So I need major help on how to wash the stang

[lemonsnurkey]

I don't know how to wash a car properly. I watched a lot of videos, please help me with some feedback. I did take the car to drive through car wash and it f*cked up the paint a bit..didn't know this was bad. One $60K+ car later, I'm trying hard to learn about paint care.

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[Freedom]

So you used a waterless wash solution? I didn’t see any soap.

 

[lemonsnurkey]

So you used a waterless wash solution? I didn’t see any soap.

I used the soap in the gun!

 

[Freedom]

I used the soap in the gun!

I might of missed it or the soap looked like water (I’m on mobile) if the car is clean the way you wiped down is fine using the solution of spray wax/detail spray. What you’re doing there is a contactless wash and it might not get rid of all the debris. You may want to bring a mitt with you as you soap and wipe. Remember top down approach to minimize scratches because most of the dirt is on the lower parts of the car.

What you should look into is how to polish to get rid of automatic car wash scratches.

 

[lemonsnurkey]

Yeah I want to polish out the scratches eventually. I’m going to wrap the car soon. Just wanna maintain the paint in the mean while.

 

[Freedom]

Yeah I want to polish out the scratches eventually. I’m going to wrap the car soon. Just wanna maintain the paint in the mean while.

Then you should consider giving it a proper sealant/wax. When your car is clean, add a layer of wax with a clean foam application pad or microfiber applicator. I recommend collinte 845, its easy to apply and wipe off. Looks amazing too.

 

[Holmes]

I don't know how to wash a car properly. I watched a lot of videos, please help me with some feedback. I did take the car to drive through car wash and it f*cked up the paint a bit..didn't know this was bad. One $60K+ car later, I'm trying hard to learn about paint care.
Here is a link to the video:
Any feedback will be helpful, thank you in advance.

Watch Chemical Guys on YouTube. Do what they do.

 

[Holmes]

I don't know how to wash a car properly. I watched a lot of videos, please help me with some feedback. I did take the car to drive through car wash and it f*cked up the paint a bit..didn't know this was bad. One $60K+ car later, I'm trying hard to learn about paint care.
Here is a link to the video:
Any feedback will be helpful, thank you in advance.

Sorry for the short answer. I posted that before I watched your video. Question: do you have access to a 5 gallon bucket and regular outdoor water spigot / garden hose? Or do you live in an area with outdoor water restrictions? Those touchless washes really don’t work very well. Here are the basic steps for a good basic wash.
1. Blast off the car with clean water (pressure washer, or spray hose nozzle). This gets the heavy dirt / loose particles off the car.
2. Using the bucket fill 3/4 full along with car wash soap per the directions on the soap.
3. Using a microfiber mit or microfiber cloth, soap up the whole car, lightly scrubbing (minimal pressure). Start top and work your way down, rinsing the applicator mit or cloth often in you bucket. The key is always have lots of lubrication any time you are touching the car with anything.
4. I would recommend driving the car to dry it. Or blow it dry. Towel drying will leave marks, especially on a black car. If you must towel dry, use a silicone squeegee (sp?) first, then spray with a quick wax or speed shine product, before towel drying.
5. Wash the wheels and tires separately.
6. One step better is to use two buckets one to pickup soapy water and the other to clean your or cloth before dipping back into the soap. The idea is the get the dirt off the car and not just move it around.

My last car with a Porsche 911 in “look at me and I’ll scratch” black. Learned very fast to never touch the paint with anything without having some kind of lubrication. (Soap, speed shine, quick wax, etc). Water by it self is not lubrication, even if just drying.

 

[JimsFury]

Then you should consider giving it a proper sealant/wax. When your car is clean, add a layer of wax with a clean foam application pad or microfiber applicator. I recommend collinte 845, its easy to apply and wipe off. Looks amazing too.

Collinite 845 is some good stuff, its all that I use however during times that I do not wax my Mustang and just want a quick detail I use Turtle Wax "Ice" spray wax and to me it keep my Collinite wax job fresh and my mustang looking damn good...

 

[Endokendal]

Collinite 845 is some good stuff, its all that I use however during times that I do not wax my Mustang and just want a quick detail I use Turtle Wax "Ice" spray wax and to me it keep my Collinite wax job fresh and my mustang looking damn good...

Put a CQuartz ceramic coat on that bitch and quit waxing! I used to use Collinite... great product... but I’ll never go back to wax.

 

[JimsFury]

Put a CQuartz ceramic coat on that bitch and quit waxing! I used to use Collinite... great product... but I’ll never go back to wax.

Ive heard about that stuff and actually bought some but another brand but ive been too chicken to apply it on my Mustang afraid I may F**K up the paint somehow.

 

[Endokendal]

Ive heard about that stuff and actually bought some but another brand but ive been too chicken to apply it on my Mustang afraid I may F**K up the paint somehow.

It’s easy. Go for it. Worse case you polish it off and try again. Seriously, you aren’t going to hurt the paint. The clear coat is between you and the paint. Just go thin with the ceramic coat... the only way you can F it up is to go too heavy.

 

[CrashOverride]

I'm by no means an expert, but the key is to wash your car frequent enough so that the film/grime/contaminants are not "taller" than the lubricant/surfactant film (soap+water). Any particle larger than the film will scratch the surface, so long as it is harder than the clear coat (Which isn't very hard). So you can do whatever you need to, to get the large particles off without applying downward force (High pressure washer) or a foam cannon (Which doesn't get the particles off the car, but essentially is a heavier-duty surfactant which suspends it in a very thick film).

Here where the water is very hard (Crazy hard, over 20 gpg) if you use unsoftened water, you will get nasty calcium/magnesium spots that will not come off. You will also get that if you do a final rinse. Even if you do soften the water the TDS is so high that you still get spots, but they are much softer and wipe off relatively easily...If you have enough time.

Because of all of this, I use a "waterless" soap system. It does use water, but I can spend a buck and pickup a gallon of distilled water to make up my batch. Use about a dozen microfiber cloths. You can wash it in your garage so the sun doesn't evaporate the water as fast, and you don't get skin cancer standing around in the sun. The key is to keep the car wet, also, use the microfiber cloths liberally. They are cheap and washable, so buy yourself a 20 pack on Amazon and use all of them. This method only works good if you don't have much film on your car. If you do, then it's probably not the best thing to use.

I'm a hypocrite myself though, I have a bad back so I don't get out and wash it very much. 1 wash means 2 days of bad back pain. Because of that, I'm good at getting scratches out.

I second using a hard clear coat protectant. I'm old school and don't know as much about the newer formulations, but I use Meg's Synthetic Paint Sealant. It's cheap to buy a lot of it. Yeah, it probably means you need to do it more often though. Once the scratches are there, then you can play around with various compounds to try and eradicate them. A pro can use his/her eye and touch, and tell where to start, using the most aggressive needed and working their way down. For the average idiot like me, I start with the least aggressive and work my way up until something works, and then moves back backwards to finish it off. It takes more time and product to do it the idiot way, but it does work. I've found a simple cleaner wax works most of the time to get rid of extremely fine scratches that can only be seen under a light, when you look at a certain angle.

 

[Gaglug]

Sorry for the short answer. I posted that before I watched your video. Question: do you have access to a 5 gallon bucket and regular outdoor water spigot / garden hose? Or do you live in an area with outdoor water restrictions? Those touchless washes really don’t work very well. Here are the basic steps for a good basic wash.
1. Blast off the car with clean water (pressure washer, or spray hose nozzle). This gets the heavy dirt / loose particles off the car.
2. Using the bucket fill 3/4 full along with car wash soap per the directions on the soap.
3. Using a microfiber mit or microfiber cloth, soap up the whole car, lightly scrubbing (minimal pressure). Start top and work your way down, rinsing the applicator mit or cloth often in you bucket. The key is always have lots of lubrication any time you are touching the car with anything.
4. I would recommend driving the car to dry it. Or blow it dry. Towel drying will leave marks, especially on a black car. If you must towel dry, use a silicone squeegee (sp?) first, then spray with a quick wax or speed shine product, before towel drying.
5. Wash the wheels and tires separately.
6. One step better is to use two buckets one to pickup soapy water and the other to clean your or cloth before dipping back into the soap. The idea is the get the dirt off the car and not just move it around.

My last car with a Porsche 911 in “look at me and I’ll scratch” black. Learned very fast to never touch the paint with anything without having some kind of lubrication. (Soap, speed shine, quick wax, etc). Water by it self is not lubrication, even if just drying.

Ok while I appreciate the thought here, doing it this way will end up damaging your paint. Go on youtube and look for how to properly clean a car. Here's a quick overview of what I do for a regular weekly wash. Oh...and never...ever wash your car in direct sunlight.

1) Rinse the car, get it wet. A pressure washer is great to clear off loose dirt. Then apply a ph-neutral foam, let it work for a few minutes before you continue.
2) Pressure wash the car, remove the foam.
3) Use one bucket with soap and a microfiber mitt. Clean the wheels and tires. You can use a more aggressive cleaner on the tires as long as you're careful. You can use a tire brush. When done do not reuse the bucket. Do not reuse the mitts or towels you used.
4) Get two more buckets. One bucket is a rinse bucket, one bucket has soap and water in it. Both buckets should have a dirt trap in the bottom. Also, only ph-neutral soap. Don't use soap with wax or other gunk in it. Just soap.
5) Use a fresh microfiber mitt. Get it soaped up. Start at the top of the car, apply in long smooth strokes. Never ever scrub. Never ever do circles. When wiping, rotate the mitt so a new clean portion of the mitt touches the car as you go. When you've done a pass, rinse off the mitt in the rinse bucket. Get it clean. Go back to the clean soap bucket, get more soap. Continue.
6) When your microfiber mitt gets dirty, toss it in the rinse bucket and get a fresh one. You do not want to put dirt back on the car. You should also be visually checking the mitt for dirt or debris, since scraping that back across your paint will damage it.
7) When the final wash is done, pressure wash the car and remove the last of the soap.
8) Use large microfiber drying towels to dry the car, using smooth light strokes. Do not scrub, do not do circles. If you have a low-power leaf blower you can blow dry the car first before using the drying towels. When a towel gets wet, set it aside and get a new one.
9) Open the doors, the hood, and the trunk. Use smaller microfiber towels to get all the water that got inside the frame. Water gets everywhere, and you don't want pools of water continually sitting in your car.

The next steps would be your sealant treatment of choice. Bonus points if you have a ceramic coat instead. Extra bonus points if you have a professional ceramic coat instead of a consumer-grade coat.

Then clean your microfiber towels and mitts in the laundry. Do not use aggressive soap. Use a gentle clean cycle. Do not use aggressive heat on the wash or dry cycle or you will damage the towels.

If you are willing to invest a little time and effort, you can keep your car from getting the dulled and scratched paint that you see on everyone else's cars.

 

[Freedom]

Put a CQuartz ceramic coat on that bitch and quit waxing! I used to use Collinite... great product... but I’ll never go back to wax.

I helped my buddy apply Cquarts to his car, it definitely beads nicely. Still needs to be maintained with a topper like reload. Yeah sure its shinier than wax but it lacks the warmth of wax and still needs to be maintained regularly.

My opinions anyway and yes, we applied it properly.

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