OH MY Ask ten people what the difference between valeting and detailing is and you’ll get ten shrugs. Fair enough — the industry uses the words interchangeably, and plenty of businesses charge detailing money for valeting work. So here’s the honest version.
Valeting: bringing it back to clean
A valet is a deep clean, inside and out. Wheels, arches and door shuts. Snow foam and a safe hand wash. Interior vacuumed, plastics and touch points cleaned, glass done properly. Our Deep Clean (from £175) and Total Reset (from £275) are valeting at its most thorough — the Total Reset adds steam cleaning, fabric extraction, leather conditioning and a full interior restoration.
What a valet doesn’t do is change the condition of your paint. If the lacquer is covered in swirl marks and holograms, a valet will leave it clean… and still swirled.
Detailing: changing the paint itself
Detailing means machine polishing — physically refining the clear coat to remove damage and restore gloss. Our Single Stage Polish (from £300) removes light swirling and lifts the gloss dramatically. The Two Stage Correction (from £500) goes further: a heavy cutting stage to remove deeper defects, then a refining stage to bring the paint as near perfect as possible within reason.
Which do you need?
- Car’s dirty, paint looks fine in sunlight — valet. Deep Clean or Total Reset depending on the interior.
- Clean car, but swirls and spider-webbing under direct light — Single Stage Polish.
- Dull, scratched, tired paint you’ve stopped enjoying — Two Stage Correction.
- Want it to stay that way — add a ceramic coating after polishing, then keep it on the Maintenance Plan.