Safest possible way to wash & dry a car???

David Fermani

David Fermani

Forza Auto Salon
Just for fun I thought I'd throw up this thread to see what you think would be the safest way to wash & dry your car. Autopia is the place for over the top detailing practices, so lets see what you think is the no holds barred approach to the safest possible way to wash/dry your car......
 
For washing

A two bucket method will likely always be safer, but I mostly like using a foam cannon to knock off bigger pieces and it makes me at least think that the foaming loosens up dirt, then I usually move on to a rinseless wash. If I wanted to be even safer I supposed I could use an additional foam gun step prior to the rinseless step. The two bucket method over the entire car just leaves too much time between washing and drying and water spotting forms too quickly.

For drying.

From my experience it's dependent on water condition. If low dissolved solids then forced air followed by a simple wipe down to clean up remaining drops works fine. In Vegas the dissolved solids are so high that using air still leaves water spotting even with the minor amount of water left on the surface. So I sheet as much as possible then use a spritz of UWW followed by a main drying towel like the Microfiber Madness Dry Me Crazy followed behind by a simple buff with a regular microfiber towel something similar to a 530gsm.
 
WASH: Chenille wash mitt/Foam Gun method (2BucketMethod) using CarPro Reset
DRYING: DP Car Dryer blower w/Microfiber Madness Dry Me Crazy for residual water
 
Foam cannon, followed by 10 minute dwell as foam breaks

Rinse with pressure washer. Or hose

Proper 2 bucket wash with real lamb skin mitt

Dried with 8hp master blaster and drips caught with quality mf drying towel.
 
In my experience, most people over think and over do their wash. If you put soap on a car with a dispenser, a foam gun, garden sprayer or whatever, let that sit on the top surfaces while you do the wheels and below the belt line, then just rinse the top with a good hard spray of water, the only thing that should be left on the top is maybe some bug spots. Then, just use a nice plush and slightly damp microfiber towel to dry from the top down, one quick pass to get the majority of the water off, then blow out the cracks and door jams etc. with a master blaster, the rinse out the microfiber tower and wring it out and go over the car again and there shouldn't be any marring to speak of. Oh yeah, the bug dropping should have come off in the first pass with the drying towel.

If the car is truly corrected and sealed before you use this method you'll be fine. If on the other hand you just fill and glazed your car, the scratches you filled and glazed will re-emerge - it looks like you marred your car, but really, you just never had it right in the first place.

Robert
 
I always pressure wash before touching paint. Doesn't matter if I'm doing rinseless, 2BM, or waterless. I just makes no sense to me to wipe dirt off paint you can you can rinse off.

IMHO, this is the single most important step. These days I usually do GDWM after pressure washing.
 
Pressure wash the wheels. Wash the wheels. Pressure wash the car. Foam the car, let dwell, pressure wash the foam off. Followed by a two bucket method wash.
To dry use the water sheeting method, then electric leaf blower to get the rest of the water off.
 
Bill D said:
Accumulators non marring foam gun washing technique
Click to expand...

Now including an initial rinse-off with a cheapie pressure washer, and also often incorporating a rinseless wash for the (newly-added) final step!


Heh heh, yeah....oughta find the time to post something about it on this thread.

Single best tip I'd pass along to *anybody* (not just people who'll go overboard the way I do) is to move the wash medium in short, interrupted, "jiggling" motions to avoid getting any long, arcing scratches when the seemingly inevitable marring does occur.
 
WhyteWizard said:
In my experience, most people over think and over do their wash. If you .....there shouldn't be any marring to speak of...
Click to expand...

I, OTOH, have to overthink/overkill the whole thing lest I get marring. I find that avoiding wash-induced marring and the need for correction to be extremely challenging even on hard clear. I'm not the dullest tool in the shed, but it's taken me decades to get my wash regimen sorted out and I'm *still* finding ways to improve it.

If what somebody's doing is satisfactory *to them*, then that's that in my book, so I'm not being critical....
 
The best take-away I've had so far is the avoidance of long wipes, per Accumulator. After high pressure rinse, I have started "dabbing" a heavily foamed mit up and down on the surface, gently, with NO wiping. I then rinse this, and as the car gets cleaner, I'll start to wipe a bit more.

So to answer the OP's question, IMO, the safest method to wash a car is to avoid dragging dirt across the paint. The safest way to dry a car is a combination of flooding then blow drying, although I rarely use the blower, because I think people are judging me and think I'm vain. But that a WHOLE NUTHER subject.
 
Here's my ideal wash process:

Indoors
Pre-rinse with power washer
1 Bucket Wash with Grit Guard using Plush MF towels
Rinse with power washer
Spray touchless sealant like Hydro 2 (or equivalent)
Leaf blower
QD left over water spots

How does it get better than this???
 
David Fermani- Does that work OK on truly *filthy* vehicles...like "driven for weeks in the winter"-filthy?

Heh heh, I wonder why I have to be so extreme to avoid getting wash-induced marring! Seriously, I don't make it hard on myself just to be different or "extreme" or anything, I just end up with marring if I don't do all the nutty stuff.
 
Accumulator - I'm interested to hear your thoughts as to why there should be a difference?

You can use my regiment when your car is clean or totally trashed.

The *key* is pre-washing with a power washer. This gets all the topical abrasives off the surface. And depending, will only leave the non-threatening oil based residue behind.
 
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