Protect your investment car wash!
09-09-2014, 02:48 PM
#1
Protect your investment car wash!
Besides a house a car will be one of your most expensive investments you will ever make (unless your rich and have boats and stuff), So take care of it, keep it looking good. We are all on this forum because we care about our Hobby, passion our investments. I keep my car(s) forever with no intention in ever selling them, so my car(s) is an investment to me and not a depreciated object.
Steps to minimize swirls in your investment.
Inside car:
Clean inside the car first and inside windows before your wash the car. If you have no intentions on vacuuming, or doing an interior cleaning, clean the inside windows before continuing to the wash.
Wheels:
After inside is clean wash your wheels FIRST! Since the wheels of your car will typically be the dirtiest things on the car you want to avoid transfer to your clean car. When washing wheels it’s good to also have a dedicated bucket for this that is ONLY used to washing weels.
Buckets and Mitts:
Buy two 5 gallon buckets, TWO!!!!!! Microfiber wash mitts/ cloths I don't care, as long it's Microfiber. Make sure BOTH the mitts and the buckets are different colors,. Wal-mart sells a Waffle weave microfiber drying towel for like $7 or you can order it from Amazon.
Process:
Fill one bucket with water and the recommended amount of your Fav car soap, a soap that is Wax safe for future use and fill another bucket with just water.. Whatever bucket you use for soap will ALWAYS be the bucket you use for soap, so the obvious is stated for the "dirty water" bucket.
Rinse:
After a pressure wash (hose on high unless you have a pressure washer, and if you do use common sense and care if you choose to pressure wash as a rinse ^^ No offense just a disclaimer that's all.^^
Also good to mention, a lot of detailers would use a foam gun to remove the dirt first from the car via gravity but it's not that serious IMO, it's nice to have but not need. So this step is skipped.
Washing:
Pick a Mitt any color Mitt and start from the top of the car to the middle of the door and that is where you will stop.. Now remember what mitt you used to do the top of your car to the middle because this will be the mitt you will use FOREVER for that purpose. This is they we get two different color mitts.
The other color mitt you will use it to do the bumpers and under the middle of the doors all the way to the side skirts of the car., Honestly it wouldn't hurt to use an older wash cloth or something to do under that part of that car, it tends to get VERY dirty from the road and the grit will stick to that Microfiber.
Mitt cleaning:
Here is the trick, Clean Mitt Often!!!!!! Do a couple of passes and rinse in the clean non-soap bucket<-- Won't be clean for long, and ring it out then re-soap Mitt in the soap bucket. You will notice quickly why we use two buckets for washing cars. It’s not uncommon to see someone like myself go across the panel flip the Mitt and do another section and then rinse the mitt out. Yup, your read correctly, pretty much after ever two passes I clean the mitt.
Also, after your done with a section rinse the car, and rinse often. If it’s hot outside and the body panel is really hot I suggest you rinse after every pass because water spots will build quickly when they dries; it’s annoying.
Drying:
Unless you have a blower to dry the car ONLY USE a microfiber cloth or Microfiber drying towel to dry your car, I can bet you bottom dollar that anything else will put fine marks into your paint. While drying if your towel gets dirty STOP!!! Rewash that area and continue drying with another CLEAN drying towel. As suggested before with the wash mitt, you can use another lower grade towel to dry under the bumpers and side panels of the car.
If you can resist, try NOT TO DRIVE YOUR CAR
for at least an hour if it’s hot outside to allow all the nook and crannies to air dry. If you drive soon after the dirt will stick to your car like you coated it with honey.
Pledge:
You will NEVER again while washing your car use a circle pattern while washing., waxing ect. Only straight as possible lines in a back and forth motions. Unless it’s a buffing machine NOTHING manually will ever complete a 360 degree movement on your car.
Disclaimer:
By no means is this the definitive way to wash a car, this is the way i've found best to minimize swirls makes in your clear coat to keep your shine to last longer. This method is best demonstrated after a car is painted corrected and the swirls are removed via polishing machine and a skilled person to do the work. Many hours are spent removing swirls from a cars finish and people spend hundreds of dollars to have this done, so if you choose to wash your car yourself these procedures will help prolong that shine.
Steps to minimize swirls in your investment.
Inside car:
Clean inside the car first and inside windows before your wash the car. If you have no intentions on vacuuming, or doing an interior cleaning, clean the inside windows before continuing to the wash.
Wheels:
After inside is clean wash your wheels FIRST! Since the wheels of your car will typically be the dirtiest things on the car you want to avoid transfer to your clean car. When washing wheels it’s good to also have a dedicated bucket for this that is ONLY used to washing weels.
Buckets and Mitts:
Buy two 5 gallon buckets, TWO!!!!!! Microfiber wash mitts/ cloths I don't care, as long it's Microfiber. Make sure BOTH the mitts and the buckets are different colors,. Wal-mart sells a Waffle weave microfiber drying towel for like $7 or you can order it from Amazon.
Process:
Fill one bucket with water and the recommended amount of your Fav car soap, a soap that is Wax safe for future use and fill another bucket with just water.. Whatever bucket you use for soap will ALWAYS be the bucket you use for soap, so the obvious is stated for the "dirty water" bucket.
Rinse:
After a pressure wash (hose on high unless you have a pressure washer, and if you do use common sense and care if you choose to pressure wash as a rinse ^^ No offense just a disclaimer that's all.^^
Also good to mention, a lot of detailers would use a foam gun to remove the dirt first from the car via gravity but it's not that serious IMO, it's nice to have but not need. So this step is skipped.
Washing:
Pick a Mitt any color Mitt and start from the top of the car to the middle of the door and that is where you will stop.. Now remember what mitt you used to do the top of your car to the middle because this will be the mitt you will use FOREVER for that purpose. This is they we get two different color mitts.
The other color mitt you will use it to do the bumpers and under the middle of the doors all the way to the side skirts of the car., Honestly it wouldn't hurt to use an older wash cloth or something to do under that part of that car, it tends to get VERY dirty from the road and the grit will stick to that Microfiber.
Mitt cleaning:
Here is the trick, Clean Mitt Often!!!!!! Do a couple of passes and rinse in the clean non-soap bucket<-- Won't be clean for long, and ring it out then re-soap Mitt in the soap bucket. You will notice quickly why we use two buckets for washing cars. It’s not uncommon to see someone like myself go across the panel flip the Mitt and do another section and then rinse the mitt out. Yup, your read correctly, pretty much after ever two passes I clean the mitt.
Also, after your done with a section rinse the car, and rinse often. If it’s hot outside and the body panel is really hot I suggest you rinse after every pass because water spots will build quickly when they dries; it’s annoying.
Drying:
Unless you have a blower to dry the car ONLY USE a microfiber cloth or Microfiber drying towel to dry your car, I can bet you bottom dollar that anything else will put fine marks into your paint. While drying if your towel gets dirty STOP!!! Rewash that area and continue drying with another CLEAN drying towel. As suggested before with the wash mitt, you can use another lower grade towel to dry under the bumpers and side panels of the car.
If you can resist, try NOT TO DRIVE YOUR CAR
for at least an hour if it’s hot outside to allow all the nook and crannies to air dry. If you drive soon after the dirt will stick to your car like you coated it with honey. Pledge:
You will NEVER again while washing your car use a circle pattern while washing., waxing ect. Only straight as possible lines in a back and forth motions. Unless it’s a buffing machine NOTHING manually will ever complete a 360 degree movement on your car.
Disclaimer:
By no means is this the definitive way to wash a car, this is the way i've found best to minimize swirls makes in your clear coat to keep your shine to last longer. This method is best demonstrated after a car is painted corrected and the swirls are removed via polishing machine and a skilled person to do the work. Many hours are spent removing swirls from a cars finish and people spend hundreds of dollars to have this done, so if you choose to wash your car yourself these procedures will help prolong that shine.
Last edited by SR20Power; 09-09-2014 at 05:01 PM.
09-10-2014, 03:10 AM
#2
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 328
Finally....someone more OCD than me.
You certainly have some good suggestions I'd like to add one if you don't mind.
When done washing all panels of car and just before drying process begins, take the nozzle off the hose and run the water full blast straight out of hose and starting on center of roof douse the car head to toe it will sheet most of the water off instead of having tons of little beads thus speeding up the drying process.
Of course this is assuming you have a good wax job on the car.
You certainly have some good suggestions I'd like to add one if you don't mind.
When done washing all panels of car and just before drying process begins, take the nozzle off the hose and run the water full blast straight out of hose and starting on center of roof douse the car head to toe it will sheet most of the water off instead of having tons of little beads thus speeding up the drying process.
Of course this is assuming you have a good wax job on the car.
09-11-2014, 05:34 AM
#3
Finally....someone more OCD than me.
You certainly have some good suggestions I'd like to add one if you don't mind.
When done washing all panels of car and just before drying process begins, take the nozzle off the hose and run the water full blast straight out of hose and starting on center of roof douse the car head to toe it will sheet most of the water off instead of having tons of little beads thus speeding up the drying process.
Of course this is assuming you have a good wax job on the car.
You certainly have some good suggestions I'd like to add one if you don't mind.
When done washing all panels of car and just before drying process begins, take the nozzle off the hose and run the water full blast straight out of hose and starting on center of roof douse the car head to toe it will sheet most of the water off instead of having tons of little beads thus speeding up the drying process.
Of course this is assuming you have a good wax job on the car.
Last edited by SR20Power; 09-11-2014 at 08:54 PM.
09-11-2014, 08:36 PM
#4
Nice write-up. No mention of grit guards though. Don't believe in them, eh? I use 2 grit guards (one in each bucket) and two microfiber wash mits. One mit for everything above the door guard line and one for below.
Since wheels are the dirtiest, I do them last and use their own dedicated wheel microfiber wands
Since wheels are the dirtiest, I do them last and use their own dedicated wheel microfiber wands
09-11-2014, 08:53 PM
#5
Yea, I should've mentioned that the wheels should have dedicated EVERYTHING!!!! And for the grit gauges think about it, the mitts float for one and honestly, my two bucket wash is so efficient my soap water remains clean and clear, nothing like the dirty bucket. I'm just not sold on it honestly. Does it prevent the grit from the bottom from getting back into the mix to contaminate the mitts?? I honestly don't buy it.
Try not to do the wheels last Wizard, but if it's a try and true method of yours then sure.. But because the wheels tend to suck I do them first and when you wash the car down you don't have to worry about re-adding grit and dirt back to your paint. I guess I do this because my washes tend to end in a paint correction and the last thing I want is my buffer picking up dirt and grinding it into the paint.
And another note on the Grit guards, when I clean out my dirty buckets the heavier grit is at the bottom anyway… Maybe when I feel like looking cool with my grit guards I will buy em lol. I rather use that money for more pads or polish
I don't have heavier tools that i lay in my bucket such as tire and wheel brushes, i rinse them and lay themout.
BTW, I'm going to polish my Tuscan red this weekend (if it don't ran).
I will try to get a Half and half stop out ASAP to show you guys what to look forward to. But also on that note, I owe my friend a huge favor and I'm' suppose to bring this Sentra back to life tomorrow… He says the white paint looks like a chalk board.. He buys and sell cars so I might put sand paper to it… Muahahahahahahha…
Try not to do the wheels last Wizard, but if it's a try and true method of yours then sure.. But because the wheels tend to suck I do them first and when you wash the car down you don't have to worry about re-adding grit and dirt back to your paint. I guess I do this because my washes tend to end in a paint correction and the last thing I want is my buffer picking up dirt and grinding it into the paint.
And another note on the Grit guards, when I clean out my dirty buckets the heavier grit is at the bottom anyway… Maybe when I feel like looking cool with my grit guards I will buy em lol. I rather use that money for more pads or polish
I don't have heavier tools that i lay in my bucket such as tire and wheel brushes, i rinse them and lay themout. BTW, I'm going to polish my Tuscan red this weekend
(if it don't ran).I will try to get a Half and half stop out ASAP to show you guys what to look forward to. But also on that note, I owe my friend a huge favor and I'm' suppose to bring this Sentra back to life tomorrow… He says the white paint looks like a chalk board.. He buys and sell cars so I might put sand paper to it… Muahahahahahahha…
09-11-2014, 09:04 PM
#6
I spent a whole whopping $16 on 2 grit guards. Not entirely sold on them, but the theory behind them sounds solid enough to use them. I gently rub my mit against the grit guard too in hopes of releasing contaminants. The grit guards are about 8"-10" from the bottom of the bucket which keep me away from the bottom of the bucket where the contaminants are.
09-11-2014, 09:18 PM
#7
Yeah they are cheap and one less thing I have to clean and worry about. Like I said, i am not sold on them and maybe one day when i think i've got everything else I need I will buy them… until then.. F dat. $16 is another 16oz of meguiars D300 polishing Compound
I see it like when they try to sell you on HAVING to use our (whatever brand) clay lubrication spray to Clay bar your car. Might as well spray that lub up your bung hole cause that is where they are sticking it. I use soap and water..
I see it like when they try to sell you on HAVING to use our (whatever brand) clay lubrication spray to Clay bar your car. Might as well spray that lub up your bung hole cause that is where they are sticking it. I use soap and water..
Last edited by SR20Power; 09-11-2014 at 09:21 PM.
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