This week I did something I’ve been meaning to do for years. I got my car detailed. I’m aware this admission may not provoke curiosity let alone awe in the average person. Either because they don’t consider detailing – an interest and, on the part of some, an obsession with the cosmetic aspects of their ride – something they attend to routinely or because a car interior riddled with dust, dirt and dog hair doesn’t disgust them as much as it does me.
I get that. Just don’t expect me not to pass judgment about you and your car if climbing into the passenger seat feels like something prudence suggests best be performed while wearing an N95 mask.
I typically vacuum and buff the interior of my vehicle – a humble 2017 Honda CR-V (we’re not talking about a Porsche or Maserati here) two or three times a year. The chore takes a good couple of hours as I endeavor to smite the schmutz from every nook and cranny, every air vent and beverage holder. And when it’s all done I like to share my achievement with my spouse. The gesture only heightens her already significant misgivings about me and my personality.
When I boast that I’m the only person I know who breaks a sweat, for whom scouring one’s car qualifies as an aerobic activity, she couldn’t be less impressed. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate the virtues of a clean car; it’s just that she believes there are so many more important things crying out for my attention if I’m going to expend so many calories in the first place.
But I’ve been forced to admit that, after our sport utility passed its fifth anniversary, that the upholstery required professional intervention. We deserve some of the blame. I don’t typically dine while driving. But life occasionally requires you to have breakfast or lunch in your vehicle and I tend to favor flaky pastries that produce lots of crumbs. My spouse, as do many others, suffers from a caffeine addiction while results in sporadic coffee spills.
We also have a dog. Or sadly did until last week when she passed away peacefully in the back seat of our car. A dog trainer friend of ours suggested it was because our pooch felt comfortable and secure there. She probably has a point, at least based on the amount of dog hair the upholstery absorbed and resisted relinquishing over the years, no matter what vacuum attachment – brush, nozzle or crevice tool – I assaulted it with.
But Wallie doesn’t deserve the majority of the blame and not just because she was a good girl or because it’s uncouth to speak ill of the dead. The main fault, in my opinion, rests with Honda and the fabric they used to sheath our model’s seats. Even plain water leaves permanent stains. My hunch is that there are Reddit groups, not that I’ve ever joined one, sparking legions of posts specifically about the disturbing ability of the upholstery on the basic 2017 Honda CR-V to break your heart.
Fortunately, I knew the place that might be able to rise to the occasion and restore the interior of our vehicle to something like its pristine condition on the non-descript afternoon in December of 2016 when we drove it off the lot at an Albany area Honda dealer. Donald Trump hadn’t even been inaugurated so I can’t blame our upholstery woes on him.
It’s the LMC Car Wash, Lube and Detailing Center on 109th Street and First Avenue in East Harlem. I’ve never previously taken a car there to have it detailed. But I’ve been impressed by their military style approach to washing cars and improving your day. They don’t merely run them through their car wash. That’s just the final step in the process. Workers swarm the vehicle with shammies and scrub brushes before they’ll even consider surrendering it to the machines.
If they showed half the amount of initiative when it came to detailing the interior of the vehicle it would be worth the not insubstantial cost in time and money. I dropped the car off at 7 am and received a call four and a half hours later informing me that it was ready to be picked up. Based on the results I have little doubt they devoted every one of those 270 minutes to my vehicle.
My wife’s plan was to retrieve it and continue on upstate while I remained in the city for several days. I believe I’ve already made it clear that we don’t exactly see eye-to-eye when it comes to car cleanliness. I consider scuff marks on the dashboard an easily avoidable insult to the general aesthetic welfare while she believes that life happens and why worry about it.
Who knows what condition the car would be in by the time we reunited? All that time and effort might have been erased. But she kindly agreed to drop by our apartment before leaving the city so that I could get my money’s worth, however briefly. She even called me from the car wash to let me know she was on her way and breathlessly described the car’s appearance as little short of miraculous.
Indeed it was. The vehicle looked brand new. Every surface shone. Every last scratch and dog hair had disappeared. The stains on the seats had vanished. One problem area I doubted anybody – at least anybody who wasn’t willing to devote his or her life to the project – could have surmounted was the mud caked in the microscopic holes of the car speaker grills. But I found them utterly free of debris, as well.
Life rarely meets your expectations let alone exceeds them. But it did in this case. The only problem is that the excellence of LMC Car Wash, Lube and Detailing Center has made me feel utterly inadequate. I know that no matter how hard I try I’ll never be able to approach their standards since I’m no magician. The only question remaining is how often I get the Honda detailed from now on. Once a year hardly seems adequate.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
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