Wow... I just spent 3.5 hours washing my car this morning. Started at 8am and pretty much worked nonstop, except for a one hour break in which Alex came over to have breakfast. Usually, I just do a quick wash and dry, but today I decided to go all out and do everything on the exterior. Part of it had to do with a video I saw on Google Video:

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Now granted I don't use $11,000 car wax, nor do I use a crazy 61 step process that involves an ultrasonic detector, or a scope to examine paint flatness, but I try to do what I can to make the car shiny and smooth. Basically, my end goal is a paint surface that looks and feels as if the car came straight from the dealer (minus the door dings). Since today was nice and cloudy, here's what I used today:

1. Armor All car wash concentrate: I've got this stuff in a jug, so it lasts quite a few years. I've had the car 4 years and I just bought my second bottle over the summer:
 

2. The Absorber: Afterwards, I use a drying "cloth" to quickly get rid of any water still on the car. Since tap water has minerals in it, any water that dries on the car will leave dry spots which will ruin the look of the car.
 

3. Meguiar's Clay Bar: This is the part that takes forever. I use a clay bar to rub over the entire body of the car. This essentially gets rid of that gritty feel that old cars get. You know, the grit that never goes away by just scrubbing with a sponge, or even scratching with your nail. But the clay bar will trap those particles as you run over the surface of the paint with it. This step took about 2 hours.
 

4. Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax: After clay barring, the car has been stripped of all the dirt, as well as any wax that was previously on the car. Although the car feels baby smooth, its not a good idea to leave it like this because the paint is now completely unprotected. Therefore, waxing is necessary to protect your paint from the elements. Fortunately, this step is pretty fast although it will give you tennis elbow from all that circular buffing. I use a microfiber cloth to buff the wax.
 

5. Meguiar's Tire Gloss: When the paint looks good, then its off to working on the wheels. For some reason, people always seem to notice tires/wheels first. The last time I washed my car, multiple people commented on the glossiness of the tires first before anything else. Weird. Anyways, this stuff works pretty well. It takes a bit more work to put on than the spray-on tire gloss, but it lasts longer and looks even glossier. Armor All makes a tire shine spray, but it only lasts a few days, and causes your tires to get brown. Not very good. Meguiar's is good stuff though. Smells like grape too:)
 

6. Meguiar's Hot Rims cleaner: I don't usually use this, but I tried it for the first time today. It actually makes washing rims a lot easier. In the past, I would be there scrubbing the brake dust off the rums. It doesn't take THAT long, but it's still kind of a pain, especially if your rims have many many spokes that you have to scrub around. Anyways, this spray that I bought actually makes things really easy. Just spray on heavily, wait 15-30 seconds and then spray off, and the dirt comes off with it. Pretty cool I thought. I still needed to scrub the heavy stuff off afterwards, but it was actually more like wiping than scrubbing. The only bad thing is that it goes fast. After doing all 4 tires, I realized that I had used half the bottle already. A bottle costs about $5 so figure out if its worth it to you.
 

7. Simple Green Automotive Cleaner/Degreaser: This really isn't a step, but I use Simple Green occasionally throughout the whole car wash process. This stuff will pretty much take off anything you need it to. And it also comes in a concentrated formula too! It's pretty helpful for wiping off the bit of tar that you happened to miss while scrubbing and soaping, but also helps for general cleaning as well.
 

At this point I considered myself finished. My interior needs vacuuming, but I figured I'd hold off on that until another day. Plus I was so tired that I just wanted to take a nap. Anyways, all in all, I'm pretty pleased with the results. I'll be happy until about Wednesday when we might get some scattered showers around Austin. Oh well, it needed a cleaning anyways.