How to polish a car yourself: 10 accessories from Aliexpress. Guide selection

To carry out high-quality polishing, you must first prepare the car body, and you should start with the washing procedure.

Of course, you can use just a bucket or a hose, but if you want to do it thoroughly, quickly and with pleasure, use a pressure washer and a foam nozzle.

The Karcher mini pressure washer is a great option for all kinds of household needs, whether it’s cleaning a car, garden paths, dirty barrels, lawn mowers, carpet, or other tasks. It differs from more expensive models in a simplified design and pump features. It creates a pressure not exceeding 145 bar and a water flow of up to 500 liters. This is usually enough for domestic needs, although some professional options are preserved here: there is a foam generator, a mud brush is provided in the kit.

It is necessary to wash the car in the shade, in a well-lit place, after making sure that all windows are closed. Then the foam is applied from the bottom up (if not heavily soiled — on a dry surface). Use only car detergents that are compatible with the pressure washer. After 3-5 minutes, the foam is washed off by the pressure of water with a wide torch at an angle of 25-45 degrees to the surface at a distance of at least 30 cm.

If there is no opportunity / desire to purchase a high-pressure washer, but you really don’t want to suffer with a bucket, then you can get by with a telescopic hose with a foam nozzle.

At the link you can find several options for hoses of different lengths, foam nozzles, adapters and a clamp.

For high pressure washers, by the way, there are also foam nozzles.

After contactless washing, we proceed to a thorough washing of the car with a microfiber mitt or sponge with car shampoo and brushes.

If you use the same brush for the wheels and for the body, then wash the wheels last so that abrasive from the pads or a small pebble does not get on the body.

Then we wind a spray bottle with white alcohol and apply it to the lower part of the body, and ideally to the entire body. We wait 3-5 minutes and wipe it with a clean cloth. Then it is advisable to rinse the car again with water.

On an already clean body, it is necessary to walk with polishing clay (it removes rubbish from the paintwork of the car that is not visible to the naked eye).

To do this, prepare a 20% solution of baby soap with water: moisten the surface with this solution, knead the clay in the palm of your hand and wipe the body with it. When the clay becomes dirty, we knead it in our hands so that the rubbish is inside. When it gets dirty on all sides, we wash it in water, it is allowed with soap.

Even clay cannot cope with some persistent dirt (for example, old drops of paint, road markings) — they must be carefully sanded with sandpaper (grain 1500-3000) without pressure and with soapy water.

After that, rinse, dry the body thoroughly and stick marking tape on all decorative elements and rubber bands.

The choice of polishers is large, but they all fall into two categories — rotary and eccentric (orbital).

For the former, the disk rotates in a circle (evenly), and they resemble a grinder, however, it is possible to adjust the speed of 600-5000 (some grinders also have it, but only 3000-10000). This is a more budget option.

In the second, the base is fixed on a bearing, and the sole is located on an offset axis, as a result, the latter, as it were, moves “in orbit” and at the same time performs a circular rotation. Such machines polish more carefully and without holograms.
Among the popular ones, one can single out the Makita polishing machine, but if the application is purely domestic, you can use more affordable options on the links.

At the time of publication, they are subject to discounts for promotional codes (it is indicated incorrectly on the second link, there is SKIDSALE600).

At the link you can find discs of different hardness: white — hard, yellow — closer to hard, orange — medium, blue — closer to soft and black — soft. There are also fur nozzles, but in the absence of experience, they can easily ruin the paintwork.

They work with hard foam rubber at the initial stage in combination with highly abrasive pastes — for polishing serious and deep defects, then they use medium and soft ones — for finishing polishing, and in the end they give the body a mirror shine.

In the absence of a polishing machine, they usually use nozzles for a drill / screwdriver with a special adapter or a grinder.

All polishing pastes are graded according to the degree of abrasiveness: strong, medium, fine abrasive and finishing. First, the abrasive paste is applied to a polishing disc of appropriate hardness and smeared over the body in a small area. Then turn on the machine at 2000 rpm and slowly polish the surface. After polishing one section (on average 50×50 cm), they move on to the next. Excess paste is removed with a clean cloth.

Do not abuse this stage, because in the process the thinnest layer of paintwork is erased.

Then they wipe the body with anti-silicone and change the nozzle and paste to medium, and increase the speed to 3000-4000 rpm. At the end, they pass through the body with a finishing paste on a soft nozzle and 5000-6000 rpm. Do not forget at the end to go over again with anti-silicone.

Everyone, now we admire the result!