Common topic I know - but remains difficult to sort out for me, and I feel I've read every thread on the internet about this.
I have a new car I bought this spring and have an interest in keeping it nice; not perfect, no illusions about that, but looking great and better than most. I’ve made some mistakes early on due to insufficient knowledge (like waiting a few weeks to clean off bird droppings - oops!). I started with Meg’s products a few months ago and since have accumulated a fair amount of optimum products (car wax, poli-seal, opti-seal, ONR, tire gel, power clean) as well.
Here’s my plan (and questions):
Washing/drying towels: Due to living in an apartment, I’ll be doing mostly rinse-less washes (ONRWS and ONR wash and wax).
I don’t see the point in washing my wash/drying towels separately as they will both be exposed to the same conditions (ONR, ONRWW) at the same stage in the car care process, although obviously my wash towels will be dirtier and hopefully minimal dirt will be on the drying towels.
I will plan on washing my car about once/week except if it’s too cold (in NC so not that often), so I plan on saving my towels up for about 3-4 weeks and washing in one load
Thoughts?
Glass (and interior?) towels: Most of what I’ve read says to wash glass MF towels separately to prevent streaking on glass. However, to avoid too many small loads (I only maintain my car), I was considering washing glass towels with my interior towels, not including nasty door jamb towels, but mostly dash and leather seat maintenance towels. There shouldn’t be any sealant type stuff on my interior towels which is why I feel it should be safe to wash them with glass towels (both are non-paint as well)
Thoughts on this?
*I’ve heard dash dressing can be nasty stuff (I have Meg’s ultimate interior protectant), so I may just do this every once in awhile and either hand-wash these or use disposable 25 cent cotton rags;
*For the most part, I’ll keep the dash maintained with a simple product like Meg’s quick interior detailer (don’t really see much need for shine, just clean and minimal dust)
Compound/polish/wax towels:
Here’s my plan:
Compound/polish about once a year as needed, using light polish (Meg’s ultimate polish) a little more often if need be.
Wax/sealant about every 3-4 months; if not polishing, I’ll be using p21s paintwork cleaner or similar (as least abrasive as possible) to prep before LSP.
I currently have 6 compound/polish towels and 6 wax/sealant towels, using roughly 2 towels for each stage (paintwork cleaning, polishing or waxing); towels are all Meg’s supreme shine, and will cut one corner off the polish towels to keep them separate.
So…
I’ve read to ideally wash water soluble towels (polish/compound) separate from water insoluble towels (sealant/wax); however, for me, this could mean waiting 6 months to accumulate 6 towels of either category before washing, and 6 towels is a pretty small washer load anyway.
I feel that if I’m only doing some sort of compound/polish/wax no more often than every 3 months, to just wash all of these polish/wax towels together as soon as I’m finished (same day); my polish and wax towels will look different so I won’t be mixing them up, but I suppose there’s a possibility of “transfer of LSP” to the polish towels, and I’ve also read the reverse, that having residual polish in my LSP towels could cause marring of the paint - help?? If the wash process (I have chemical guys MF cleaner) works well, this all shouldn’t be much if any of an issue right?
To further confuse things, for those that separate polish/wax MF towels for one reason or another, what do you do when you use an AIO? I have poli-seal I may try a few times primarily on other cars (second car, friends, family); the same buffing towel will obviously be exposed to a substance that is a polish and a sealant.
Finally, for those that are insistent on keeping polish/wax towels separate, do YOU think it’s ok to wait 3-6 months to wash those separately so I’m at least doing a load of 6 instead of 2-3 towels? I feel it’s either wash polish/wax towels together after I’m done sealing the car, or wait a number of months until all 6 of either category has been used up and then wash.
(I don’t feel like buying more polish/wax towels for as infrequently I’ll be using them - I already have bought over 50 towels in the past few months including 24 for rinse-less washing, 12 for polish/wax, 4-5 drying, 4-5 glass towels, 8-10 interior towels (dollar store), 8 or so wheel/tire towels).
Thoughts?
Wheel/tire towels:
I will probably hand-wash these due to the thought of nasty brake dust and such in my washer.
Who all washes wheel towels in the washer?
Maybe add nasty door jamb towels to this hand-wash group
I probably won’t clean the engine bay all that often (all covered in plastic anyway), and with no access to a power washer, I will probably wipe down the engine bay a few times a year with APC and disposable cotton shop towels
So even after trying to combine load types I’m still at 4; I feel like this is too many for a weekend guy just maintaining my own car and occasionally helping someone else out, but after learning so much on here, I can’t seem to be OK with having 1 or 2 load types. Of course if I was confident the MF detergent and washing process overall was doing an excellent job I guess I’d be ok with throwing everything in together.
Sorry for the lengthy post on a topic that comes up often - thanks for reading this far!
I have a new car I bought this spring and have an interest in keeping it nice; not perfect, no illusions about that, but looking great and better than most. I’ve made some mistakes early on due to insufficient knowledge (like waiting a few weeks to clean off bird droppings - oops!). I started with Meg’s products a few months ago and since have accumulated a fair amount of optimum products (car wax, poli-seal, opti-seal, ONR, tire gel, power clean) as well.
Here’s my plan (and questions):
Washing/drying towels: Due to living in an apartment, I’ll be doing mostly rinse-less washes (ONRWS and ONR wash and wax).
I don’t see the point in washing my wash/drying towels separately as they will both be exposed to the same conditions (ONR, ONRWW) at the same stage in the car care process, although obviously my wash towels will be dirtier and hopefully minimal dirt will be on the drying towels.
I will plan on washing my car about once/week except if it’s too cold (in NC so not that often), so I plan on saving my towels up for about 3-4 weeks and washing in one load
Thoughts?
Glass (and interior?) towels: Most of what I’ve read says to wash glass MF towels separately to prevent streaking on glass. However, to avoid too many small loads (I only maintain my car), I was considering washing glass towels with my interior towels, not including nasty door jamb towels, but mostly dash and leather seat maintenance towels. There shouldn’t be any sealant type stuff on my interior towels which is why I feel it should be safe to wash them with glass towels (both are non-paint as well)
Thoughts on this?
*I’ve heard dash dressing can be nasty stuff (I have Meg’s ultimate interior protectant), so I may just do this every once in awhile and either hand-wash these or use disposable 25 cent cotton rags;
*For the most part, I’ll keep the dash maintained with a simple product like Meg’s quick interior detailer (don’t really see much need for shine, just clean and minimal dust)
Compound/polish/wax towels:
Here’s my plan:
Compound/polish about once a year as needed, using light polish (Meg’s ultimate polish) a little more often if need be.
Wax/sealant about every 3-4 months; if not polishing, I’ll be using p21s paintwork cleaner or similar (as least abrasive as possible) to prep before LSP.
I currently have 6 compound/polish towels and 6 wax/sealant towels, using roughly 2 towels for each stage (paintwork cleaning, polishing or waxing); towels are all Meg’s supreme shine, and will cut one corner off the polish towels to keep them separate.
So…
I’ve read to ideally wash water soluble towels (polish/compound) separate from water insoluble towels (sealant/wax); however, for me, this could mean waiting 6 months to accumulate 6 towels of either category before washing, and 6 towels is a pretty small washer load anyway.
I feel that if I’m only doing some sort of compound/polish/wax no more often than every 3 months, to just wash all of these polish/wax towels together as soon as I’m finished (same day); my polish and wax towels will look different so I won’t be mixing them up, but I suppose there’s a possibility of “transfer of LSP” to the polish towels, and I’ve also read the reverse, that having residual polish in my LSP towels could cause marring of the paint - help?? If the wash process (I have chemical guys MF cleaner) works well, this all shouldn’t be much if any of an issue right?
To further confuse things, for those that separate polish/wax MF towels for one reason or another, what do you do when you use an AIO? I have poli-seal I may try a few times primarily on other cars (second car, friends, family); the same buffing towel will obviously be exposed to a substance that is a polish and a sealant.
Finally, for those that are insistent on keeping polish/wax towels separate, do YOU think it’s ok to wait 3-6 months to wash those separately so I’m at least doing a load of 6 instead of 2-3 towels? I feel it’s either wash polish/wax towels together after I’m done sealing the car, or wait a number of months until all 6 of either category has been used up and then wash.
(I don’t feel like buying more polish/wax towels for as infrequently I’ll be using them - I already have bought over 50 towels in the past few months including 24 for rinse-less washing, 12 for polish/wax, 4-5 drying, 4-5 glass towels, 8-10 interior towels (dollar store), 8 or so wheel/tire towels).
Thoughts?
Wheel/tire towels:
I will probably hand-wash these due to the thought of nasty brake dust and such in my washer.
Who all washes wheel towels in the washer?
Maybe add nasty door jamb towels to this hand-wash group
I probably won’t clean the engine bay all that often (all covered in plastic anyway), and with no access to a power washer, I will probably wipe down the engine bay a few times a year with APC and disposable cotton shop towels
So even after trying to combine load types I’m still at 4; I feel like this is too many for a weekend guy just maintaining my own car and occasionally helping someone else out, but after learning so much on here, I can’t seem to be OK with having 1 or 2 load types. Of course if I was confident the MF detergent and washing process overall was doing an excellent job I guess I’d be ok with throwing everything in together.
Sorry for the lengthy post on a topic that comes up often - thanks for reading this far!
