Top car washing tips are hard to find...
...but it's worth the effort as your Cars Bodywork will benefit from doing it your self correctly. Car washing Tips explained in depth, adding value to your car.
how to wash a car
Welcome to the page on car washing. Tips and techniques are shown here to make washing your auto a breeze. Hey, even prestige manufacturers such as Jaguar, Rolls Royce, B.M.W. and Ferrari actually recommend using nothing more expensive than cold water! If you have to, use the smallest amount of a car wash detergent product. Something designed for the purpose.
But remember, the more you use the sooner you'll need to rewax!
Having said all that if you're trying to remove a coat of wax before applying a polymer based product you could not have chosen more wisely - Well done!
A car wash should be done when the body work of your vehicle is cool, this, in conjunction with cool water avoids softening your cars wax layer and thinning it.
Maintaining the depth of auto wax ensures excellent protection, and ensures water beads and runs off the panel easily. It also acts as a sacrificial layer - the wax can take the punishment rather than your body work.
Your best bet is using a plain cotton cloth with fairly long fibers for the car wash, such as a washing mitt. And keep rinsing it often to avoid the grit you're removing from scratching the cars panel. Also try not to rub too hard, this will avoid fine scratch marks.
The longer fibers will allow any grit particles somewhere to go, rather than just sit on the surface of the cotton waiting to attack your cars bodywork.
Using a sponge for a care wash will tend to hold any grit picked up on its surface, with the inevitable results!
Any hard to clean areas or bird droppings should be covered with a warm damp cloth and left for several minutes until softened before wiping off. Protecting the paint from the effects of chiseling off the offending mess.
Working from the top down on a car wash allows the water to soften the dirt, and protects against dragging more grit from lower areas of the vehicle. Then you can go back and rework the previously wetted and softened area.
Here are some more great car washing tips.
All your motions should never be in a circular polishing motion, this will ensure that any fine car wash scratches will be visible from any direction that you happen to be viewing your car from.
Instead, when cleaning a horizontal surface such as a bonnet, work in a front to back motion (or fore aft, for any nautical types).
On the wings and doors work up and down, there is reason for this - any fine car wash marks your car will inevitably pick up in the course of cleaning over the years will be much harder to detect. I
ts the way the light is reflected from the panels. Take a look at your own vehicle under fluorescent light and you'll see what I mean.
Oh No, You've Got Bird Droppings!
If you see bird droppings doing a quick localized car wash is really important. You should consider bird droppings the number one enemy of your vehicles paint work. I don't know what they eat, but at certain times of the year this stuff is highly acidic and will literally burn right through your cars paint work.
On one occasion, soon after starting Chips Away, I completed a repair to this type of damage on a wing. (The panel had never had the protection of a layer of wax). I was just thinking I had finished for the day when I noticed that the evil stuff was grinning through, spoiling all my work. I actually ended up having to strip back the contaminated area right back to bare metal to remove it!
The only sure way to offer protection to your auto is to get that stuff off as soon as possible. And be careful, to add insult to injury the birds you joyfully feed in your garden every day also seem to eat grit.
So, you now have something acidic and gritty clinging tenaciously to your previously gleaming paintwork -what a wonderful combination!
Anyway we're supposed to be talking about the best car washing tips, aren't we?
more car washing tips
You've now got to remove the water if you want to avoid water marks, and I'm sure you do. To avoid using dozens of cloths the best way is to use a soft flexible vehicle squeegee to sweep the water away. It will tend to leave a fine watermark at the edges but that's easily buffed out with a cloth
To protect the paint work, do this straight away while there is still a lot of water on the panel and before any more grit gets blown onto the panel. Using lots of water will help float any loose particles. Wipe the blade on every sweep to keep it clean.
Just buff out any water left on the panel with a soft cotton cloth.
Use of a 100% natural cotton cloth will achieve the finest finish. If you have any artificial fibers mixed in with the cotton they will leave very fine scratches on the panel. These really are very fine scratches, and, if you use the local garage car wash machine you should not worry, your living with mountainous ones already!
"But how can I tell its not cotton?" I hear you say.
Well I'll tell you a secret. Please, bear with me...
About 18 years ago I was on holiday in Turkey, and on our travels we went to a bazaar selling Turkish carpets (as you do!) The chap was trying to sell me his carpet, and was keen to display the authenticity of his wares so he took out a match and set light to the carpet! (Alright, not the whole carpet!) When the flame went out, the sooty residue simply brushed away leaving a perfectly good carpet. You wouldn’t know the difference.
He then, with a look of disgust, did the same to a small area of a competitor's rug. Now, because it was made of polyester fibers it burnt with an acrid smoke, the flame melted the fibers into a black glutinous tar like blob that clung to the area and would need cutting out with a blade.
Now please, I'm not suggesting you should now try this very admirable test in any Turkish carpet bazaars (however, let me see the pictures of the chase if you do).
However. It might be a worthwhile thing to do on your car cleaning cloth! .
How do you know if you still have any wax protection on the body panel? Simple, the water will still bead on the surface.
To give yourself a reference it's a good idea to take a look at the size of the water droplets immediately after applying the wax or polish to the body panel.
After removing the major amount of water from the car wash with your squeegee use the cloth to dry up the rest, before finally buffing the panel. If you've previously applied a wax or polish product, that's all that's required. I hope you have enjoyed these car washing tips, if you have any tips yourself, we would be delighted to hear them.
After all, if you've waxed, you've already done the hard work. A car wash will only involve pointing a hose at the vehicle And the trick is to maintain that protection for as long as possible
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