Washing your car
- Thread starter sangs
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I think a lot of people get carried away with time consuming hand washes and expensive cleaning products...and its not always necessary. Just sold my last car, a 2002 Mazda Tribute after having it 14 years. Drove my Jeep Wrangler for 13 years before that one. Both were in excellent shape when I sold them including the paint and I don't even have a garage. I try not to park for extensive periods of time under trees and wash off bird droppings promptly. I never did any exterior hand washing aside from the occasional wax or two a year. I always just used the $5 touchless automatic carwash down the street monthly, vacuumed regularly, and cleaned the leather. I also made sure to wash or hose down the vehicle and undercarriage after every snow to get any road salt off. If it aint broke don't fix it: I plan on doing the same thing with my new CX5 now and driving it at least 13 years. Its also worth noting that I buy silver cars because they tend to best "hide" any dirt between washes.
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Don't use automated car washes that are actually scratching your pristine new coating. Wash it once with proper 2 bucket technic, type of detergent is at this point almost irrelevant, dish soap will do ....use filtered water for final rinse if possible (any self operated $2 car wash has that option). Drive little above the speed limit back to your house to air dry, dry off the rest with a 100% cotton or microfiber towel. Put some real deal wax on it, best with proper rotary tool. Do it in the spring and before winter hits.....I guarantee you that any other wash you do after waxing, won't last more than 3 minutes.....you basically just have to rinse the car, maybe use wash mode with actual soap at local self car wash. That's it. No touching of the coating, no need to dry with towels or any of this BS. As long as u use filtered water rinse cycle, you are good. I feel so sorry for people drying their cars after washing. Few wipes over side windows and mirrors and you are done. In the winter time, I wouldn't even touch it unless you have little kids and they LOVE cleaning salty car with their clothes, as mine absolutely excel in. Salt will fu$k up underside one way or another....whether you wash it or not ....for first 8 years of vehicle life it's not even relevant by the way...As long as your coating is healthy and there are no deep scratches past the coat and paint ...and base .....salt will not harm your panels ....it just looks like s***. Good luck.
Haha nice.
I'm jealous - the folks who can wash their car by hand year round in warm weather have it made. You can make a car last forever if salt doesn't eat it alive slowly.
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Oh Dear God! Don't do that! Ever! Unless you are trying to strip the car of any and all wax or protection that is on there. Use a quality car shampoo, please.
What wax r u talking about? The car wash/dealer wax that is rinsed off with 2nd rain? Or r we talking actual properly applied wax that will last 3-6 months? If the former....it's irrelevant be clause your car is not really waxed....if the latter...he mentioned waxing right after so he knows what he is talking about....and for proper waxing u do want to strip the old wax anyway
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Ok, if he's talking just the one time right before applying ziano, then yes using dawn dish soap makes sense. If washing dawn for every wash after ziano then why even use ziano it will be gone so fast from using dish soap. And I'm taking that the orginal poster on this thread doesn't know much about detailing and proper wash methods so saying something like "use dish soap" is just giving bad information if it's not qualified by when and why using such a soap would be appropriate. Generally speaking one does not want to use dish soap on their car for general cleaning.
I am staying in an gated community apartment. I don't have a luxury of using hose and rinse ( California is a drought place 
) (bang)
2 bucket (naughty)is enough for CX5 ?
So the best option is to go to a car wash ? But after hearing some replies I think their brush is going to create scratches on my new car's paint confused !!
) (bang)2 bucket (naughty)is enough for CX5 ?
So the best option is to go to a car wash ? But after hearing some replies I think their brush is going to create scratches on my new car's paint
confused !!I've used car washes since day 1, and I don't have a single paint swirl yet. That being said, I go to GOOD hand car washes, and have a good wax applied every once in a while (every third month). Last time I had them clay bar the paint before waxing, and the paint looks like it's fresh off the showroom floor after 16,000 miles. Do your homework though, all car washes are not equal.
And u don't have self operated spray washers in Cali?I am staying in an gated community apartment. I don't have a luxury of using hose and rinse ( California is a drought place
2 bucket (naughty)is enough for CX5 ?
So the best option is to go to a car wash ? But after hearing some replies I think their brush is going to create scratches on my new car's paint
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player one
Member
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- 2010 Mazda 3
1) For brand new car, which car wash do you use ? there are multiple car wash offered by different car wash centers ranging from $6 to $20.
2) If you are washing your car yourself, what product do you use and make sure that car paint is not affected at all , and it improves the shining
3) where can I buy car wash products ( shampoo/brush/cloth etc ) and which brand
I had my car coated with opti-coat pro when it was new. I just do rinseless washes (meguiar's D114) now using the Garry Dean method but also pre-rinse at a coin-op car wash. I buy most of my stuff from sites under PBMG.
(palm beach motoring group)
I am staying in an gated community apartment. I don't have a luxury of using hose and rinse ( California is a drought place
2 bucket (naughty)is enough for CX5 ?
So the best option is to go to a car wash ? But after hearing some replies I think their brush is going to create scratches on my new car's paint
Since you're in an Apartment I would use a rinseless wash product. There are many good ones available such as Optimum No Rinse, Meguiars D114 or D115, Ultima Waterless wash + concentrate, Duragloss rinseless wash, blackfire wet diamond rinseless wash, etc. All of the ones I listed are available thru amazon and most are available thru sites like autogeek.net and autopia.org. The way a rinseless wash works is that the "soap" encapsulates the dirt when you wipe the car with your microfiber towel/wash mitt/sponge and then is released into your dirty water bucket. After wiping one panel or section of a panel use a microfiber towel to dry that panel and that's it. No need to have a hose and rinse the car off after cleaning.
The two bucket method can be used with rinseless washes if you are using only a few towels or wash mitt or sponge to clean. Lots of people will use a grout sponge for doing rinseless washes, the Proline sponge from Lowes is a forum favorite and it's cheap. The idea with a two bucket wash system is to fill one bucket with water and add your wash solution, this is your clean bucket, the second bucket gets filled with just water and is used to rinse your wash medium after cleaning a section of car. This is to minimize the amount of dirt and grit that gets into the "clean" wash solution. Grit guards are recommended for the bottoms of your five gallon buckets so the dirt can settle to the bottom with out being re-agitated into the water.
To do a rinseless wash you would only need about 2 gallons in your "wash" bucket with about an once of rinseless wash solution. If you use multiple microfiber towels you don't need the rinse bucket as you'd have enough towels, one for each section or so. About 5-10 towels is usually enough to wash the CX-5. Fold your towels into fourths and use a new side of the towel for every couple of wipes. Search Youtube for videos showing you how it's done.
Some people have told you don't need to wash the car, or just take it thru the brush-o-matic car washes or use the DIY car washes and the foaming brush they have their. You can do those things if you want, you're car is not going to fall apart from doing so. Everyone is going to have their own definition of what a clean car is. For me, its a car that is not only free of dirt but also free from swirls and scratches. The above methods of washing a car will induce swirls and scratches into the clear coat that can only be removed form polishing and or compounding. The Brush car washes are rarely cleaned so all the dirt and grime is stuck on them and rubbed all over your car. Do you really want to be the next in line after a pickup truck just went thru that was full of mud? Same goes for the brushes at the DIY car washes, you never know what is in the brush or how clean that brush is before putting it on your car. Some people think hand washing is a waste of their time and don't care about minor swirling in their clear coat, and that's fine, it's why thousands of car washes are in business all across the country. I enjoy washing my car, it's relaxing for me.
Decide what you want and what you want your cars finish to look like. If good is good enough then go ahead and do any car wash you want. But if you want to make sure you are minimizing any chance or scratching the finish then a hand wash is you best option. Hand washing allows the most control over the process. Just remember that taking care of your cars finish should be therapeutic, not the reason you need therapy! If you start reading detailing forums you might start to think that your car is a fragile, delicate thing that needs constant attention, it's not and it doesn't but a proper wash technic will help ensure a better finish on your car.
Here's what I do for my winter washing since I don't have a hose in my garage and I'm in Wisconsin so a hose outside would just be frozen. My garage is attached but it's not heated so on days when it's sunny or at or near 32 degrees out side the garage is usually around 40 or so. I mix two ounces or Optimum No Rinse wash and Shine (ONR) with 3 gallons or warm water into a 5gal bucket. I use a higher concentration because out water is very hard. In a separate bucket I fill with just plain water about 3 gallons or so. I take my 5 Rag company Korean edgeless Microfiber towels and soak them in the ONR solution. In a 1 gal garden sprayer I have mixed an ONR solution that I use as a presoak on the car before cleaning. I spray the panels I'm about to wash with the sprayer to help loosen the dirt and provide more lubricity. I take one of my towels, fold it into fouths and squeeze out a bit of solution so it's not totally dripping everywhere. Using straight wiping motions I wipe a panel at a time working from high to low, front to back. Roof, windows, hood, fenders, front bumper, doors, rear hatch and glass. After every couple of swipes I turn the microfiber to a clean section. When all sections of the towel has been used I dunk it into the rinse bucket and leave it there grabbing a new towel from the solution bucket. After I've "cleaned" a panel or section of a panel I use a larger microfiber towel, waffle weave, or thicker nap, to dry that section right way. I do this over the entire car until it's clean. All told it takes me about 30-40min to wash this way in my garage without any hose. When all is done I empty the buckets and throw the used towels in a wash load with dye and perfume free detergent (free and clear) then dry them in the drier with air only. Microfiber towels should be washes separately with no fabric softener and very low to no heat. If the car is really dirty I will go to a DIY wash place and use the high pressure rinse to get most of the grime off first. It only takes a few minutes and doesn't cost much but then I do my rinseless wash as described. Sometimes you can even bring your buckets and stuff and do your rinseless wash in the DIY bay if it's not to busy and the place allows it.
This is just what I do for my car and it works well for me. At the end of the day, do what you want. And have fun.
Ride 92's advice is spot on!!! I use a similar method with UWW+ as after years of using ONR found UWW+ to add more lubicity. I use a grout sponge inserted into a square MF mitt--this allows me to use as many mitts as I need depending on how dirty the car is and allows me to just throw them in the washer with the other MF towels when I'm done. The grout sponge in the mitt allows me to control how much solution I want to use on each section depending on how dirty it is.
It's important to keep Mazda paint as scratch/swirl free as possible so that you don't have to polish/compound the paint very often as Mazda paint is known to be notoriously thin by pro detailers.
It's important to keep Mazda paint as scratch/swirl free as possible so that you don't have to polish/compound the paint very often as Mazda paint is known to be notoriously thin by pro detailers.
It may be thin but it's also notoriously tough compared to the 1980's when they liberally slathered cheap paint on American cars. Not only did it add pounds of unnecessary weight, but it commonly chipped and faded shockingly quickly. The Mazda polyurethane enamel is state of the art and is very fade/chip resistant relative to that thick crap from yesteryear.
Compared to other modern paints that offer the same fade/chip resistance Mazda paint is thin. I only point this out to emphasize the importance of trying to avoid swirls and scratches. When you compound/polish the paint it removes clear coat and the more you have to do this the greater the chance of inducing clear coat failure. If the paint used is applied thicker it reduces this problem and the paint on most modern cars is thicker than Mazda's.
It depends on how much dirt is on the car. Waterless is OK for lite soil, dust, fingerprints basically when the car hasn't been in the rain-just make sure you use allot of product. Waterless is OK for a moderately dirty car, but I avoid it if the car is covered in gritty/sandy dirt--again important to use allot of product to encapsulate the dirt. Optimum No Rinse (ONR) was one of the first rinseless washes and is still one of the best--I used it for years until I tried a sample of Ultima Waterless Wash + (UWW+)--I find it to add more lubricity to the solution and leaves behind some nice shine. When the car is really dirty and covered with road salt/sand etc from winter driving I try to do a standard full wash or at the very least pressure wash the car before doing a rinseless wash. UWW+ comes as a concentrate and you can mix it as a waterless wash or a rinseless wash. Make sure to use high quality, long nap microfiber towels or mitt for either type of wash and dry.
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The Rag Company has excellent quality Micro Fiber products for reasonable prices and free shipping if you spend $40. http://www.theragcompany.com/detailing/
For a rinseless wash the Magic Mitt is great (get a few so you can change if they get too soiled during a wash) or the Eagle Towels if you don't want a mitt or for waterless washes (again get a few). The Pluffle drying towels are excellent.
Keep in mind a poor quality MF towel or mitt can instill swirls in your paint. Wash MFs before using. Dry on low heat. Never use softner or softner sheets.
