Why is this taking so long?

S

solarafied

New member
It takes me on average two hours to wash my car. Actually it's an hour and 45 minutes. 15 minutes to dry it with a WW. I have been using the two bucket method, rinsing mitt, getting clean water after each panel etc. I am not moving slow at all while doing this or dragging my heels.I can't imagine it's taking anyone else here that long to wash a car. My neigbors offically think I am a nut. Any ideas to lessen the time?
 
solarafiedV6 said:
It takes me on average two hours to wash my car. Actually it's an hour and 45 minutes. 15 minutes to dry it with a WW. I have been using the two bucket method, rinsing mitt, getting clean water after each panel etc. I am not moving slow at all while doing this or dragging my heels.I can't imagine it's taking anyone else here that long to wash a car. My neigbors offically think I am a nut. Any ideas to lessen the time?
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SolarafiedV6, I feel your pain! It takes me at least 2 hours to wash and dry the exterior. Though I probably spend a good 30-45 minutes on the wheels, tires and wheel wells. Also, in David B's ebook, he states that a QD (interior/exterior) takes 10 minutes. My QD takes upwards of an hour. Not a very QD. All I can hope for is to get quicker at this as I learn the processes and my car a bit better. Good luck!
 
And I thought I was a nut for taking an hour to wash a car, including drying! :p



You have an easy car to wash (nice car, BTW) so I cannot figure out why it takes you two hours. I know how you feel though...want to lessen the amount of time something takes, you try as hard as you can to do so, and fail. Irritating, isn't it? LOL
 
:nixweiss



It takes me about an hour and that includes doing the tires & wheels and drying and we've got the same car. I use a 3 bucket method now (1 for tires & wheels, 1 for wash & 1 for rinse). I used the Pinnacle Crystal Mist spritz after wards and that only took another 10 minutes. If I wash the wheel wells that might add 10 minutes too.



Is the 2 hours just to wash & dry the car or does that include the interior too? I could see 2 hours with an interior detail.
 
I detailed a Yukon today and the wash/dry took about 1 1/2 hrs. It seemed like 3 hrs though:nixweiss



On my Camaro SS , there are so many nooks and crannys for the water to hide(and then drip:down) it took a long time to dry also. Than I discovered the leaf blower:xyxthumbs .. That things cuts mass amounts of time off the drying process !! Maybe with time SolarafieldV6, things will tend to speed up for you.
 
Heh heh, I have redundant systems for each side of the vehicle (hose, two buckets, etc.) and I work fast enough that it's aerobically demanding (and I'm in shape). Still takes me several hours to wash/dry and I've been doing this since the '70s. But I'm thorough; I don't miss anything ;)
 
Takes me about an hour and 10 mins to do my CTS which rarely gets driven these days so its usually pretty clean, and about 2 hours to do the fiances Grand Cherokee. Its usually a pig though, and that's me moving my @#$% to get them done. That's just exterior wash, wheels/wheel wells and dried and all products applied(Tire Shine and 303 on the GCs body cladding and Griots undercarriage spray on the GC.) so you are not too far behind.
 
I can easily spend 2 hours on a really good washing session. I personally don't care how long it takes as I enjoy doing it.



I don't know how 'texax328ci' takes an hour to do a quick detail... :nixweiss I'm not the quickest of workers, but a quick detail won't take me any longer than 15-20mins, usually only 10 minutes.



As long as you get the desired results at the end of it all, then that's all that matters to me.
 
It takes me about two hours on my Jeep. I'm not complaining because I usually like the results I get.
 
Well at least now I know I am not crazy. I just get really pissed when people make stupid comments like" Your still washing your car?" I can at least say though with that amount of time my car is really clean and my effort really shows. I could not go back to my old practices now even if I wanted too.
 
One should never be effected by what others say. Who are they to judge you? Take all the time you want to clean your car. THose people most likely sit in front of their tv for 4 to 6 hours every day anyway.
 
When working on a customers car, I can wash (QEW), clean the wheels, dress the tires and wheel wells, clean the glass, vac the interior, wipe down the interior, and apply a coat of wax in under 2 hours. At the end of this, the result looks god and nothing is missed.





when I work on my own car, I probably spend more than an hour just on the washing part. Why? Because I go real slow while doing and enjoy every moment of it. I am extremely relaxed while working on my own car :D (unless im under a time limit or something)





so it all depends on what you want to accomplish. I say, keep on taking up 2 hours to do the wash and enjoy every minute of it.





one way to lessen the time would be to make sure you can get all of your stuff out really fast. Try to have the lowest setup time possible.
 
I have been using the two bucket method, rinsing mitt, getting clean water after each panel etc
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This may be where your time is. I guess it makes sense but I never have gone as far as emptying my rinse bucket and refilling for each panel. I fill it once and use it to rinse for the whole car, I may just be cutting a step though, but I feel it's more then the avg. joe who doesnt even use a rinse bucket. Also I wash 2-3 times a week so it's never really too dirty in the rinse bucket, if were bad I could see refilling it a couple times.
 
On a dirty car I have spent more than two hours on many occasion just doing the washing and drying. Then again, when I am in a rush I can wash and dry my entire car in less than a half hour. It all depends on the circumstances. I must say I prefer to take my time if I have time to spare.
 
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