Mobile car detailing in Vancouver.

Almost nowhere in the West End, Kitsilano or Mount Pleasant has an outdoor tap you can legally use for a wash, and most buildings ban it outright. It makes no difference to us — the van carries its own water and power, so your stall in the parkade works as well as a driveway.

Underground parkades are the norm here, and they are the best place to work in the rain. We need a stall and roughly a metre of clearance around the car.

Street-parked cars pick up a specific mix of brake dust, road film and tree debris. On the drier East Side blocks that bakes on quickly, so we clay and decontaminate before anything touches the paint.