Exterior car detailing across Medway and North Kent

Town by town

What is bonded to the paint in each part of North Kent

Gravesend, Northfleet and Shorne

Cement. Early works on the Lower Thames Crossing have run since March 2026 between Gravesend and the tunnel's southern end, and a car parked within a mile of them gathers a grey film that is alkaline, abrasive and impossible to wipe off without scratching. The Thames at the Town Pier adds the salt. The detail's decontamination dissolves the cement film and the clay lifts what is left; the wax afterwards means next month's dust rinses off.

Dartford, Greenhithe and the Crossing

Iron. The M25 and the Dartford Crossing carry lorries all day, and their brake dust lands on paint as specks of iron that rust into orange streaks and on alloys as a brown shadow no brush shifts. The iron remover turns purple as it works, which is the most satisfying part of any detail, and the wheels come out silver. Bluewater's quarry adds chalk; the tar from the A2's resurfacing adds the sills.

Ebbsfleet and Longfield

Site dust. Ebbsfleet Garden City is past 5,000 homes and building, and the young cars on its drives have paint that was new last year and feels like 120 grit now. An Exterior Detail in spring and again in autumn keeps them smooth, and is the right preparation for a ceramic coating on a car worth keeping.

Sittingbourne and Sheppey

Salt and sand. Both estuaries, the Swale and the Medway, and the gritters on the A2 and the A249 for six months. The decontamination lifts the salt film the clear coat has been carrying since October, and the windscreen compound takes off the smear that makes night driving on the A249 so tiring.

Maidstone, the Malling villages and the Downs

Sap and chalk. The Kent Downs National Landscape covers a quarter of the county, and a car parked under its trees carries sap that has hardened into lacquer and chalk from the lanes that has worked into it. The clay is what lifts both; the restored plastics and the wax are what make a five year old car look sold.

How it works here

A dry morning, a drive and your washer's own water

Type your postcode into the booking page and it checks whether a Network washer covers it; pick the Exterior Detail and a window, and take the 10am one now that the clocks have gone back, because the job runs two to three hours on a family car. A drive is ideal, a kerbside space or an allocated bay works if there is room to walk around the car, and the only condition is a dry day. Your washer brings water and power, works through the wash, the decontamination, the clay, the wheels, the plastics, the windscreen and the wax, and sends the before and after photographs with the receipt.

Kent's gritters cover every A and B road from late October to mid April, which gives the detail its two seasons: April, when a winter of salt, iron and tar has bonded to the paint and needs lifting before the summer; and September, when the summer's sap, chalk and site dust come off before the salt returns. For a car worth keeping for years, the September detail is the preparation for a ceramic coating; for a car going on sale, the detail the week before the photographs is the cheapest thing you will do to its price.

The details we do across North Kent

• A car parked near the Crossing works at Gravesend or Shorne: Exterior Detail for the cement film, the only safe way to lift it.
• A Dartford Crossing commuter with brown wheels: Exterior Detail, the iron remover does what scrubbing cannot.
• A young car on an Ebbsfleet drive: Exterior Detail in spring and autumn, then a ceramic coating if it is a keeper.
• A Sheppey car with a smeared windscreen: Exterior Detail, the compound and protection make the A249 at night easier.
• A Downs village car with sap lacquered on: Exterior Detail, the clay lifts it, the wax keeps it off.
• A car going on sale: Exterior Detail the week before the photographs.

More on this: exterior detailing in the Medway towns and ceramic coating across North Kent.