Just like a golfer requires a cart full of clubs, an archer stocks a quiver of arrows, and a mason brings along a bag of trowels and grout, so too must a professional auto detailer show up to work with a full contingent of auto detailing brushes in order to properly clean and detail a vehicle.
Sure, maybe you’ve got a couple of fancy orbital polishers and a 3,500-psi pressure washer, but the real workhorse in your arsenal of cleaning tools is the humble detailing brush. It’s a bristly tool that enables you to get aggressive on those surfaces that a rag or water can’t even begin to touch. Brushes get down and dirty, finding their way into those hard-to-reach areas such as those found among tightly squeezed engine components and in between the spokes of a chrome wheel.
And it goes without saying that Detail King carries more varieties of these whiskered tools than a door-to-door Fuller brush man — but now we’re just dating ourselves. Here’s a list of the must-have auto detailing brushes to help you clean each area of a vehicle:
Wheel and Tire Auto Detailing Brushes
When you dress tires it’s most important that you scrub and clean them properly in order for the dressing applications to shine bright and last longer. In addition to liberally applying a tire cleaner chemical, you’re going to also need a Polypropylene bristle tire brush that resists heat, acids, solvents and chemicals. A Polypropylene brush is also great for scrubbing wheel wells.
For tires with whitewalls or white lettering, you should have either a nylon bristled brush or brass bristled brush on hand, both of which enables you to bring the white color back to the surface where it belongs. Then there’s our cone brush with Tampico bristles that’s perfect for getting into the hard-to-reach areas of wheels and in between wheel spokes.
And flagged tip bristled brushes go to great lengths to remove all the dirt, debris and brake dust without harming or scratching the wheel finish.
Car Body Detail Brushes
A soft nylon bristled flagged brush or polystyrene bristled flagged brush is just what the detailer ordered when it comes to scrubbing around the bottoms of vehicles, the engine and door jams. Flagged brushes are also great for vehicles that have dirt and debris on the plastic moldings around the vehicle that a rag or wash mitt just isn’t aggressive enough to remove.
Tip: If you’re going to be working on large-size vehicles, RVs, trailers or boats, it’s not a bad idea to get these 14-inch flagged brushes.
And for convertible tops, the safest brush to use is our horsehair Convertible Top/Leather Seats Brush. It’s nonabrasive, naturally soft, durable and exclusively designed to gently remove exterior debris from fragile fabric convertible materials. Not only are they safe for use on convertible fabrics but also they’re perfect for leather seats. The horsehair brush is aggressive enough to tackle any dirt that may be in the leather but soft enough to not scratch or harm the leather.
Interior Auto Detailing Brushes
When you think about it, carpeting in a car pretty much catches the brunt of the sand, dirt, debris and fluids that arrive — by means of gravity in most cases — and become imbedded in the fibers, making it difficult to suck up with a mere vacuum. As a result, and much like they say in a gangster movie, sometimes it’s necessary to rough ’em up a little. By using a short stiff compact bristle brush, agitating these areas of the carpet serve the purpose of loosening up the dirt from the fibers. These brushes are available in a couple of body styles, with our sure-grip handled bodies much more comfortable and easier to control. Especially when you’re scrubbing a lot of carpet.
One of the less enjoyable tasks a professional auto detailer must undertake when cleaning an interior is the myriad of small cracks and crevices that abound, each difficult to reach and clean in a manner that matches your standards. That’s where toothbrush-style brushes come in handy— perfect for getting in between the buttons, dials, pedals, cup holders, crevices and cracks that populate a car’s insides. Our Dual Purpose auto detailing brush is a great two-in-one brush with a .43-inch brush on one side and a .18-inch nylon brush on the other — made to order for those small areas.
These are the main brushes we offer here at Detail King, and we think you’ll find that they’ll serve you well on most detail jobs. For more information, check out our auto detailing brushes page and be sure to watch the three-part series videos below, covering all aspects of interior and exterior uses of auto detailing brushes.
Auto Detailing Brushes Video – Part One:
Auto Detailing Brushes Video – Part Two:
Auto Detailing Brushes Video – Part Three:
