Bronze, Silver or Gold: An Honest Guide to Picking a Package

Package tiers are usually designed to push you toward the middle one. We would rather tell you which is actually right, including the times that is the cheapest option.

Here is what separates them.

The short version

Bronze — $100, about an hour. Maintenance. Keeps a car that is already in decent shape looking sharp.

Silver — $350, about three hours. Interior restoration. This is where deep cleaning happens.

Gold — $450, about five hours. Paint work and protection. This is where the exterior gets decontaminated, polished and sealed. (Polish, to be precise — dedicated multi-stage correction is a separate quoted service.)

The jump from Bronze to Silver is about the interior. The jump from Silver to Gold is about the paint. Knowing which of those you care about answers the question most of the time.

Bronze: maintenance, not restoration

Premium hand wash and dry, wheels and tires, spray wax, windows inside and out, door jambs, full interior vacuum, and dashboard and console cleaning.

Right for you if: your car is in reasonable shape and you want it back to sharp. You detail regularly and this is the between-details refresh. You need it presentable for something this week.

Not right if: the carpets are stained, there is pet hair, or the paint has visible swirls. Bronze is a thorough clean, not a restoration — a vacuum lifts loose debris, it does not extract what is ground into the fibers.

The honest framing: Bronze maintains a good condition. It does not create one.

Silver: the interior package

Everything in Bronze, plus carpet and upholstery shampoo extraction, leather conditioning, deep interior sanitization, enhanced wheel detailing with tire shine, premium spray wax with UV protection, floor mat deep cleaning, and air freshener.

The operative word is extraction. Hot water and cleaning solution are injected into the fibers and pulled back out with the dirt. That is a fundamentally different process from vacuuming, and it is what reaches set-in staining, odour and the general dinginess that builds up over years. How much comes out depends on what caused it and how long it has been there — some staining and odour are permanent by the time we see them, and we would rather tell you that than promise otherwise.

Right for you if: kids, pets, food, or years of daily driving have happened in this car. There is a smell you cannot place. The carpets are visibly darker in the footwells. You are preparing to sell and the interior is what will cost you.

Not right if: the interior is genuinely fine and your concern is the paint. In that case the money is better spent on Gold.

This is our most-requested package, and for most people who have owned a car more than two years, it is the correct one.

Gold: paint correction and protection

Everything in Bronze and Silver, plus paint polish and scratch removal, clay bar decontamination, iron remover treatment, a six-month ceramic wax and paint sealant, trim restoration, and engine bay cleaning.

The sequence matters here: iron remover and clay bar pull bonded contamination out of the paint, polishing levels light swirls, and only then does protection go on. That order is what makes the result last — we wrote about why.

Right for you if: the paint looks dull or swirled in sunlight. You want protection that lasts a season rather than weeks. You are keeping the car and want to slow how it ages. You park outside, especially near the coast.

Not right if: your paint has damage deeper than polishing reaches. Gold includes polish, not multi-stage correction — if there are deep scratches or heavy oxidation, ask us for a quote rather than booking a package and hoping.

Choosing quickly

Ask yourself one question: when you picture what bothers you about your car, are you picturing the inside or the outside?

Inside — stains, smell, worn surfaces → Silver. Outside — dull paint, swirls, wanting protection → Gold. Neither, it just needs a clean → Bronze. Both, badly → Gold, which includes the Silver interior work.

When to spend less than you were going to

A few situations where we would talk you down:

Selling in the next month? Silver, usually. Interior condition drives buyer perception more than paint gloss, and correction on a car you are about to hand over is spending on someone else’s asset.

Just want it clean for an event? Bronze. A same-week refresh does not need five hours of paint work.

Paint has damage beyond polishing? Do not book Gold expecting it to fix that. Get it looked at first — a package that cannot solve your problem is not a bargain.

Brand new car? Bronze for maintenance, or a protection conversation. New paint usually needs little or no correction — though “new” is not a guarantee, since transport and dealer prep can leave their own defects. Worth looking before assuming either way.

If you are still unsure, tell us about the car — how you use it, where it parks, what bothers you. That is enough for a straight recommendation, and sometimes the recommendation is the cheaper package.