Car washes easier and dries longer after detailing — normal?

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DougNew

New member
I just finished my new car's first full detailing last week. After its regular washing this week, I noticed the car seemed significantly easier to clean (dirt and debris — what little there was — whisked right off under the wash-mit), but there seemed to be much more water to remove come drying time (had to use two Big Blue MF towels rather than the usual one).



Is this stuff sounding normal?
 
It's definitely easier to wash after a detail, that's for sure. Hardly need to use soap if you wash often enough. As for the drying, are you sure you're using the right drying technique? As you'll read on these forums, the best way to dry is to get the maximum amount of water off as possible before touching with a towel. The best way to do this is to make the water sheet off of the paint. Here's a quote from the Perfect Drying Technique post



Take the nozzle off the hose. Let it pour over the top. You will see the water sheet off. Move the hose down to "feed" the sheet as it flows down the car - this will keep the sheet wide and it will carry away more water that way. (i.e., feed the wet part, not the dry part.) This gets rid of about 90% of the water.
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This works wonders, especially on a newly detailed car, on which it is (or should be) very easy to sheet most of the water off.



HTH.



What did your full detail consist of? Just curious to see what materials you used, and how you felt about them.



-tslugmo
 
tslugmo said:
What did your full detail consist of? Just curious to see what materials you used, and how you felt about them.
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Greetings and thanks for the reminder about water removal (had read it before but forgot to try it).



My detail consisted of:



A full Dawn wash for cleaning and stripping (did a fairly good job of both, but didn't blow me away as a wax-stripper, and I'm still thinking that a product intended for this use, like ABC, Prepsol, or Total Auto Wash might be better and safer).



Clayed with Clay Magic's Blue, a great product that delivers what its supposed to. I had some fairly stubborn tree-sap spots and the clay popped many of them clean off. Used a solution of Meguiar's Gold Class and Arrowhead water (1:15 mixture) as the clay lube.



Sprayed 3M General Adhesive and Tar Remover on the remaining tree-sap, but failed to remove it. (In retrospect, I don't think this was a failure of the product but rather of my technique. Subsequent searching here indicated that I should have inundated cotton-balls with the stuff and individually pressed them onto each spot of sap and allowed them to sit for 5-10 minutes before wiping away. I tried this on one days after I'd finished the detailing and it worked.)



Washed again with Meguiar's Gold Class.



Put a Lake Country Mfg. Yellow pad on my Porter Cable random orbital and did a run with Meguair's Body Shop Professional Dual Action Cleaner Polish. Good product but probably overkill on a freshly clayed car that's only three months old.



Switched to a Lake Country White pad and did a PC run with P21S's Paint Cleansing Lotion. Loved this product. Gentle, smooth, great shine afterwards. Prefectly prepped car for waxing.



Applied P21S wax by hand to the entire car. Great stuff, deserves all the kudos people give it. Wipes on and off unbelievable easily, looks great, and offers excellent protection. Yes, it probably needs to be reapplied more often than many waxes, but application is so easy I don't really mind.



Now I have to decide if I want to undo all my good work to get at those last few spots of tree-sap…
 
ya, the nozzle off hose, works to get 80-90 percent of the water off

then go over with MF

QD afterwards!



= PERFECT RESULTS!
 
I really like it for removing excess water from the horizontal surfaces.



Your carnauba is beading more and leaving more water on the surface.
 
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