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Car detailers have a bunch of tricks up their sleeves when it comes to making your car nice and shiny - but it's not as hard as you might think.

Car detailing can take you back $200 - $500. But what if you could save that amount?

The thing is, no sane auto-detailer will be willing to blurt out their secrets and fall short a couple of hundreds of dollars for their service. However, thanks to the internet, which sprouted an entire generation of DIYers, auto-detailing tools and tips are readily available on the internet.

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But which ones work? Those straight from the professional detailers notebooks. Below are 10 secrets that professional auto detailers won’t tell you about their craft. Because as far as it’s concerned, the job is 10% product, 90% application.

Have you watched those numerous auto-detailing clips on YouTube? A common curtain raiser is the clear water rinse before the detailing starts. Well, turns out that’s a mandatory step.

Before hitting the car with soapy water, you have to rinse it with clean water. Starting directly with the soapy water wash on the exterior grinds the dust and road grit on the car’s surface into the paint, creating permanent marks and damage.

Use a pressure washer to get the best results from this, as is the common case.

Yes, unlike your daily car wash routine, detailing needs two buckets at a go. One bucket is supposed to hold the clean soapy water. The other should be for holding clean rinse water.

The idea here is to have your dirty washing mitt dipped into the clean rinse water then wrung dry before you dipping it into the soapy water and continuing with the wash. Why?

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Just using one bucket means you’re only transferring the dirt from the car’s surface, into the mitt, into the soapy water, then back to the car’s surface. The clean rinse water is added to remove the dirt from the mitt, before going back for a wash on the car’s surface.

Throw away the sponges, and say hello to microfiber. Car Wash Country reports that unlike sponges, microfibers are efficient, easier to wash, rinse, and dry, and provide better scratch and friction protection to the car’s paint.

Sponges, on the other hand, use their pores to trap dirt particles that end up scratching the paint or generating lots of friction. Plus, they don’t easily dislodge, even when you wring them.

However, you need to make sure that you don’t wash the microfiber in the same cycle as other clothing or use fabric softener on them. Doing either of those will affect the microfiber qualities of the mitt.

This is a key process that separates pro detailers from wannabe car washers. You should not remove polish or wax using a buffer. That is doing the exact opposite of what the buffer tool is meant for.

Buffers should be used to apply the paint wax or polish. Using them for removal only leaves erratic swirls on the paint and might even damage the clear coating or paint. Instead, a soft, dry cloth should be used to remove the polish or wax, after application using the buffer.

Instead of getting a direct drive polisher and orbital polisher separately, you can get a perfect blend of both worlds through the dual action polisher. However, it will cost you slightly more. On average, a dual-action polisher will cost you about $150.

For what worth? Dual-action polishers are very handy when it comes to exterior finishes. Given that they combine the action of two tools into one, a dual-action polisher can satisfy 90% of your polishing chores. More expensive brands offer a “forced rotation” feature – which is best suited for professionals.

How well you handle this step will be a great determinant of whether you’re just a YouTube tutorial DIYer or a detailing professional. And as the pros advise, you need to remove any minor scratches on the surface before you can proceed to polish.

Why? Because polishing only improves the shine. It doesn’t deal with the scratches. Thus, before you get your hands on the buffer, use a scratch removal kit to get rid of the paint blemishes. Once you’re done, you can apply the polish for that perfect shine.

Don’t get it wrong – paste waxes still do a tremendous job on antique cars. However, they fail to create that same “wet look” on modern paint. On the other hand, modern synthetic wax nails that “wet look”. This is the same product that car dealers sell as a paint sealant.

Thus, instead of spending even more cash there, you can apply the product at home for a fraction of the price. All you need is a wax applicator sponge to apply the wax in small sections.

Yes, this is not the holy grail of detailers work – the cat got out of the bag a long while ago, but it’s something usually worth repeating. Clay bars remove contaminants and grit from the paint’s surface – something you need to do before you can get to polish the vehicle.

So what makes a good clay bar system? 80 – 100-gram clay bar, a spray lubricant – which will usually be a detailing spray, and a towel. And the process of using these is simple. After washing and spraying your car, all you need to do is rub the clay bar on the paint to remove the bonded dirt and grit, while preserving paint thickness.

Microfiber towels excel when it comes to drying off your vehicle. The problem with using chamois for drying your vehicle is that they only soak up water, leaving and possibly grinding into the paint any grit that was left after rinsing. This can potentially add more scratches to the paint or damage it.

Microfiber towels, on the other hand, collect these particles, while soaking up the water. Just make sure you rinse it in clean water – to remove the collected dirt, wring it, and then continue drying.

Nothing can mess a good exterior job as streaky glass. And if you don’t know the pros’ art, then getting this part right might be a bit tricky.

All you need is to master the two directions technique. This technique is used to perfectly dry the car’s glasses and also identify the side on which you’re getting the dreaded streaks.

As a rule of thumb, get into the habit of doing the final wipe on the interior of the glass horizontally and switching to a vertical wipe on the exterior portion of the glass. That way, in case you discover any streaks, you’ll be able to identify the side in which they fall, instead of battling in and out of your car to find the exact side the lines are coming from.

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Sources: CNN, Detailed Image, Turtle Wax, Car Wash Country, Your Mechanic