We detail your car where it's parked

Our auto detail covers inside and out

An auto detail from Everything Clean covers the whole vehicle, cabin and outside, in one visit to your home or work. Inside, that means a full vacuum of the seats, carpets, mats and trunk. Then every hard surface gets wiped down, from the dash to the door panels. The outside gets washed, wheels included, and the exhaust tips get polished. Interior scenting is the last step, so the car smells as clean as it looks.

You can tell a good detail from the driver's seat. The seat seams have no grit in them, and nothing is left in the gap beside the console. The inside of the windshield stays clear when the sun comes through it, with no haze or wipe marks. Outside, the wheels show their real color instead of brown brake dust. Julie Sekrieh put it this way: "They took an older model car and made it look brand new."

A car wash cleans the paint and leaves the cabin, where you actually spend your time, the way it was. A full detail cleans the whole vehicle at once. Drivers often book one after buying a used car or before selling one. Others call after a long road trip, or when the back seat is full of crumbs from school runs. From that clean starting point, keeping the car nice takes a lot less work.

• Full vacuum of seats, carpets, mats and trunk
• Dash and door panels wiped down
• Wheels washed first, then the body
• Glass cleaned inside and out
• Exhaust tips polished and cabin scented

Middle Tennessee weather is hard on cars

Spring here starts with pollen. Once the trees leaf out, a yellow-green film settles on every parked car. It gets into the cabin too, through open windows and the air vents. Then it sits in the vent slats until the fan blows it back out. Mixed with morning dew, pollen on the paint turns sticky and dries into a crust. We rinse that off before anything touches the paint, so the grit is not dragged across the clear coat.

Summer brings heat and heavy, damp air. A car sitting in the sun gets hot enough that soap dries on the paint before it can be rinsed off. That leaves a spotty film behind. On hot days we wash and rinse one small section at a time, so the soap never has a chance to dry. Inside, the damp is the bigger problem. A wet floor mat or a spilled drink under a seat turns musty fast in a Nashville July. Scent alone will not fix it. The wet spot has to be found and dried out first.

Winter here is short, but it still leaves a mark. When ice is in the forecast, the roads get pretreated with salt brine. That salty spray coats the wheel wells and the bottom of the doors, and it keeps working on bare metal after the roads dry. Then there is the clay. Middle Tennessee soil turns to sticky mud after a hard rain, and it tracks onto the carpet and dries hard in the mats. Getting it out takes a slow vacuum and a stiff brush on the mats.

The order of the steps matters

Inside, the floor mats and any loose trash come out first, since you cannot vacuum under a mat that is still on the floor. The seats and carpet get vacuumed next, with extra time in the seat seams and the tracks the seats slide on. Wiping the dash and door panels comes after that. Dust knocked out of the vents falls to the floor, so the carpet gets one more pass before the mats go back in.

Outside, the wheels come first. They carry the heaviest dirt on the car, mostly brake dust and road grime. Washing them last would splash that mess onto paint that was just cleaned. After the wheels, the body gets washed from the roof down, because dirt runs downhill and the lower panels are the dirtiest. The glass gets cleaned once the paint is dry, and the exhaust tips get polished last.

Skip a step and it shows. Leave the mats in, and the sand under them keeps grinding at the carpet every time someone climbs in. Let the car air dry in the sun, and minerals in the rinse water stay on the paint as spots. That is why every panel gets dried by hand right after the rinse, before we move on. One customer, Mikey, called the result "different kinda cleaning..lasting look!!"

We come to your home or work

Everything Clean is a mobile service, so the detail happens wherever your vehicle is parked. Around Nashville that might be the driveway of a brick ranch house or a carport on an older home. It might be a shared drive between the tall, narrow houses built two to a lot, or an apartment parking space. Iris Dodson booked a full interior and exterior service at her house. She wrote: "They came to my house on time, were super professional and left my van looking brand new."

In Belle Meade, Forest Hills and Oak Hill, many homes sit on wide lots under old hardwood trees. Shade helps a wash, since the paint stays cooler and soap dries slower. The same trees drop leaves all fall. Leaves pile up in the channel under the windshield and in the door jambs. Wet leaves hold water against the paint there and can clog the drain holes, so we clear those spots during the wash.

Farther out, the setup changes a little. Newer subdivisions in Brentwood and Franklin mostly have attached garages and wide concrete drives, with room to open every door at once. Out toward Springfield and Fairview you see more gravel drives. Dust from a gravel drive sticks to a wet car and dries on it in spots. If you have a choice of spots, a paved one is better. Tell us where the vehicle will be when you call.