Auto Obsessed here. There's a brand new 2022 C8 Corvette in Torch Red, and it's in our Detailing
Studio for a new-car-prep detail. So what is a new car prep, and why would anyone spend the
time and money detailing a brand new car? Check out this video to find out more.
The Auto Obsessed approach to the new car prep detail is to make that car look perfect, feel
perfect, and be perfectly protected for the new owner to fully enjoy. Essentially: the way a new car
should be. One thing a lot of people don't realize with the new car purchase is that the car didn't
even leave the factory at a hundred percent. And what I mean by that is, it wasn't cleaned,
it did not go through any major final preparations, it has no protection at all added such as paint
protection, leather protection, waxes etc. This is all left to the dealership and/or up to the owner.
So the car was essentially assembled, gone through many processes to verify that it was in full
working condition, and then it was shipped. So a major variable in the initial condition of the car
is the shipping. The transportation route the car takes from the factory to the owner. Where
is it coming from? Maybe is it domestic or is it overseas? Is it sitting outside at a depot,
a shipyard, a rail yard, for weeks or maybe months? Is it delivered by an open car carrier?
So the longer the shipping process and the longer it takes to the final purchase
generally the worse the initial condition of the car is and that's because it had more time to
get dirty and more people have had their hands on the car as it's moved from place to place
it has also spent a lot of time in industrial settings and subjected to a considerable amount
of environmental contamination so basically it's been places that you would likely never
ever take your car and definitely never leave it so my analogy is a car is not like let's
say a brand new phone so for example a brand new phone it goes through the assembly line
it's perfect it gets wrapped it gets packages it gets double packaged
it's sealed and it's shipped you know and handled by many many people it's also packaged for the
worst possible delivery and handling scenarios so then when you do finally get it and you open it up
you take off all the wrappers it's actually that perfect fresh factory fresh absolute perfect brand
new phone so a car is nowhere anything like that because of it's a car you can't ship it in boxes
etc. so it's usually shipped outside regardless our process begins with an initial inspection
we want to see what we're dealing with what imperfections will need to take care of as well
we discuss what the vehicle be used for so what is its usage what will the car be subjected to
the approximate length of ownership and then we'll suggest some new prep options so like i said the
first thing a new car prep detail takes care of is making that car look perfect so luckily the
ca corvette came to us in a normal condition overall in good condition with paint blemishes
throughout it had scuffs and adhesive residues overall I'm going to rate this car as an average
so the first stage is a very thorough wash in the wash stage we do a full decontamination wash
we thoroughly wash the vehicle to remove any iron or some may refer to it as rail
dust any residues adhesives that were missed from when the car was previously prepared
for sale now I know that may sound weird but we've been detailing cars since 2010 and to be honest
we've never had a new car that didn't have iron or some sort of contamination that was left behind
from the previous pre-sale prep our next stage is polishing so even though this car has virtually
zero miles it actually has only seven kilometers on it so this car was transported directly to the
dealership and then it was trailer directly to our door it only has seven kilometers on it so
even though the paint is 100 percent new all new cars lack that pop and when we're in the polishing
stages we're not only removing slight defects but we're also optimizing the paint and making that
color more vibrant and intensifying the gloss so the next stage is paint protection film or
in the industry it's referred to as PPF so this is really the only way to give that paint and
impact areas any real protection from the debris that the vehicle be subjected to whether that's
from a vehicle in front that's that's picking up sand and small rocks and and throwing it onto the
car or whether the vehicle itself is picking it up from the tires and impacting part of the car
so the amount of PPF required will depend on a few factors so first factor is the vehicle type
and what areas are more vulnerable so on this corvette c8 it's very it has a very low front
end and a really big slope so vehicles in front are going to be picking up debris and sending it
to the front of the vehicle so the whole front of the of the car the bumper the headlights
the full hood full fenders we're going to have impact on the a-pillars the first part of the
roof the mirror caps then we're going to look at next is what the vehicle itself is going to pick
up from the road and again impact the car so uh if the front tires sticking out on any part of the
body that area is going to going to be affected so the tire itself is also going to send rocks up
so the rocker panels on a car like this are a high impact area this car too is kind of a wedge shape
so this part of the back end sticks out farther than the front so that's going to be a high
impact area behind the rear wheels so the wheels themselves again are going to be picking up debris
and sending it on the back so these are high impact areas okay and the final area to consider
when selecting paint protection film is budget so what you know what coverage can you get in
the budget that you're looking for and in this particular case the owner decided to do the whole
car in paint protection film so I call it bubble wrap so essentially the whole car is bubble wrap
and protected from not only impact areas that we talked about but also any other potential
scenarios so this car is a targa for example so this roof is going to be coming on and off it's
going to have to be stowed so there's going to be handling of the roof and that that's going to
get some abrasion and maybe get bumped and such uh also you know covering the whole car maybe
maybe the car comes across a light abrasion someone's walking too closely someone may be
touching the car maybe a bag or something paint protection film can generally handle most small
impacts where maybe it only leaves a scuff on the film or worst case scenario at times
maybe the film just has to be replaced so it can handle a fair amount of impacts obviously
not bulletproof but it can definitely handle quite a few things that just paint unprotected
wouldn't be able to handle another area in a new car prep is the paint protection so what
are we going to be putting on the paint itself so it's going to be waxes sealants or coatings
so again it's going to depend on the usage and what the owner wants maybe this is a summer only
car the customer wants ultimate gloss they want to enhance that that color as much as possible maybe
the metallics and they really want that warm look of what a wax does maybe they're more on a budget
and they want something that's going to be durable something that still looks great so we might
consider a paint sealant or some may refer to it as a liquid wax and then lastly ceramic coating so
ceramic coatings are kind of your longest lasting has still incredible looks they're very durable
and it cuts down the maintenance time quite a bit for this corvette the owner decided to go with a
with a ceramic coating we put a professional ceramic coating on it and and that's going to
give the car maximum durability uh it's got a great protection on it it looks fantastic it's
also going to be very very easy for the client to maintain so even though the client is actually
quite hands-on enjoys detailing the car this is just going to make that a little bit quicker it's
probably going to enjoy that aspect it maybe is going to spend a considerable amount of less time
on it and put more time on the road with it so for this particular case it's a ceramic coating and as
you could tell ultra glossy and it looks fantastic and the last area for consideration on a new car
prep is the interior so first of all we're gonna we're gonna want to assess and figure out you
know again what is the usage what is the interior consisting of so for example does it have a light
interior does it have maybe a lot of alcantara does it have light carpets uh is it a convertible
in this case it's a target top so the top's going to be coming off quite a bit so it's going to get
dusty etc. this car has dark leather perforated leather with white stitching so we opted to go
with a leather protectant so we're going to do a thorough leather clean thorough leather protectant
generally on a new car prep we spend on a car like this we're going to spend about two to three hours
on the interior i know that sounds kind of odd but again going back the dealerships actually don't
even have usually that much time to do the whole car so there's many areas that are missed there's
many areas that aren't perfect so we go through make sure the glass is done properly make sure
all the leather is is cleaned and conditioned make sure the carpets are done the vents dashboard and
put that whole thing together and make sure the car is brand new it looks the way it's supposed to
now this is what a new car should look like I'm confident that the owner will be
blown away by the results assured that his investment is now well protected
and hopefully spend less time worrying about any damages and more time behind the wheel enjoying
this beautiful corvette we hope you enjoyed this video on the Auto Obsessed New Car Prep Process.
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