RazorGT

sorry if this belongs in detail but things die a slow death over there and im really looking to get as much input as possible - this is a very important thing and is NOT talked about enough and there's so much bad information out there.

when i got my stang it only had 20k miles and the paint was amazing, but over the last few months of me hand washing+drying, i was given so much advice from random people such as using 'the absorber' and autozone people telling me to use microfiber cloths, and etc...and today was a sunny day and i found swirls in my paint! I try my best to take care of my car, keep it garaged as much as possible, go to wash it thinking i got good advice, and it ends up damaging my car, i guess that's irony.

please tell me - what is the proper way to dry a car after washing?? i hear so much crap, microfiber towels, but honestly i had another guy tell me they are pretty harsh...and the people who make the absorber really should shoot themselves :/

I'm going to a dealer in town that does good detailing and im gonna pay them good money for a full exterior wash/dry/buffer/wax/etc and they said it should remove all surface scratches and etc and ill have a clean slate.

So after spending hours reading a million different things that im supposed to do, I've come up with this plan for routine wash+dry:

wash, 'spotless rinse with low pressure', take a WAFFLE WEAVE towel to dry - ive never seen a waffleweave in person are they pretty soft? im ordering one online called the guzzler...any input on this?

Also btw I hear dish wash soap is bad for ur car, which pisses me off cus AM told me to clean my rear deck with dishwash liquid, then dry with a COTTON SHIRT...then use the alcohol prep pad, then stick on my decklid with the 3M tape....but considering I plan to keep that decklid on their forever, it should be okay right? or do i need to rip it off, clean everything again, and get new 3M tape and put it back on?

thanks

RazorGT

uhh now i just saw a bunch of articles saying even waffle weaves are too rough :/

i saw a 'microfiber detail towel' at autozone and i touched it and it seems to be the softest towel i have ever seen, and one of the guys who works there who actually knows body work pretty well says its legit, i think i will give it a try....

Rudolph Hucker

power wash it
then wash it with a sponge
then full wax
i do this after EVERY drive out in mine.even if i only drive to the store and back

clix813

The way I figured out to use the least amount of touching the car as possible which gives swirls is to use lots of car grade soap they help provide a layer when washing. Next use water when rinsing again avoid touching the car only when needed. After that for drying use a mist of water to go over the car to create a beading affect it will make the majority of the water run off. Then finally use a CLEAN microfiber to dry the car with very light pressure. If that microfiber was used for anything other then drying the car its ruined. Use that one now for cleaning wheels. Finally after doing all of that use a good coat of wax and you will not have any swirls unless they are to deep. Also if you car gets dusty using a California duster makes swirls it is better to use a spray wax and spray the area and wipe it off. The wax acts as a lubricant and prevents swirls.

steel pony

+1 on this...the biggest thing being you should never use the same microfiber for multiple applications.
The other trick you can use to reduce touching the car is wet drying.

Once you have rinsed all of the soap and leftover residue off the car, remove your spray nozzle attachment from the hose. Then turn the water on until you have a good stream of water. Run the stream over the car producing a sheet of water. The water will have more of a tendency to run off vs. it beading, which will leave less water on the car to dry.

As far as the decklid goes, yeah dishsoap isn't the best thing to use, but some of them (like dawn) can be useful in small areas for helping to lift dirt. 3M tape will also be exposed to the elements, which means over time it can gap and allow dirt behind the installed piece. It's not a bad idea to remove the piece every year or so and clean under it...

This is from under the OEM wing....NASTY!

AJ06GT

I just wanted to highlight that part as that's what I was going to say as well. This is the best way to do a "spot free" rinse. I just unhook from the pressure washer and use one hand to kink the hose to lower pressure until I get a smooth gentle stream that isn't splashing everywhere and run it from top of the car to bottom. I choose to use a waffle weave towel after this. The biggest thing is to make sure the car is actually clean before you start trying to dry it, or else you're just going to be rubbing the dirt around still. And you don't need much pressure drying, just mostly use it's own weight to wipe across and absorb the water. If necessary or desired, I'll use a very soft microfiber to dry up any little bit of water left and maybe a little quick detail if there are any spots.

freyes

If you are worried about swirls, then do not use any towels at all. I use Adams car wash on a manual foamer, scrub, using a two bucket system (body, one bucket, wheels tires and undercarriage for the other bucket). Rinse with regular water. Then I use a master blaster to remove all of the water. This hot air blower uses filtered air to remove all traces of water from your paint. I then use either Meguires Quik Detail or blackfire wet diamond polymer spray with a 400 - 600 count microfiber towel. I have different colors to use for different applications. White waffle weave for glass, black for wheels, yellow for paint, green for interior. Buy a good microfiber cleaner. Do not use clothes soap to clean microfiber. This will ruin your microfiber. Spend the money and buy a detail polisher/buffer and remove paint swirls yourself. When I purchased my Fiesta ST last month, I corrected all of the paint swirls using a Girots buffer and lakeside tangerine pads, along with wolfgang swirl remover. I bought the buffer several years ago and use it on both my Mustang and Fiesta ST. Way less expensive (in the long run) that paying someone else to perform this task.

Check out autogeek.net for all your car care needs.

moosehead89

I've used CHamios to dry cars/bikes forever without any issues. I had wash with a micro fiber glove and wash the glove after every use.

RazorGT

I hear chamois are the way to go, however all the ones i tried, like the absorber and some others that i ordered online/autozone just were WAY too rough feeling - also they didn't really seem to dry well, they just kinda moved the water and maybe absorbed a little bit...but i will again with the absorber + low pressure rinse to make it bead more and see if that helps.

The aborber seems to be the smoothest one I have tried, maybe I was just using it wrong because it didn't seem to help at all tbh. Do you have to wet it first? otherwise its a hard rough thing when its dry.

Maybe the best thing to do is

wash -> low pressure rinse -> dry with absorber chamios -> spray on wax + dry with soft detail towel

(I'm betting though in a little bit someone will pop in and say chamois are bad for your car :/ )

I like using spray on wax after each wash because it helps the car dry, creates a barrier between the paint and towel to avoid scratches, and gives the extra shine.

Wow, I made a progress in my washing knowledge in the last 24 hours

I'm gonna go ahead and stick to this technique me thinks, but I'll go ahead and get the dealer detail package that will buff out my scratches and give me a good clean start

however I'm still wondering about winter times when I wash for salt removal...should I just take the hose and rinse off the salt and etc without any soap, and then do a spot free rinse and let it air dry/freeze? (air drying can leave water marks but i figure it won't be as bad when its cold + with the low pressure rinse)

I'm not gonna even bother doing a spray wax + hand dry during the snowy times because as soon as i leave the car wash its going to be dirty again :/

but if all goes as planned my stang will be in the garage next winter while i explore with a Ford explorer!

AJ06GT

See, the thing is, a lot of people act like their clearcoat is made of butter and it's going to smear or something if you touch it. Yes, minimizing touching your paint will minimize fine scratches and swirls, but if your paint is completely clean, and your rag is completely clean, you're not really going to scratch your car with a soft rag like a microfiber, waffle weave, chamois, etc. The very best way to ensure you don't get scratches is to just make sure it's completely clean. After a year or two of frequent cleaning, you might need a light polish, but that's about it. Just remember, the water isn't IN your paint, so you don't need to apply pressure to remove it, you just need to use the weight of the rag to glide across the surface and absorb the water.

Salt removal isn't really any different than any other cleaning for the paint other than the fact that it might be even more dirty and you might need to change towels more. I like to wash with several microfibers when I use them. If my car is mostly clean I might only use a couple and just refold every so often, but if it's really dirty, I'll use 4 or 5 towels refolding frequently so I wipe dirt across the paint as little as possible. This is where a good wax job makes dirt removal much easier.

What you would want to worry about is getting the inside of the wheel wells and underneath clean after driving in salt. I bought a simple electric pressure washer to wash my car now, but I'd go to a manual car wash and use one or go to a touchless wash with an undercarriage spray after salt (just absolutely no automatic washes that do touch your car, I'm sure you know).

Also, yes, you want to wet and wring your chamois before drying. Actually, microfibers (waffle weaves included) absorb water much better after they are damp. Some people wet them and wring them as well, I typically just start drying and come back to the first section at the end if I need to if it didn't dry well enough at the start.

There's a bunch of different products and ways to wash your car, and none are perfect, but that's what a polisher is for. If you care that much about keeping your paint perfect, just plan on getting yourself a polisher. A PC starter kit can be found on Amazon for pretty affordable.

Edit: revised to contradict myself a little less, haha.