Author Archive for Mark

Caring For Your Truck’s Leather Interior

Leather seats are the ultimate when it comes to truck upholstery. Comfortable and classy, leather is also unfortunately a little harder to keep looking good over time than simple vinyl or fabric. Not only does the sun conspire to burn your legs (and behind) if your truck is left exposed to its hot rays in the afternoon, but the UV light and heat can cause the leather to crack and fade over time, leaving a wrinkly-looking mess that might eventually tear.

Keep your Tundra leather interior looking new.

Obviously, depending upon the climate you live in, it can take a long time for your leather to end up in that kind of condition. With a little bit of effort, however, you can take some steps now to prevent your leather seats from ever succumbing to decay.

Porter Cable Dual Action Polisher Review

Curious as to how much I could improve the paint on my vehicle using an orbital polisher, I decided recently to pick one up and try my hand at it. I had heard many good things about dual action polishers, and the model that was most often recommended to me by friends in the detailing business was the Porter Cable 7424.

Porter Cable Polisher model 7424.

Orbital dual action polishers are great for newbies because their rotation is designed to be random. With a random action polisher, there is little chance that heat will build up under your polishing pad and burn into your paint (unlike a regular rotary polisher). In other words, it’s virtually impossible to damage your paint with an orbital polisher.

Auto Detailing Trick – Mothers Clay Bar

It’s something that has happened to all of us – there’s always a stain or dirty area on your trucks’ paint that never seems to come clean no matter how many times you wash it or how hard you scrub. Or maybe you have a light colored truck and you”re confused by what seems to be pinpricks of corrosion thatsit on the top of your paint. Either way, it’s enough to drive you crazy.

Is your truck too dirty for soap? Use Mother's clay bar to rub out that spot.

The fact is, dirt can become chemically bonded to your paint in such a way that standard washing just can’t remove it. You might get so frustrated that you end up throwing soap all over yourself – see above.

Enter the clay bar.

Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Care – Product Breakdown

The world of detailing can be a confusing place. With so many products, gadgets, power toys, waxes and polishes available, it’s not always easy to know where to start…or how to go about assembling everything you would need to do a complete detail of your truck. Recognizing that this confusion represents a barrier for their customers, Meguiar’s offers a Complete Car Care kit that includes a little bit of everything necessary to get the ball rolling on your detailing project.

Meguiars complete car car kit, about $45 and almost everything you need.

Most of the items listed here can be found in the complete kit. However, upgrades to some of the items included in the kit are available and described here as well. Depending on just how badly you want your truck to shine, you might want to assemble your own “complete car care kit” by mixing and matching.

Bon Aire Garden Hose Nozzle Review

There are many different schools of thought when it comes to washing your truck, but the one thing that most people can seem to agree on is the need for a decent nozzle attachment for the home garden hose. Single-setting trigger nozzles can’t really handle all of the different stages of car washing with the same kind of efficiency as a multi-setting nozzle. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to know which multi-setting nozzle is going to give you the types of water spray that you need and which one is also going to be able to stand up to years of use and abuse in an outdoor environment.

The Bon-Air hose nozzle will help your bikini stay dry while washing the car. Not bad for $15.

The Bon-Aire Original Ultimate Hose Nozzle is one of the most highly recommended car wash attachments on the market. Part of what makes it so appealing is just how easy it is to use. The end of the nozzle can be turned either clockwise or counter-clockwise in order to adjust the flow of the water or shut it off completely – no more washing your truck with your thumb over the end of the hose (see graphic above).