I'm now a believer! There's no going back. I'm forever changed.... LOL
First of all, here's a pic of the product itself for other fellow Newbies that are inevitably going to ask "WTF is QEW?".
Here's what I did last night:
Supplies:
1) Bucket #1 ~ 1 gal of warm water, 2 capfuls (1oz) of QEW, ~1oz of Meg's Quik Detailer
2) Bucket #2 - ~2 gal of warm water
3) sprayer - 16oz of water, ~0.5 capful of QEW
4) wash media - one of my 16x16 microfibre cloths
5) dry media - one of my new Waffle-Weave microfibre towels
Method:
- starting from the top of the car, I did the roof first, then the windows and pillars, then hood, then the rear truck/deck lid, then the fascia, bumper, upper doors, then finally the lower section of doors (the bottom 4-6 inches plus rocker panels), and wheels
- I gave each section a misting with the sprayer first before I washed it (a tip I picked up from fellow Autopians, but seems like an optional step).
- each section gets dried before moving on to wash the next.
- for the majority of the car, the wash water stayed relatively clean while the rinse bucket got dirtier and dirtier.
- for the majority of the car, my drying towel stayed very clean (a very good sign), and these waffle-weaves work VERY well for drying (my first time using one).
- it wasn't until I got to the lower part of the doors and rocker panels where everything started to get dirty (particularly the driver side). I could've stopped before this, but was in the curious/experiementing mood and just felt like putting the QEW through an agressive test. The wash cloth got very dirty (as expected), even the wash water started getting a bit dirty, and the drying towel got a tad dirty too (not sure if that was from the panel surface I washed, or from maybe accidentally brushing up against the underside of the rockerpanel a bit which still had some snow/sand/ice, etc. on the bottom.
Results:
- awesome! The car looks fantastic. (sorry no pics)
- No water spots, no water dripping from seams, etc. The car was so easy to dry after (each section at a time).
- My lighting in my garage was decent enough, I could detect no added swirls, scratches or towel marks from the process (but the REAL test of this will be when I get a chance to work the car in the spring first, with a PC, to try to make the car relatively swirl-free or greatly reduced, and then see if there's a before/after difference with QEW).
- the whole process took ~ 1 hr, including doing the wheels (but that time estimate may have included my setup time). It would probably go much quicker next time. I opted not to do doorjambs and tires (and dressing them) last night, I was getting tired and hungry and decided to stop and have dinner after I did the car and wheels.
- setup and cleanup was much easier than my conventional driveway wash (unravelling/untangling and moving a 50ft rubber hose out to the front of the house, etc.)
- the 2nd bucket, the sprayer, and a bit of QD mixed in the wash mix were all innovations I picked up from fellow Autopians here (thanks guys!), not part of ProtectAll's instructions. Some of that may just be for extra safety margin. Some may be peace of mind. The 2-bucket method is definately a good idea in my opinion (it was very obvious it was keeping the majority of the dirt out of the wash water). Using the sprayer may be just for peace of mind, but certainly can't hurt especially on a really dirty panel. The ounce of quick detailer mixed in with the qew wash - not sure about that one, whether it did anything or not. I think it was suggested that it helped with the dring process and maybe it improved the final shine a bit. *shrug* Maybe I'll try the QEW without the QD next time just to see the difference.
- put my MF cloth & WW towel in the wash immediately after. The WW is good as new! And the MF came out fairly well. It was really dirty, and so it has a bit of that dirty stain on the cloth now (noticeable when wet, but very faint/hard to see when dry). I'll probably keep that one in dirty wash duty now, and not use in polishing/buffing duty from now on.
All in all, I'd say the test was a very nice success! Next time I think I'll stick to my original thought of doing this when the car has just prior been wand-washed to get the car mostly clean. I think it was wednesday last week that I last washed the car, it was mostly clean except the bottom part of the doors and rockerpanels. While the QEW seemed to handled that alright, I didn't like getting my MF cloth so dirty.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed with QEW. And I wanted to say thanks to Autopia and its members for sharing the knowledge!
:xyxthumbs
P.S. And I also wanted to thank Ranney for the awesome Pakshak MF products. His WW towel is amazing, and I'm very happy with the other MFs as well!
First of all, here's a pic of the product itself for other fellow Newbies that are inevitably going to ask "WTF is QEW?".
Here's what I did last night:
Supplies:
1) Bucket #1 ~ 1 gal of warm water, 2 capfuls (1oz) of QEW, ~1oz of Meg's Quik Detailer
2) Bucket #2 - ~2 gal of warm water
3) sprayer - 16oz of water, ~0.5 capful of QEW
4) wash media - one of my 16x16 microfibre cloths
5) dry media - one of my new Waffle-Weave microfibre towels
Method:
- starting from the top of the car, I did the roof first, then the windows and pillars, then hood, then the rear truck/deck lid, then the fascia, bumper, upper doors, then finally the lower section of doors (the bottom 4-6 inches plus rocker panels), and wheels
- I gave each section a misting with the sprayer first before I washed it (a tip I picked up from fellow Autopians, but seems like an optional step).
- each section gets dried before moving on to wash the next.
- for the majority of the car, the wash water stayed relatively clean while the rinse bucket got dirtier and dirtier.
- for the majority of the car, my drying towel stayed very clean (a very good sign), and these waffle-weaves work VERY well for drying (my first time using one).
- it wasn't until I got to the lower part of the doors and rocker panels where everything started to get dirty (particularly the driver side). I could've stopped before this, but was in the curious/experiementing mood and just felt like putting the QEW through an agressive test. The wash cloth got very dirty (as expected), even the wash water started getting a bit dirty, and the drying towel got a tad dirty too (not sure if that was from the panel surface I washed, or from maybe accidentally brushing up against the underside of the rockerpanel a bit which still had some snow/sand/ice, etc. on the bottom.
Results:
- awesome! The car looks fantastic. (sorry no pics)
- No water spots, no water dripping from seams, etc. The car was so easy to dry after (each section at a time).
- My lighting in my garage was decent enough, I could detect no added swirls, scratches or towel marks from the process (but the REAL test of this will be when I get a chance to work the car in the spring first, with a PC, to try to make the car relatively swirl-free or greatly reduced, and then see if there's a before/after difference with QEW).
- the whole process took ~ 1 hr, including doing the wheels (but that time estimate may have included my setup time). It would probably go much quicker next time. I opted not to do doorjambs and tires (and dressing them) last night, I was getting tired and hungry and decided to stop and have dinner after I did the car and wheels.
- setup and cleanup was much easier than my conventional driveway wash (unravelling/untangling and moving a 50ft rubber hose out to the front of the house, etc.)
- the 2nd bucket, the sprayer, and a bit of QD mixed in the wash mix were all innovations I picked up from fellow Autopians here (thanks guys!), not part of ProtectAll's instructions. Some of that may just be for extra safety margin. Some may be peace of mind. The 2-bucket method is definately a good idea in my opinion (it was very obvious it was keeping the majority of the dirt out of the wash water). Using the sprayer may be just for peace of mind, but certainly can't hurt especially on a really dirty panel. The ounce of quick detailer mixed in with the qew wash - not sure about that one, whether it did anything or not. I think it was suggested that it helped with the dring process and maybe it improved the final shine a bit. *shrug* Maybe I'll try the QEW without the QD next time just to see the difference.
- put my MF cloth & WW towel in the wash immediately after. The WW is good as new! And the MF came out fairly well. It was really dirty, and so it has a bit of that dirty stain on the cloth now (noticeable when wet, but very faint/hard to see when dry). I'll probably keep that one in dirty wash duty now, and not use in polishing/buffing duty from now on.
All in all, I'd say the test was a very nice success! Next time I think I'll stick to my original thought of doing this when the car has just prior been wand-washed to get the car mostly clean. I think it was wednesday last week that I last washed the car, it was mostly clean except the bottom part of the doors and rockerpanels. While the QEW seemed to handled that alright, I didn't like getting my MF cloth so dirty.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed with QEW. And I wanted to say thanks to Autopia and its members for sharing the knowledge!
:xyxthumbs
P.S. And I also wanted to thank Ranney for the awesome Pakshak MF products. His WW towel is amazing, and I'm very happy with the other MFs as well!
)
