*** The Car Cleaning Thread ***

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ok, this is going to sound stupid...

I have never and i mean never cleaned any of my cars inside, and the outside gets 1 wash a year at the jet wash to wash salt etc off usually in march or april.

So, as you can probably imagine my car isnt the cleanest/nicest smelling place to be in the world, dont get me wrong its not scummy or anything, just definitely not immaculate.

I quite fancy having a bash at bringing the interior up to scratch and making the whole cabin smell half decent, so what products would you recommend, im not going to spend a fortune, maybe a multipurpose cleaner with a long lasting fresh smell?

I know i am asking a lot here :D
 
Watch out for the cheaper Karchers, the 4m hose is a real pain, the more expensive models have 6m hose.

I would have a look at Nilfisk, always get recommended on DW.
 
Its ok now.

I started a thread on this subject, was pointed to argos for the nilfisk C120 for £78 inc delivery.
 
zootfloot said:
Ok, this is going to sound stupid...

I have never and i mean never cleaned any of my cars inside, and the outside gets 1 wash a year at the jet wash to wash salt etc off usually in march or april.

So, as you can probably imagine my car isnt the cleanest/nicest smelling place to be in the world, dont get me wrong its not scummy or anything, just definitely not immaculate.

I quite fancy having a bash at bringing the interior up to scratch and making the whole cabin smell half decent, so what products would you recommend, im not going to spend a fortune, maybe a multipurpose cleaner with a long lasting fresh smell?

I know i am asking a lot here :D
Click to expand...

Personally I wouldnt try to fill the inside with air fresheners or scents of cleaning stuff. It'll only smell bad if there's something bad smelling in there - so get rid of it and it should just smell like....a car!
 
No pics I am afraid but I used a healthy dollop of Chemical Guys - XXX Hardcore Paste Wax today, the beading is really good.

Recommend it to anyone for the price, so easy to apply and buff.
 
Ricochet J said:
Curious question: how does one use a Karcher if one lives in a flat?
Click to expand...

Can you get a hose outside? No hose means no pressure washer lol.

Edit - thinking about it I'm sure you can use a large container of water, maybe not all pressure washers can do this though.
 
Last edited:
What a day. Started cleaning my car 8am this morning, put my kit away 8ish. 12 hours and I still haven't finished. Used my DAS-6 Dual Action Polisher for the first time, a cracking little machine. It made life a lot easier. Tomorrow, I'm going to pop a few more layers of Dodo Juice - Orange Crush. Anyone who has a bright car (Yellow, Red, etc) buy this stuff. It makes the colour look so deep it literally "pops out".
 
Ricochet J said:
Curious question: how does one use a Karcher if one lives in a flat?
Click to expand...

if you can get electric out there, you can get an adaptor for a karcher that enables it to suck water from a large bucket or alternatively a tap if you can feed a hosepipe out the window.

Have a look for an Hozelock Indoor Round Tap Connector or similar. Just attach to the end of the hozepipe and plug into your kitchen tap. Then drop the pipe out the window
 
I spent the better part of 6 hours yesterday cleaning, claying, polishing and waxing the 540i for the first time since I bought it, had a day free and it was nice enough for a change. Looks much better now, I'll take some pictures a bit later but I need to do the inside today and polish the glass (I was too tired to do that yesterday and I was losing the light)

Anyway to the point, I need some advice on removing what I think is super-glue from my boot lid.

The story is as follows; I removed my 540i badge, several people at the Hampshire meet noticed it was starting to come off on it's own, so I removed it, most of it was stuck down with those soft stick pads that just peel of with no worries ...however to my extreme frustration and annoyance it seems the previous owner had chosen to stick bits of it which probably start lifting in the past, down with what I can only think is ruddy super-glue, so now I have 3 chunks of rock hard glue, one of which has some bits of dark coloured sticky-pad baked into the top stuck on the back of my car and I can not get them off. I want to leave the badge off as I think it looks better so I can't hide them with it ..besides it would stick flat with them there.

I tried copious amounts of Meguires Bug and Tar remover and a lot of elbow grease, inlcuding trying to carefully chisel it off with a hard plastic ice-scraper I have ...all I really succeeded in doing was shredding the edge of the scraper :(

So I tried some 'sticky stuff remover' meant for the home but ok for painted surfaces that my Mum had, that didn't work either, on her suggestion I also tried some neat Fair Liquid ...no joy.

I tried all this and clay and it had car shampoo and all sorts on it at various points yesterday.

I really want to get this nasty stuff off but I'm out of ideas, short of taking something metal to it and quite literally chiselling it off ...but I can't do that without seriously screwing up my paint. Any ideas ?

I had never clayed a car before this, it's really good stuff, I used 2 whole blocks in the end and probably about out 2/7ths of a bottle of Dodo Juice clay-lube there was so much crud on the paintwork, ingrained in ...this is what really took a long time, that and then using paint cleaner, polish and wax ...that's a lot of work for 2 hands ...and a lot of crouching and leaning, giving me aches in places I didn't know could ache so much.
 
Last edited:
I could give it a try I guess, I need to get a new soldering iron anyway, my old one stopped working a long while back.

I was hoping someone would know of a magic compound I could use that wont strip my paint off. I know a few things that would no doubt shift it, but they would also damage my paint.
 
just an update for anyone looking for a decent pressure washer.

after plenty of recommendation, I purchased the Nilfisk C120.2, I have used it so far to do the patio slabs, driveway, windows, gutters, anything really.

its got plenty of power for those jobs, a good range of accessories are avalible for it.

really happy.
 
Arhh I am having some success with Loctite Glue Remover, I'm having to apply,. leave for 30 minutes and wipe and then do over to get rid of it all but it's doing the job slowly but surely.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom