or two hours
on a Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning,
unless I want to, but to be honest,
my schedule with just my personal life
doesn't allow for that currently,
I have three kids that are in sports
and running multiple businesses,
it's just a lot, and so I found,
but I actually really enjoy washing my car
and I find a lot of, it is still definitely my therapy,
and so I enjoy it a lot,
and so I use these breaks either during the day,
couple times a day, or every other day
or every third day or whatever to kind of catch a break,
catch some time to myself,
and I know that it's kind of saving me time in the future,
especially because I maintain my car and my wife's car,
and yeah, so with that, hopefully that helps,
that's definitely how you could wash your car
in 20 minutes though, pre-soaked, pre-phoma dry car,
regardless of how dirty it is, rinse it off,
use pure magic cleaner on the wheels and tires,
foam it a second time, you could buzz over it
with a contact wash if you need to, rinse that,
use a big drying towel, a quick hack,
a little side note hack, is while you're drying,
why not just use one spray per panel of Tough-a-Shell,
then you're gonna add on protection, paint protection,
the car's gonna look even better,
it's gonna look super glossy, be super slick,
and it really adds no time to drying.
I would incorporate some sort of blower as well
in the drying process to just help speed up the drying,
but you don't have to do that either,
and of course, the ionized water would be a giant plus
if you're gonna be doing this often.
So with that, let me know what other hacks you found
that can kind of help speed up the process,
or do you just like to spend all day on the weekend
detailing your car?
If you do, I can't wait to get there in my life,
and I will eventually get back to that,
but yeah, and I will link all the products below.
Of course, thank you for the support of the channel,
it's the support buying the products
is why I could keep doing videos like this,
so I greatly appreciate your supporting my product brand.
We've already seen some other influencer brands come and go,
and so I feel very fortunate that mine is still around.
It is a grind, let me tell you.
So I kudos to all those that are fighting
to keep your brand alive and doing success
or having success with that, it is a total grind,
and so I appreciate the support, I appreciate the feedback,
I appreciate you guys emailing back and forth,
I love doing that kind of stuff.
So with that, I will link everything below,
and the Amazon links as well.
Thanks for the support over there,
and I'll catch you guys on the next one, see ya.
About this episode
Efficiency beats “more time = better results” in this detailing-focused episode. The host argues that many detailers waste effort through overcomplicated steps, wrong chemicals, and switching products without accounting for dilution and performance. He contrasts slower, traditional wax approaches with faster protection options like spray ceramic. The core 20-minute method: maintain the car during the week, then pre-soak/pre-foam a dry car (even in direct sun), use fast dwell times, clean wheels with an acid-based cleaner (Pure Magic) instead of endless scrubbing, do a quick contact wash, rinse, and optionally add quick protection while drying.
Want to wash your car FAST without scratching your paint?
Most people think a quick car wash means cutting corners… but that's exactly how swirl marks, streaks, and bad results happen.
In this video, I'm breaking down how to wash your car in under 20 minutes using a simple, efficient system that actually delivers better results—not worse.
This isn't about rushing. It's about removing the things that slow you down.
Once you dial in your process, washing your car becomes: ✔ Faster ✔ Safer ✔ More consistent
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