Detailing noob

[Rory]

Hey guys

Thanks for the welcome.

Pics is going to be a mission and I just sold my decentish camera so they would be cellphone pics. I'm going to post some descriptions here so hopefully guys that know the problems with recognise what I mean.

FYI my car is a "titanium silver" (dark grey) ford focus 1.6si (the hatchback). Rather an unrewarding colour to detail I reckon (black/red/blue seem much better).

I have a karcher 4.68 which I've used a few times for basically rinsing because the built in mixing thing doesn't seem to work very well. Thinking of maybe getting one of those lances where the shampoo goes on the lance itself, they seem to work much better.
I've heard a lot of comments about karchers being for lazy people etc etc but when I wash/rinse/wax the car and wash the mags and clean the inside of my car I'm always completely buggered, and it's going to get dirty anyway. So with something that's fairly easy at least I can do it often (like once a week hopefully)

Anyway, here goes in descending order of priority for me:

-Bird droppings
There are almost "silhouetes", like when you take a sticker off something and you can never get the last layer of glue to go away. Mostly notice this on the bonnet

-Dirty rims.
They are very dirty on the inside "sides" from brake dust. In fact it seems like they have a lot of marks that are now permanent.
On the outside the particular design has a lot of hard corners which are kinda hard to reach. Even with sponges etc it seems impossible to get everything out and the karcher doesn't help much either.

-Small "spots" on the paint (less than 1cm diameter)
These spots are only visible at a certain angle. They look a little lighter than the paint.
They are mainly on the bonnet/roof (or at least that's where they are noticeable)

-Trim
My car has dark grey plastic trim along the rear bumper, next to the foglights and a couple of other places. This stuff has faded within the first few months of having the car. Every time I've been to a car wash or something they've put some stuff on. I also bought some stuff but basically nothing seems to last very long here.

-Yellow spots/stripes
What the hell are these things? Either spots a few mm wide and maybe 1mm high or stripes around 1mm wide and 2cm long

-Glass
On the glass I can still see the area where the wipers wipe, how can I clean it enough that I can't see any line where the edge of the wiper is?

-Some scratches
These obviously aren't so grand but there are a few marks/chips on my car already so not much point in fixing the tiny scratches when there's big ones.


Also wanted to ask, I got some autoarmour or something when I got my car (2 years ago). Would something like that have completely worn away by now or would it still be one of the layers on the paint?

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Oh, I should also add I've been using Meguiars nxt wash/wax and the pink "soft wash".