FAQ
Questions, Answered Honestly
Frequently
Everything people ask before booking — including which jobs are worth paying for and which are not. If your question is not here, message us and we will answer it properly.
Why It Costs More
What you actually get for the money
Most cars only ever get the first column. The difference is not how clean the car looks on the day — it is what the cleaning does to the paint over the years.
| What is included | What most cars get Roadside hand wash | A proper clean Valeting | Work on the paint itself Detailing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleans the car | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Wheels, arches and shuts done | No | Yes | Yes |
| Interior cleaned properly | No | Yes | Yes |
| Clean water and fresh mitts | No | Yes | Yes |
| Will not add swirl marks | No | Yes | Yes |
| Paint decontaminated and clayed | No | No | Yes |
| Swirls and scratches removed | No | No | Yes |
| Protection that lasts months | No | No | Yes |
| Comes to your home or work | No | Yes | Yes |
| Own water and power carried | No | Yes | Yes |
| Mineral-free water, no spotting | No | Yes | Yes |
| Commercial-grade products | No | Yes | Yes |
| Works under cover in the rain | No | Yes | Yes |
A hand wash is not a rip-off — it is a different product. The trouble is that the brushes and shared water that make it cheap are the single most common cause of the swirl marks we are later paid to polish out.
01
Valeting, detailing and what the difference is
The two words get used interchangeably, and the gap between them is where most of the money is either well spent or wasted.
A valet cleans the car: paint, wheels, glass, interior, done thoroughly and safely. Detailing works on the paint itself — machine polishing out the swirl marks, haze and light scratches that no amount of cleaning will touch, then protecting the finish that is left. A valet makes a car clean. Detailing makes it better than it was.
Three reasons, and only one of them is the result. First, the wash itself: a roadside hand wash uses shared buckets and brushes that have been over dozens of cars that day, which is exactly how swirl marks get into paint. Second, what gets cleaned: arches, shuts, sills and the tight areas that hold the dirt which actually damages a car are usually skipped. Third, what is left behind: a wash leaves bare paint, a detail leaves protection on it. The finish costs more once and then costs less every month afterwards, because a protected car cleans in half the time.
Look at the bonnet in direct sunlight. If it is just dirty, you need a valet. If you can see fine circular scratches, cobwebbing or a dull haze in the reflection, cleaning will not remove those and you want machine polishing. Send us a photo taken in daylight and we will tell you which — including when the cheaper one is the right answer.
Yes. We arrive with our own water and power and carry the same products and machines, so the work is identical. Weather is not the exception people expect either: we carry vehicle gazebos, so the car sits under cover in a controlled space and machine polishing and ceramic coating go ahead in the rain exactly as they would indoors. The one thing we will not work through is hard frost — below freezing, water and products stop behaving and the finish suffers — and we move those days at no charge.
Washing it badly will. Almost every swirl mark we remove was put there by a wash — a dirty sponge, a brush, a drive-through, or drying with the wrong towel. Done properly, with a pre-rinse to lift the grit before anything touches the panel, washing is what protects paint rather than what wears it out.
02
Prices and booking
Every price on this site is a real starting figure, not a teaser. Nothing is taken up front.
A mobile valet starts at £84 in Cannock, a stage 1 machine polish from £249, and a ceramic coating package — the correction and the coating together — from £330. The final figure depends on the size of the vehicle and the state it is in — send a few photos on WhatsApp and you will get an exact price back, usually within the hour.
Because of what goes on the car and what the car is washed with. We use commercial-grade products rather than the cheapest trade-tub option, and we wash and rinse with our own deionised water — mineral-free, so it dries without leaving the white spotting and limescale that mains water bakes onto paint and glass in the sun. We also carry our own power, so nothing about the job depends on what is available at your property. None of that is free, and it is the difference between a car that is clean today and a car that still looks right in six months. If price is the only thing that matters, a roadside hand wash will always undercut us — just understand what you are buying.
Ordinary tap water carries dissolved minerals. When it dries on paint or glass those minerals stay behind, which is what water spots and that chalky film on windows actually are — and on a hot day they can etch into the lacquer. Deionised water has the minerals stripped out, so it dries clean and leaves nothing on the surface. It is standard in proper detailing and almost unheard of in a cheap wash.
Because travel is real time and fuel, and a job an hour away costs us more to reach than one down the road. Every town page publishes its own starting price, so you can see what your area costs before you contact anyone.
Because everyone charges for travel — the only question is whether you can see it. A flat "no travel charge" price has the fuel and the driving time built into it and spread across every customer, which means the person five minutes away is paying for the one twenty miles out. Ours is itemised, so you pay your own distance and nobody else's. If you are close to Cannock that works out cheaper, and if you are far out you can see exactly what the trip costs before you commit.
No. Nothing is taken up front. You get a confirmed price before we come out, and you pay when the work is done and you have seen it.
Card, on our reader, at the car before we leave — Visa, V Pay, Mastercard, Maestro and American Express, by chip and PIN or contactless, and Apple Pay or Google Pay from a phone or watch. Bank transfer is fine too if you would rather. Nothing is taken up front, so whatever you pay with, you pay once the work is done and you have looked at it.
We will always leave you satisfied with our services You pay when the work is finished and you have looked at it, so there is nothing to refund and no argument to have — if something is not right we sort it before we leave. Tell us on the day rather than later, while the car is still in front of us.
Use the booking form — it takes about a minute — or call or WhatsApp 07311 796805. Most enquiries are answered within the hour.
A week or two for a valet or full detail. Correction work and ceramic coatings take a full day or more, and those longer slots fill up further ahead, so three or four weeks out is sensible — it is the length of the job that needs the notice, not the forecast. Some flexibility on the date usually gets you in sooner, because we group nearby jobs into the same run.
Yes, and it usually works out cheaper per car. The booking form lets you add each vehicle and pick a different service for each one — a full detail on yours and an interior clean on the other is an ordinary booking.
03
On the day
What actually happens when we turn up, and what we need from you.
No. We carry our own water and our own power, so we need nothing from your house at all. It is worth asking anyone else you are considering, because plenty of mobile operators expect to run a hose from your outside tap and an extension lead through a window — which rules out flats, terraced streets, car parks, workplaces and any property off the mains.
Yes. We carry vehicle gazebos, so rain does not stop a booking — the car goes under cover and the job gets done properly rather than rushed between showers. That includes the work most people assume needs a workshop: machine polishing and ceramic coating are both done under the gazebo, in any weather, because what those jobs actually need is a dry panel and shelter, not a dry sky. The only real limit is hard frost: below freezing, water and products do not behave and the finish suffers, so we move those days rather than give you a poor result. There is never a charge for a weather move.
Not for a valet, as long as the car is accessible and we have agreed how to get the keys. Plenty of customers are at work while it is done. For correction work it helps to be around at the start so we can walk you through what we have found on the paint.
Yes, provided there is somewhere safe to park for the booking and you have cleared it with whoever runs the car park. We are fully insured and bring everything with us.
A maintenance visit is 1–1.5 hours, a full valet 2–3 hours, an enhancement detail 4–6 hours, and a showroom or ceramic detail a full day or more. You get the expected window when the booking is confirmed.
Nothing. We put a gazebo over the car and carry on, which is how correction and coating work still gets finished on a wet Staffordshire week. The exception is sub-zero temperatures — we will call and move those rather than work in conditions that spoil the finish.
We are fully insured for the work we carry out. Anything we are concerned about on the paint or trim gets raised with you before we start, not after.
04
Paint, polishing and protection
The part of the job most people have never had done, and the part that makes the biggest difference.
Paint is covered in a thin layer of lacquer, and swirls and scratches are damage in that layer. A machine polish removes a controlled amount of it to level the surface back out, which is why the reflection sharpens and the colour looks deeper. It is removal, not filling — done properly the result is permanent rather than washing off in a month.
No, and anyone who says yes is guessing. If you can catch a fingernail in it, it is through the lacquer and polishing will improve it rather than remove it. Swirls, cobwebbing, wash marring and light scratches come out completely. We measure paint depth before starting and tell you what is realistic for your car.
If you are keeping the car, yes. It makes washing far easier, holds the gloss, and protects against the things that dull paint. If you are selling within a year, a good sealant costs a fraction and looks nearly as good for that long. We will tell you which applies to you.
Three, five or seven years depending on the coating chosen, on paint that has been properly corrected first. A coating applied over uncorrected paint locks the flaws in permanently and fails early, which is why we do not offer it that way.
Leave it seven days. The coating is still hardening for that first week, and soap or chemicals on it before it has cured will spoil the finish you have just paid for. If it gets dirty in that time, plain water is fine — no shampoo, no snow foam, nothing chemical. Bird lime should still be lifted straight away with a damp microfibre and plain water, because that will etch a fresh coating faster than an old one.
Every two to four weeks. A coating makes the car stay cleaner, not stay clean forever — road film, brake dust and hard-water minerals still settle on it, and left long enough they build into a layer that smothers the water-beading and dulls the gloss. Washing regularly is what keeps a coating performing for years rather than months.
A pH-neutral car shampoo, and nothing else. Traffic-film removers, strong alkaline snow foams and washing-up liquid are all designed to strip grease — which is exactly what they do to the coating. pH-neutral cleans the dirt off and leaves the protection where it is.
No to both, and for different reasons. Traditional wax will not bond to ceramic — it sits on top, does nothing useful and makes the beading look worse until it wears away. Polish is worse: it is mildly abrasive by design, so polishing a coated car removes the coating you paid for. If the finish is not performing the way it did, it wants a proper decontamination wash or a coating-safe topper, not a tin of wax.
Because hot panels dry the water and shampoo before you can, and whatever was dissolved in it stays on the paint as spotting. On a coating that spotting is mineral deposit sitting on the surface, and getting it off usually needs more work than the wash did. Early morning, evening, or a shaded driveway.
Yes. We keep the pH-neutral shampoo, wash mitts, grit guards, drying towels and coating-safe detail spray we use ourselves, and we can supply a kit matched to the coating on your car when we hand it back — or send one out later. It is the same stock we use on the truck, not a retail box, and it saves you working out which of the hundred bottles in Halfords is safe on a coating. Just ask when you book.
You can, but it defeats the point. The brushes that put swirls into unprotected paint will put them into coated paint too. Our aftercare guide covers keeping the finish properly — it is not difficult and it takes about twenty minutes.
05
Areas and vehicles
Where we go, and what we will work on.
All of Staffordshire, from our base in Hednesford near Cannock — Stafford, Lichfield, Rugeley, Burntwood, Tamworth, Burton upon Trent, Stoke-on-Trent, Leek and everywhere between — plus the north and west of the West Midlands and the east of Shropshire, which takes in Walsall, Wolverhampton, Sutton Coldfield, Dudley, Stourbridge and Telford. We stop short of central Birmingham. Every town has its own page with that area's starting price.
Yes. Vans, fleets, taxis and company cars, on site, with monthly invoicing if that suits your business better than paying per visit.
Gladly — those are usually the most satisfying jobs and the ones where the difference is biggest. Send photos and we will be honest about what is achievable before you commit to anything.
Yes. The Interior Reset is a standalone deep clean for when the outside is fine and the inside has had a hard life — seats and carpets extracted rather than vacuumed, and trim cleaned for the material it actually is.
No question matches
That does not mean there is no answer — it means we have not written it down yet. Ask us and we will answer it properly, then add it here.
Still not sure what your car needs?
Send a photo of the bonnet taken in daylight. We will tell you which service it actually needs — including when that is a cheaper one than you were expecting.
Enhance · Protect · Maintain
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