*** The Car Cleaning Thread ***

Status
Not open for further replies.
Me earlier this week...

infomercial-car-washing-fail.gif
 
I found the snow foam made washing the car much easier. After leaving it to dwell, it could have been rinsed and would have appeared clean enough to most people. Then a quick going over with the wash mitt was all it needed.

It's also much more thorough if you're a bit lazy like me - I often step back from the car and find I've forgotten to wash nooks and crannies - behind/under the wing mirrors, along the front splitter, inside wheel arches, etc. With snow foam, the entire car will gets covered so even if I do miss spots like this, they are still pretty clean.

Mainly though, it's just bloody good fun.
 
Last edited:
Microfibre cloths - is it worth buying decent branded ones, or will cheap ones be just as good these days?
 
Duke said:
You still need to wash the car. Think I've used my snow foam twice since having it, waste of money really.
Click to expand...

I live in the country and I find a good snow foam vital. It's far cleaner before I even touch it with my mit.

Ran out of snow foam a few weeks ago and the amount of dirt left on my car after a good power hose is scary.

Now am sure a good pressure bottle spry prewash would be as good but that's a different debate :D
 
I can't really see how it can be 'vital'. I can see how it might be desireable or useful but its not vital. I've never used it and my car is perfectly clean after I've washed it.
 
Most of the time the key to getting mud off is soaking it first. I don't use snow foam however my wife works at a Nursery attached to a farm. Her car is often covered in mud on the lower half.

I just dampen it with water from the hose first, leave it a couple of minutes and then blast it off. Probably not as effective as Snowfoam but its good enough for me.
 
[TW]Fox;24864565 said:
I can't really see how it can be 'vital'. I can see how it might be desireable or useful but its not vital. I've never used it and my car is perfectly clean after I've washed it.
Click to expand...

That I don't doubt but after the damaged I have inflicted onto my car paintwork last year washing with a sponge :o Then spending time and money learning how to repair and stop it happening again.

The less dirt on my car before I touch it the better.
 
First time EP801 Rotary user. Before and after using the white pad and Sonax perfect finish, I started off on Speed 1 with 3-4 left to right passes and continued until dissolving then went up to maximum of speed 3 for another 3-4 passes then finally back to speed 1 for 2 more left-right passes. The hardest part was driving the rotary in the direction i wanted it to go, rather than it driving me :)
Only managed 2 doors after the snowfoam, and shampoo tired me out, but could still not remove the scratch completely after 3 passes with polish . Any ideas ?

Scratch Before
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kkq1ixzvnuhbdw/20130901_140346.jpg

Scratch After
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kltv4o1i0hl3i9h/20130901_140359.jpg

Door before
https://www.dropbox.com/s/922oxhrh4fx0hcf/20130901_131941.jpg
Door After
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ql939oo6weokf63/20130901_140353.jpg
 
Right bear with me (and don't laugh :p) here as I am an utter noob when it comes to car cleaning/detailing but I'm reading up on the subject a lot at the moment and trying to understand how things are done.

I've had my car about three weeks now and the dealer did a "full body buff" before I took ownership.

I used my pressure washer yesterday to clean the car and noticed water beads all over the car.

Today I've just read that you can tell when a car is waxed because the water will bead instead of streak. So I guess I'm right in assuming that the paint work has indeed been waxed and sealed. I've also read that the generally recommended time frame in between waxes is four months.

My question is (assuming all of the above makes sense to you?) how do I wash the car in between waxes - do I just wash and polish everytime I wash the car and then wax every 4 months ?
 
Don't polish if you are not going to wax, polish takes off the wax, if you polish, you need to wax.

Just wash with 2 bucket method between washes, or snow foam and then wash. or just snow foam.

And clay bar once a year.
 
Bought some new wheels for my Smart as the current ones have got tyres ready for replacing and I want to put winter tyres on them so figured I'd buy another set with tyres already on as it seemed the cheapest way round (and I don't have to buy winter tyres just yet).

This meant I could give the old wheels a decent clean before getting them re-shod with winters :)

Before -
wheelclean1.jpg


Quick general wash and wheel cleaner applied, agitated with a fairly stiff brush -
wheelclean3.jpg


Rinsed -
wheelclean4.jpg


Gave them a quick bash with some old used clay, no point using fresh clay on wheel insides IMO -
wheelclean5.jpg


One last wash, and dry :)
wheelclean7.jpg


Not perfect but pretty decent - what do people find is the best way to get off the last tar spots?
 
Raymond Lin said:
Don't polish if you are not going to wax, polish takes off the wax, if you polish, you need to wax.

Just wash with 2 bucket method between washes, or snow foam and then wash. or just snow foam.

And clay bar once a year.
Click to expand...

Ok brilliant thanks. The basic turtle wax car shampoo I have says it doesn't remove the wax so I will use this and not polish until I come around to waxing.
 
Lol - a touch of copy and paste fail.

I had some autoglym tar remover which works great on paintwork - but I tried it on a small section of one of the wheels and it did absolutely nothing! Might try the tardis as it looks pretty strong stuff!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom