Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthBeemer
Questions:
1. Please let me know if this is a reasonable approach or if I am doing something wrong?
2. I have a battery powered blower. Should I use it at any point in this process, example, between the power wash and rinseless wash, or between the rinseless wash and wax?
3. I have read that you can top Turtle was seal and shine with ICE spray wax. Do I just apply it directly after the drying aid panel by panel or after I have done the whole vehicle?
|
Q1:
Is it reasonable? Well ... I don't know
lotsa factors to consider ...
Generally wheels/tire need a nice degreaser / APC / Wheel cleaner depending on how dirty they are and if they're ceramic or sealant coated or not. Either way, the way I do my wheels is either spray on (via foam cannon or Zep sprayer or Marolex pump sprayer or
Hydroshot) some
Superior Products Road Warrior (or P&S Brake Buster), let it dwell, then use soft bristle brushes soaking in SP Green All, then spray off the brushes, then rinse the wheel, then next wheel/tire. For brushes I like the EZ detail for the barrels, a long handled boar's hair & detail brush for the faces and a tire brush.
The car, I usually do a pre-wash which is
Superior Product Road Warrior or
Pink Perfection and let it dwell - but not dry!! - and then rinse. Sometime if there's more road film than dirt (e.g., lotsa rain driving but not a lot of visible dirt) I'll do a doors pass just to agitate that road film.
Then I pull the car into the garage and use the hydroshot to spray down the whole car with rinseless + de-ionized water. Then I use
the Garry Dean Method to do a rinseless wash but not dry! Sometimes I'll go panel by panel or, if the car isn't too dirty, I'll go side-by-side by doing the top (windows up) first then the back half, then the front half. I usually wash the whole car before I dry.
If the car was real dirty, I'll go back over a whole side with a new
chenille mitt just to ensure it's fully clean.
Q3:
Then I go back and either just dry or put down a drying aid and then dry. And, yeah, you can do SnS every time, or every few times, and do spray wax over it every time or do it inbetween SnS times, which is what I usually do: SnS every 2ish months, spray wax most times inbetween.
Q2:
I have an Ego blower just for car use, but honestly I don't use it other than to blow out the mirrors, fuel door, bumpers, wheels, etc since I like to apply protection during the drying process or I'm in a hurry and just want to dry 'er down.
I've found the technique keys are:
- Light pressure!
- Work top to bottom
- Left to right overlapping passes
- Change media and / or rinse the media often
- Be slow and methodical, never rush
I've checked with scangrip lights and I'm not getting ANY marring doing it this way ... but that doesn't mean I don't have any marring
It happens when someone brushes by your car when it's dirty or just by mistakes or whatever. It'll happen.
This is why long-term ceramics aren't right for me - I probably have about 10 places on my X5 I'm going to polish out here soon.
And that's also the thing:
Polishers are cheap and paint enhancement polishing is easy, safe, and you pretty much have unlimited clear coat for this by which I mean 1 step polishing takes off so little clear coat it's irrelevant. Obviously if you get deep catch-your-fingernail scratches then you need to do more than paint enhancement but if you're taking good care of things generally you won't need much if any of that.
And anyone that wants gloss,
THIS IS HOW YOU GET IT!
No product, ceramic or otherwise, will look remotely close to a new polish.
Note this is also why new car "paint correction" can be a bad idea: they're chopping down your clear coat on day 1!
Like before 99.9% of people will even notice or care!
It's why I think all this "paint correction" stuff is a scam mostly.
A lot of this stuff - like pH neutral shampoo: as if the World your drives in is pH neutral
- is kinda scammy and plays on people's emotions. /rant