imported_Grouse
New member
Since others posted theirs, here are my tutorials
It is all about the wash.
How you wash a car determines how it looks. Most know that auto carwashes induce marring, swirling and promote a large amount of defects. Hand washing can also induce those shame issues. Using good procedures and policies when washing will go a long way to ensuring that your paint finish, trim, glass, wheels and tires will look the best they can for as long as they can. Before I go much further I want to stipulate that if you put 10 guys in a room and ask how to wash a car you will get 10 different ways to wash a car.
So what then is the correct way? Well there are many depending on what your situation is. I am going to cover how I do a basic wash in a driveway. I’ll include steps, pictures, and as best I can an intelligent concise post.
Materials:
6 plain yellow costco microfiber
1-2 Buckets
1 sheepskin wash mitt
1 foam gun
2-4 oz of car wash soap
1 waffle weave drying towel.
1 spritzer of detail spray
1 detail buffing Microfiber towel
1 hose and nozzles
A little bit about these materials.
Yellow costco microfibers are a great cheap alternative to the more expensive micro’s. I do not like to use them on paint. That being said they work excellent on wheels, door jambs, trunk lids, tires, wheel wells and engine bays.
Buckets are pretty self explanatory. One bucket for rinse water, one bucket for soapy water. By keeping those two separate you will keep as much of the paint damaging dirt out of your wash solution as possible. I prefer my rinse bucket to have a Grit Guard. This helps settle the dirt you clean off your car into the bottom of the bucket without cross contaminating your soapy water bucket.
Sheep skin mitts are very soft and supple. I prefer them over manmade sponges and mitts because they wick the dirt into the fiber, but easily rinse the dirt free when drenched in a rinse bucket. Manmade mitts, sponges, micro fiber, cotton terry, chenille do not generally rinse free. This gives them a higher likely hood of inducing marring on your paint.
Foam Guns are a way to eliminate the soapy water bucket. They hold your car wash solution in the gun and aerate the spray as you soap down the car and mitt. The foam gun gives you an unparalleled amount of paint protecting foam for washing. Washing with a foam is not really faster, but it is less likely to induce marring when done well.
Car wash soap, what an endless discussion this could be. Suffice it to say that some soap will over time remove more of your sealant or wax layer than others. Most soaps have some foaming action and some detergent. Try a few out. I uses megs gold class, sonus, optimum no rise, poor boys super suds and a few others.
Waffle weave drying towels are shaped like a waffle. This allows them to scoop up excess moisture and pull it off the vehicle with little or no streaking. It is also much softer than a terry towel and less likely to induce marring.
Detail spray is about as controversial of a topic as car soap. After you wash you may notice that some of the slickness to the finish or wax is gone. A detail spray after you wash goes a long way to restoring that slickness and giving a shine to any luster and gloss that may have been lost.
Buffing microfibers are very dense thick micro’s that help give a luster and shine without inducing marring. Because they are thicker you can usually use one per detail spray versus 2-3 costco micro’s.
Hoses and fittings. I like a quick release setup, one that includes attachments to the foam gun, soap bottle, and stream nozzle.
1) Fill up your rinse bucket and put in 4 of your 6 yellow mf towels.
2) Spray rinse off your wheels, tires, and wheel wells. The more dirt, grime, brake dust you rinse off the less you have to clean. Take a min or two to remove as much as you can.
3) Foam down the wheels, tires, and wheel wells. Turn up the lather as much as you like. Give this a second to start to suspend the dirt and grime from those areas.
4) Spray down your first MF towel. Use one towel per wheel/wheel well. Start from the outside edge of the wheel (where a wheel gets curbed). From the out sided edge clean the lip or flat fascia. From the fascia clean the out side edges or flanges. Work your way in to the dirtiest parts. The idea is to clean the lip and fascia first. If you clean the lip and fascia last you risk damaging them with all of the built up brake dust and grime that is in your mf towel. Then scrub the tire very well, not just simply a rub the tire but fold the rag and give it a scrub. I rarely use a brush as many wheels have very soft chrome, aluminum, polished, anodized lips that are very easy to damage with even the softest brush.
This is the result of me cleaning two of my wheels, tires, wheel wells.
http://www.pbase.com/dsgrouse/image/70361406.jpg[img]
5) Hose down the rest of the car. Use the pressure of the nozzle to blast off loose bits of junk and leaves. Use this time to examine those areas that may need extra attention during washing. Bug splatters, road tar, road grime, road antifreeze goo etc etc.
[img]http://www.pbase.com/dsgrouse/image/70361407.jpg
6) Foam gun the roof, windows and mitt. I had to spray the mitt on the car for the photo, normally I spray both sides of the mitt.
7) Wash the roof in straight lines. No circular motions. Once you have washed the section of the roof flip the mitt over and wash it 90* straight lines. I do not actually put my hand in the mitt. I feel that when your hand is in the mitt you are prone to scrubbing the paint with way more pressure than is needed. This leads to quite a bit of marring. I generally hold the mitt like I would a basket ball. By using just your finger tips you have just enough pressure to wash the car without scratching it. Once you have washed the roof, wash all of the exterior windows and door/window trim. Be sure to dip the mitt in the rinse bucket and massage any dirt or grime out. An example of washing it by straight lines.
8) Re foam the car and mitt. Continue to wash the car never going below the 50% or lower door trim. Basically that is the dirtiest parts of the car. Wash the upper third or half first. Remember to flip the mitt and was at 90 degree straight lines. That insures you remove even the smallest amount of dirt, yes it is washing the section twice. Once you have finished the upper half to third, start on the lowers, bumper, grills, of the car. After each section rinse the mitt thoroughly to ensure no dirt or grime contamination. Re foam and continue with the same 2 step wash as the rest of the car.
9) Once the car is washed spray the entire car off with the nozzle. I like to rinse it off this way first as it allows me to see if any soap has dried or I need to hit a section again. You can see in the following pictures the remaining water and moisture. Notice how well it beads. IT looks great like this but it is a pain to dry. You end up spending as much time ringing out the towels as you did washing the car.
10) Remove the nozzle off the hose, turn down the hose pressure and slowly chase the water off the car. This is called sheet rinsing. It causes the water to pull its self off the car by surface tension. Leaving the vehicle most of the way dry with very little to actually dry. Here is the car after sheet rinsing.
11) Lay out your waffle weave microfiber towel. Slowly drag the towel across the painted surfaces first. This will allow it time to soak up the extra water still on the paint. Continue till the paint is dry, and then finish the windows.
12) As I said above after a wash sometimes the slickness, luster and gloss are slightly diminished. This is the time to apply detail spray. Fold you super plush microfiber into eighth’s and then apply 3-4 good sprays of detail spray to the towel. The reason you apply it to the towel is you will use less product, have less streaking and have to work the product less. After application work the product over a panel and then flip the MF to a dry side and buff it clear of any streaking. Continue working like this till the car is done. You may find you need to unfold and refold the towel to a section of it that is not soaked in detail spray.
Finished car.
