Car washing mistakes

luckydawg said:
Great point Mike

What I do now is a non-traditional 2 bucket wash

One bucket is empty & the other bucket has my soap solution with about 10 high quality MF towels. I use one MF saturated towel on a regular sized panel & then it gets squeezed out & tossed in the empty bucket-- NEVER going back into the clean wash solution.

When I am done, I take that bucket of wringed dry MF towels and fill the bucket up with clean water, slosh them up and down a bit, wring them out and immediatly put them in the wash. The leftover soap in the towels is enough to " clean " them
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Guess there is a first time for everything- Hard to believe someone would dis- like this post.
 
One of the biggest early lessons for me was taking the time to thoroughly rinse off the car. Less dirt = less opportunities for scratching. Simple. My later addition of a cheap pressure washer improved this even more.

I know those that do rinseless don't always have this luxury, but in that case you can take the time to pre-soak the panel with a spray bottle. Wetting the dirt is important for cleaning.
 
Billy Baldone said:
Cheerleaders...... Fundraising car washes by cheerleaders..... So much bad there
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Back in college, I drove by my old high school and saw a car wash fund raiser going on and thought “what the hell. Let me support my alma mater.” Well, they did a crappy job and even managed to bend my antenna. Never again. It wasn’t even cheerleaders.

I volunteered to help out with a car wash and it was too much stress and trauma seeing all the crimes against detailing being committed.
 
Carwash fundraiser for a non-profit that I help out. I gave 'em a donation, "you don't have to wash my car. GL with your fundraiser."

Win-win-win. They get the donation, you car ISN'T damaged & they can do another one in that time frame. (Plus less water & chemical waste.) And they think you're a great person for a no obligation donation! Living smarter! ;)
 
AllanS said:
Carwash fundraiser for a non-profit that I help out. I gave 'em a donation, "you don't have to wash my car. GL with your fundraiser."

Win-win-win. They get the donation, you car ISN'T damaged & they can do another one in that time frame. (Plus less water & chemical waste.) And they think you're a great person for a no obligation donation! Living smarter! ;)
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Agreed. When my Godson was in HS, he mentioned they were doing a fundraiser car wash.

I laughed, and said "No way in hell, son. But here's 20 bucks..."
 
Bill D said:
I’ve seen people using dangerous wash media such as non Boars hair brushes to clean their car. They are just asking for marring with something like that.

I’ve seen people wash from bottom to top. Not a good idea unless you want to spread dirt from the dirtiest part of the car all over.

If using buckets, I’ve seen car dealer wash people never once change out their water. That’s from going from washing the wheels all the way to the rest of the car. The water was absolutely filthy.

I’ve seen people dangerously use pressure washers. Using the wrong tip and getting too close can lead to a disaster!
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What kind of tip do you need for rinsing? I have a kind of middle of laser point spray and wide spray .. is that fine? And what is the length i should be doing this... in terms of feet i guess

I do wave it back and forth so doesn't pinpoint areas (unless under wheels or wheels etc)
 
When I was 16 I had a black ‘86 Camaro.

My wash routine was to park it on the lawn in the 3pm summer sun, rinse the car down by pressing my thumb on the end of a garden hose, fill a bucket with a frothy dawn dish soap offering (allowing all the rinse water to bake onto the car as I am doing this), use a bath towel to wash the car, and a combination of a California water blade and a beach towel to dry it off.

Finishing it all off, of course, by unloading on my tires nearly an entire aerosol can of megs Hot Shine, over spraying all over my $45 dollar 15” chrome wheels.

I’ve changed my routine up as the years progressed.


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Here is what makes me cringe:

"Hi everyone, I'm new to detailing and just bought my first polisher. Saturday I am going to do a full 3-step plus sealant and wax but I'm wondering [process question]. Also I have to knock all this out in one day."
 
I’ve seen people start washing without rinsing the car off first.
Also when I see a fundraiser car wash going on I drive in hand out a donation and I get the hell out of there. If I would stay and observe one of these fundraisers I’d be typing all night.


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I saw a neighbor today washing his black SUV in the intense S. Florida sun with hose, towel and a small, shallow plastic tub with soap. Yikes!
 
Back in 2001 I bought me my first nice car. It was beater cars before that. Was an Audi S4 92' with the 5-cyl turbo engine in it. A dark blue color and was a very nice color. The condition of the paint was not good as a lot of marring and swirls. So took a day with hand polishing it and and extra layer of liquid wax from Sonax. The AIO is looking a lot like Sonax Easy Shine which AGO has. This was a good OTC combo to use get it to shine up the paint. And the car looked great for me back then.

Great product if you work by hand :)

SONAX Easy Shine, all in one polish wax

The first wash took some weeks before I could do it. It was in the late summer and I just wanted to get it clean again. We have a Turtle Wax car soap here in Sweden called Superwash. This is very effective and you don't use it in the bucket but pour out some in the foam sponge you washed your car with and on a wet paint. Think of this as like Meguiars Wash+ car soap but instead of the abrasives in it they use kerosene and white mineral oils and a couple of other chemicals in it LOL. Even if it has a little amount of wax in the TW Super Wash the paint had totaly flat water standing on it after the wash. It's very effective to desolve the road film and tar spots and tree sap and LSP LOL. So my hard work with hand polishing it and waxing it was undone in 1 wash.

Have gotten a little more knowledge about maintance now days LOL. And man what I would like to had that knowledge then. It had been awesome looking after a correction. The paint would look nice after the first wash too I think if I would have used a regualar car soap LOL. These good old memories!

And we also have a lot of lime in our waters. So drying the car was to right after the wash to take it for a drive and floor it LOL. Still got that enoying water spots but less of them when driving it dry LOL

/ Tony
 
I was at a supermarket in recent times, a guy pulls up in a vintage car near me. So I introduce myself just because...

Anyway, noticed swirls and scratches to no end.

Me: “...how do you maintain or wash your paint?”

Him: “Oh...just water.”

My wife had to help me back up from the ground.

PS:

Which part of this post is true or false?


High-End Car Detailing at Your Residence * Portsmouth, NH
 
Not drying the car!

What’s worse, drying with a crusty old bath towel that has been sitting in the garage for years, or not drying at all?
 
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