Too much cleaning/polishing?

D

DefBringer

New member
I was just curious.



As a black car owner, it is very difficult to leave my car sitting dirty. It just looks horrible.



I certainly do not mind putting the effort or time into cleaning my car and detailing it but I am concerned that frequent washing/waxing (once every 2 weeks or less) with microfiber towels will eventually take its toll on the car (swirls, etc). After I drive away from a spray wash I can take my finger and smear dirt right off the doors with it - the spray wash just doesn't clean the way I'd like it too.



How do you guys and gals address this issue? Is there such thing as too much cleaning? This isn't a big problem in the summer, but it gets nasty around here in the winter. Frequent washing is necessary.
 
I have a black car too. I go to the spray wash and take my own bucket with water/soap in it and my mitt/ I wet the car down with the first $ and get as much off as I can then I wash it down with the mitt/soap. I have an old mitt for lower valances and wheels. Next $ I rinse the car off paying close attention to the lower areas. I then fry with a MF. I have 3 of them .. one is for the first pass .. one is for the second and the other I use from the belt line down to dry. Wheels are washed but not dryed.
 
Spray Wash.:nono



If you have excessive road salt or road grime, then that option is pretty much your only option in the winter....but only to spray your car off - do not use their brushes and/or soap. Just like "Jesstzn" said, you should bring your own soap and chenille mitt and just use their pressure hose to spray off.



If you haven't done so already, you should look into QEW which is a car soap that several of us here at Autopia use, which will allow you to wash your car with minimal water usage given that QEW doesn't produce suds and you don't have to use a hose. You then can clean your car virtually anytime you want....especially if you have a garage if the weather is nasty out.
 
Oh yea!:doh



I forgot...you can get QEW at protectall.com if you are interested. Want to know about it from Autopians, just type QEW in the search function.:xyxthumbs
 
You can't over wash a car assuming you are using gentle products- ie not Dawn and probably power washer places. I've been through many KC winters and it has never been an issue for me. I honestly just suck it up and hand wash it outside with warm water from inside. Then pull it in the garage and dry, QD. As long as you have good techniques and good washing/drying products, swirls can essentially be eliminated, even in the winter.



In the title, you said "Too much cleaning/polishing." You never mentioned polishing in your post, I am confused. :nixweiss Are you polishing it all the time too and how come?
 
ajbarnes said:
Oh yea!:doh



I forgot...you can get QEW at protectall.com if you are interested. Want to know about it from Autopians, just type QEW in the search function.:xyxthumbs
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Actually I have some QEW I just bought. I'm just concerned about all the friction on the surface of the paint. I've read Scottwax's instructions on QEW and trust him (I know him personally, actually :D ), I just am worried I'll someday accidentally drag some material across the paint with my towel and screw everything up. THe more often you touch the paint, the more likely you're to scratch it.





Greg - Sorry, I meant to say clean/wax not clean/polish. Hopefully my AIO/SG will last longer than 2 weeks! :D
 
Well two things I've learned, it never hurts to lubricate and you can never be too careful. What I mean by the lubricate, using a good car wash soap that has a high lubricity and just being careful that there is nothing on your paint when you dry it. That is where the swirls are induced from. My suggestion is if you really have to to go the power washer places, bring some QEW with water in a bottle or something like S&W and if you see a place that isn't clean, use either one of those to clean it and then get back to drying.
 
DefBringer, I've sent you PMs before, but you haven't read them. So I'm posting this in the public forum (in hopes you'll notice it here), to explain that I'm moving this to the Autopia University forum because -- as Autopia informs folks when they subscribe -- we ask people to post questions questions in AU 'til they have 30 posts. And even the veterans post in AU when they want to share fundamental info or ask a basic question.
 
spetulla said:
ban the noob!
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Crackin' me up, spetulla! :lol I don't want to ban anybody, but it does get tiring for me when I send gentle PMs to newcomers, trying to explain the Autopia "norms," and I find they haven't read the message after a whole week. I really don't understand why folks don't read their PMs. :nixweiss After all, most of the PMs we all get are wonderful offers of tips or advice or even help.



We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. I didn't actually mean to thread-jack.
 
Lynn said:
DefBringer, I've sent you PMs before, but you haven't read them. So I'm posting this in the public forum (in hopes you'll notice it here), to explain that I'm moving this to the Autopia University forum because -- as Autopia informs folks when they subscribe -- we ask people to post questions questions in AU 'til they have 30 posts. And even the veterans post in AU when they want to share fundamental info or ask a basic question.
Click to expand...



Lynn, I'm sorry, for some reason when my account was setup I had "show pop-up message when receiving PM" disabled. I had no idea I had private messages.



I did not know that since I'm under 30 posts I have to post here. I won't post in any of the other forums until then.



I am well-aware of the (sometimes tiresome) duties of moderating. You can ask some of the guys here about that. :D
 
I always click to go straight into the forum...I didn't even realize there was a private message thingy way at the bottom of the page. You guys should talk about moving it to the top where more people can instantly see it. Most forums I frequent place it there.
 
Understood, DefBringer. I don't know how your Autopia account is set up. Mine is set up so that everyday when I log on, I immediately get a pop-up alerting me if I have any PMs.



So thanks for letting me know you'll start checking your PMs. But, really, I didn't want to hijack this thread. So ... as I said before ... We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
 
As long as the car doesn't get wet, another thing you may want to consider for dust is the CCD and QD combo. It's faster and simpler than a whole wash and dry, even with QEW.



I don't think you should be waxing your car every 2 weeks, let alone need to. Especially if you are planning on using Klasse. With that stuff you could go months without having to reapply. At some point in the past I got "waxing fever" and was applying stuff once or twice in a week! It was pointless and wasteful. :down Not touching or rubbing your paint unless you have to has something to be said for it...
 
DefBringer said:




I am well-aware of the (sometimes tiresome) duties of moderating. You can ask some of the guys here about that. :D
Click to expand...



Yeah, being a super mod sure made you popular! :lol



Tony, it is much worse to leave the dirt and grime on your car. Everytime it gets touched, whether someone rubs against it in passing, leaning on it or whatever, that dirt is being rubbed into the paint. In addition, it is not wise to leave stuff like tree sap, bird crap or water from sprinklers (not a big problem this time of year though) on the paint.



As long as you use quality car wash soaps or QEW along with quality towels and wash pads and don't rub the paint hard, you should be just fine for years to come.
 
Thanks guys....this advice is exactly what I wanted to hear! If I can get this snow to melt off the streets I might try my first QEW this weekend!
 
Talking about too much cleaning, EVERY SINGLE DAY in the summer, my neighbor gets in his little pink short shorts, turns on his oldies, puts on his yellow lady rubber gloves, and finally then washes and waxes all his cars every single day, not every other day, but EVERY DAY. He is a nut. But it is too funny, I swear he will wash his paint off his cars one of these days.



As a joke, I should take my car over there and see if he would do a full detail on it in the spring.



Oh.. did I mention that he gets down on his hands and knees and washes his black top driveway. What a lunatic.



I love flying by his driveway and splashing slush from the street into it.:D
 
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