Exterior cleaning process

[rozwell911]

I just wanted to let everyone what i use to clean the exterior of my car. It has servered me well in the past and i am sure it will server anyone else well who uses it:

Washing

For washsing the car, normal hose water works...most soaps now of days help prevent streaking and water stains...and if you detail like i do, if there are any stains, they come right off as you dry/detail/wax the car.

Soaps i use, there are only 4, Turtle Wax car wash, Turtle Wax ZIP car wash, Dawn Dish soap (only use when you need to strip your old wax or are planning on clay baring the car, as dawn takes grease and wax off your car) and BMW Car wash...yes BMW car wash...It works the best IMO inbetween waxes, really have very little trouble removing bugs and grime with that car wash.

Also, i usually wash a section at a time, as to not give the soap time to dry on the vehicle, makes final drying/detailing a lot easier..If you got time or a second person, drying as you progess also helps with preventing streaks. When i wash a section at a time, i always keep the hose on low flow to prevent water splash onto any dry parts i have already worked on.

Stripping the wax off Car

If you are striping the wax off the car, dawn dish soap and dry with a sheep skin shamy....it does fairly well striping all the wax of a car for a prep for a fresh polish.

You can also use a 50/50 mix of white vinager/water in a spray bottle....Soak the section of car your working on with the spray, wipe with a towel (DO NOT WIPE TO DRY) to rub the wax off the car, then proceed to rinse off with water imidiatly. With this step it is recomended to wash the car again with the soap of your choice. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO CAN DO THIS PROPERLY OR HAVE DONE IT BEFORE. you can seriously damage your paint/clear coat if you leave the vinager solution on too long. BEWARE!! I am not responsible for any damage occured to your vehicle. these are only suggestions.

Drying

Drying is simple. I only use Microfiber towels. I find they leave little to no "fuzz" like some towels do and do not scratch the clear coat like rough bath towles can.

Also, use a bit of fabric softner when tossing your microfiber towels in the laundry, it tends to keep their soft, slightly plush feeling a little longer.

Waxing

Before turtle wax bought them, i would recomend Zymol...it was 100% pure carnuba wax, all natural...it would come in a Jar similar to plamade and you would apply it to your car with your fingers...really good stuff. But since Turtle Wax bought them, I have not used it for fear that they would degrade the product from what it was....this is not to say that Turtel wax is a bad product all together, just that Zymol was at a higher quality IMO and i am afraid they would do some type of cost saving's to the brand. If anyone still uses Zymol, please let me know as i would like to know if its quality is still top notch.

The primary wax i use, is Meguires 3 step wax ( what step is listed on the outside of each bottle) (http://www.meguiars.com/ in the search bar type "Deep Crystal System" and the 3 cleaners/waxes that are part of the kit will show up...use all 3 for best results). Cleaner Wax to help remove impurities, the polish to give the car that water glaze, and the deep crystal carnuba wax to give it the smoothness and protect form the elements. this seems to work the best for my vehicles in general.

What i use full time on my car: the Turtle Wax Black Box, specificly for black cars , is ( http://www.turtlewax.com/main.taf?p=2,1,4,28 ) the best thing since 18 way power seats were invented. The black colored wax formula, does not leave the while or yellowish wax marks on plastic and molding, thus making clean up a bit easier. It also helps remove scratch in the clear. Best bang for the buck. I recomend it to anyone with a black car, although, people without a black car can use it, it drys black on the car, but wipes away clear. I remcomend using this wax if you dont want the yellow crusty stuff showing up on your moldings.

When waxing, use the aplicator pads specified in the box, or any of your local auto parts store brand aplicator pads..>DO NOT USE TOWLES...not only do they not apply the wax appropiatly, they can leave fibers under the wax as it drys thus ruining the process.

When waxing, do only one section at a time (EX. Hood, door panel, roof or bumer ) to prevent the wax for hardening to hard. Also do not wax in the sun, sun makes the wax dry really fast causing you to have to really rub off the wax hard...it is very annoying and your muscles start to hurt a lot. Also as before USE MICROFIBER TOWELS to remove the way...buffs to a very nice shine with them. P.S. I wax the tail lights, and head lights too...seems to offer a bit of protection from rocks and chips.

Wheels

Weather they are chrome plated,aluminum or MAG wheels, i always use a mild soap and water solution. the chemical based clearner i find can be too harsh to the wheels, and if you use the wrong time of solution (like chrome solution on Aluminum wheels) you can damage the finish on the wheels. I use a brush for the hard to reach plasces (soft brissle wheel cleaning brush or tooth brush if you have too). Once i rinse the soap off with water, i go over them with some spray detailer (Either Meguiers, Mothers, or Zymol...does not matter) and dry them off, then i wax them i find waxing them gives them the best shine and helps with removal of brake dust when washing, cause it doesn;t really stick to the wax...Also, for protecting the wheels, i have looked into the spray on clear bra and had some relative good sucess with the wheels on my previous mustang. the spray on bra was also waxable and washable...it worked pretty well for my car.

Inbetween Washes/Waxes

California car duster is your friend...workes good when you just have dust and no dirt on the car (during spring, pollen, dirt roads). Spray detailer works well also. The top ones i use are Zymol, Meguires and Mothers. There is a detailer/spay polish i can recomend also. its called Capt. Rons "the Bomb"....a lot of the detail shops in my area use it, it is very safe for paint, waxed surfaces and plastics as well as cleanign the interior of the car. It also makes waxing the windows a lot easer in the spay form, so that way the water beeds up on the glass when it rains. Also, as usual use microfiber when detailing.

Since there is already an interio thread started, i will not touch basis of it in here. that way we keep the threads seperated.

If anyone has any questions, commments or suggestions...please ask in this thread!

Lupe

Disclaimer: I have tried everything, but do not acept resonsibility for any damage done to peoples vehicals by improper use, or MFG defects in the products or people not knowing how to do something...The above are merly opinions and suggestions by me.

[RebelThunder]

thanks for the tips.

[FiremanFrach]

Yeah, thanks for the advice. :D

[sxt 2011]

I will try the turtle Black Box wax, sounds like a good wax for my black car, I hate the white wax left behind in all the hard to remove spots.

[20journey11]

I had an aviation grade sealer applied from the dealership. It is from Cilajet. It comes with a 10 year warranty. It was applied to the paint,wheels,glass and interior. Nothing sticks to it. No bugs, tree sap, brake dust, bird crap.....nothing. You only need to wash it. No waxing or anything. If you get a stain on the seats that won't come out, Cilajet will pay to recover the seats.

[Powdered Toast Man]

I use the Mother's California Gold 3 step system. Basically, bottle 1 is a cleaner wax, bottle 2 is a sealer and polish, and bottle 3 is pure carnuba wax. It's a fair bit of work since you basically have to wax the car 3 times, but worth it.

Just did it today and this is the result:

Edited June 28, 2011 by Powdered Toast Man

[Journey_SeXT]

I know that I am responding to an old thread but that is one great finish PTM!

[Powdered Toast Man]

Thanks! I know, it's like a mirror!

[redtomatoman]

I had an aviation grade sealer applied from the dealership. It is from Cilajet. It comes with a 10 year warranty. It was applied to the paint,wheels,glass and interior. Nothing sticks to it. No bugs, tree sap, brake dust, bird crap.....nothing. You only need to wash it. No waxing or anything. If you get a stain on the seats that won't come out, Cilajet will pay to recover the seats.

As long as this tread has be revived. I have been curious about this Cilajet stuff for a while since I read this thread initially a few months ago. I did check the internet and there are no dealers in Albuquerque. Closest is Phoenix. The site talks about Boeing approved, micron level, epoxy, blah, blah. What is this stuff? How much did it cost? Can it be applied after waxing? I didn't see anywhere on the site that they said interior or upholstery. Maybe I didn't look close enough.

I keep my journey pert damn clean, so it has peaked my interest.

Peace.

[20journey11]

The dealership I bought the car from suggested the Cilajet. They are an authorized dealer. They clay bar the whole exterior before application. The Cilajet cures for 24 hours, then it is buffed out. No waxing is needed for the 10 year warrenty, however you can use a pure carnuba paste wax if you want. New vehicles cost $600. Used vehicles are more because of the extra work needed to clean the vehicle back to the original paint. All exterior paint, rims, exterior glass, seats, carpet, and floor mats were treated. After 3 years, they will re-apply if you think it needs done again.

[2late4u]

in between waxing i use turtle wax ultra gloss detailer with a micro fiber cloth and man does it help remove dust and leave a real slick finnish i even use it on the windows indside and out . doing the rear hatch i set the bottle up by the attenna while i did the back and then did that area next and then went to set it back in the same spot and ir kept sliding off the top LOL now that is slick.

[WaywerdSon]

Tried the new ArmorAll Extreme Shield and it appears to work as advertised. Don't like the not hazing part, makes it tricky to get it all buffed and tends to be a little streaky, but the bugs and crud wash off without a trace and shine is pretty damn good. Edited May 22, 2012 by WaywerdSon

[burgandy25]

From what I know is that Zymol is not owned by turtle wax...

Zymol was starting to get big so Zymol had to change for the better to keep up with demand, and since they had a facility not capable of keeping up with their bottling and packaging needs they Contacted turtle Wax.

Zymol and Turtle Wax are both bottled out of Chicago so Turtle Wax was closest to Zymol at the time in the same city so Zymol asked them and they agreed, also they both got shipped to similar places so they also took the same rout (why you see more zymol in walmarts and such now than before).

But as of recently Zymol no longer is using Turtle Wax to bottle and package their stuff they not have the capacity to do it in their own place.

[B4ZINGA]

I realize this in an old thread, but there was something in the OP that made me wince.

Do NOT use fabric softener on your MF towels while washing them. Part of the charm of microfiber is the static charge that sucks up dust particles. Fabric softener ruins their ability to do this. Just use detergent (without softener). When drying, the preference is for low or no heat. Heat ruins the fibers.

http://www.autogeek.net/mi101.html

I've gotten quite a few great detailing tips from Autogeek, I highly suggest anyone interested in washing their vehicle go there and peruse. They also sell many different products.

Lately I've become affluent in car detailing, as I take my 2002 300M Special to car shows both local and far away. That car has a detailing regimen that is probably far more work than anyone would want to do on their daily driver.

Here's what I did on my Journey a week after I took it home from the dealer, 6 months after it was produced (production 01/2014, original in-service date 3/20/2014, my purchase date 5/20/2014). Yes, I highly recommend doing this even for a car hot out of the factory. The first wash felt like sandpaper, and now it feels like glass.

1. Wash wheels, engine bay, tires, wheel wells - Spray engine bay down, avoiding electronics (battery, alternator, fuse/relay center, PCM/TCM/ECM, some people put foil over these, I never have and have not had issues). Spray a good degreaser on dirtiest parts, avoiding rubber and paint. Let sit a minute, then hose off. Do not start engine until it has dried. Do not use Simple Green, as it is known to cause corrosion on aluminum parts. I use Purple Power Citrus available at Autozone.

Wheels - spray down with Adams Green Wheel Cleaner. Follow directions on bottle, and spray off. If the wheel is particularly nasty, scrub with a wheel brush. Do this on the wheel face and on the inside, reaching between the spokes. Special brushes are available to get around the lug nuts.

Wheel wells - Spray the liners with Black Magic Bleche White. Hose off. Take a wad of Nevr Dull (auto parts store) and rub it around the liner. Great for removing road tar and many nasty things we run over each day. Spray again with Bleche White and hose off to remove white residue left behind by Nevr Dull.

Tires - Scrub with auto wash. There is product similar to Bleche White made for black tires, though I have not used it. I have used Purple Power in the past with good results.

2. Wash - Meguiar's Deep Crystal Wash (Advance) (car wash soap is fairly irrelevant, as its only purpose is to provide lubrication between the wash mitt and paint surface to aid in dirt/grime removal), two 5-gallon buckets (nice and cheap at Home Depot), two grit guards (autogeek, and sometimes at major car shows under vendor tents), blue "chenille" wash mitt (Advance). Wash whole exterior, get in all the tight spots, use top-down approach. IE wash horizontal surfaces first, then verticle surfaces, then fascias and rockers. Doing so avoids rubbing dirt into the paint. Have soap solution in one bucket, plain water in the other. Rinse your mitt after wiping it on the car in the water bucket, reaching down to the bottom and rubbing it against the grit guard to remove dirt and contaminants, before dipping into the soap bucket for fresh soap. One panel at a time, rinse it before it dries, and keep vehicle wet until you're finished and ready to dry.

Dry vehicle with waffle-weave microfiber towel. I like to soak the towel first, then ring it out. Sounds counter-productive, but it helps the towel soak up water much better. I drag it across the vehicle front to back, then get the sides, then fascias and rockers.

Open your hood, trunk/gate, doors, fuel door and use a waterless wash spray (Griots Garage waterless wash at Advance is nice) and MF towel to clean and dry your jambs and backside of doors, hood, decklid/liftgate. This is important to complete the clean look and help avoid rust forming from water left in the door seams.

3. Clay bar - Meguiar's Gold Class (any auto parts store). Yes, even a brand new vehicle. ESPECIALLY a brand new vehicle. These cars leave the factory with fresh paint before they've fully cured. They're exposed to pollen, the elements, rail dust, etc as they're transported to the dealer. The result is a surface not unlike sandpaper. Take the clay bar and fold it over, knead it. Three times. Take any plain detail spray (I like Meguiar's Quik Detail, which comes in the Clay Bar kit), spray a section of a panel, slide the clay bar across the surface back and forth, up and down, not in circles, until there is no more resistance. Do not rub it in, use minimal pressure. Keep the surface lubricated with the detail spray. Wipe it off with a clean MF towel and, fold over the clay and knead it, move to the next section. If you drop the clay bar, throw it out and get fresh clay. It WILL pick up garbage from the ground and WILL scratch the paint. I clay bar my show car once per year in the Spring, and my daily driver twice per year before and after Winter.

4. If you have a lot of swirls and scratches, this is where you would polish the car. I like Meguiar's M105 heavy cut polish for heavy swirls, followed by M205 fine-cut to finish it out. Otherwise M205 is fine. Be aware, this stuff dries white. It will get on plastic trim if it isn't masked off, and it will collect in paint chips. My paint was fine, having only 2,000 miles on it, so I did not polish it (and yes, I have a pure black PX8 Journey). Be careful, as it will leave white marks on any plastic or rubber it gets on. Standard fare with auto store waxes and polishes. If that does happen, Stoner makes a product called Trim Shine that has worked well at restoring and cleaning up the textured grey plastic ground effects on my Special.

5. If you're satisfied with the level of swirls in the paint (IE didn't have any to start, or removed them in step 4) you can now move on to your favorite sealant or wax. If you just want wax or sealant and to be done with it, you can't go wrong with products by Meguiar's, Griot's Garage, and Mother's at auto parts stores. They dry white, so be careful. Spread it on, and let it dry. Do the whole vehicle before you start buffing it off. If you buff it off before it dries, then it hasn't adhered to the paint and you've wasted product and time. On my Journey, I used a product called Zaino AIO. This is an all-in-one swirl remover, polish, and wax. Zaino recommends it for daily drivers. Zaino itself is a fairly expensive product, I think I spent close to $150 this year buying Z-AIO, Z-2, Z-5, Z-6, Z-9, Z-10, and Z-FX. Each of those products does different things (Z-2 and Z-5 are polish coats, Z-FX is a flash cure additive for Z-2 and Z-5, Z-6 is a gloss enhancing spray, Z-9 and Z-10 are leather products). It's expensive, but when used properly it lasts a long time. My $150 investment should last a few years at least. The key Zaino is "a little goes a long way". I use a dime-sized amount of product per panel.That's right. A dime. Any more than that is wasted product. One ounce of Z-5 and Z-2 does three coats on a sedan. I used maybe one ounce on one coat of Z-AIO on my Journey.

On my show car I used ALL of those products to get a "mile-deep" shine out of the Deep Sapphire Blue pearlcoat paint. On my daily driver, I used one coat of Z-AIO. One coat of that stuff covered up what few swirls I had and put down a layer of protection that has nasty rainwater micro-beading two months later. The fun thing about Zaino? Layering it makes it better and better. On my show car I have one coat of Z-AIO, three coats of Z-5, a coat of Z-6, and three coats of Z-2. I used Z-FX flash-cure additive to reduce the cure time from 8 hours to 20 minutes on the Z-2 and Z-5, and people can't stop staring at it. The paint is smoother now than it was when it left Brampton Assembly in April 2002. I'll keep layering on Z-2 through October to deepen the shine before I store it for the Winter.

Z-AIO combines the effects of those products to work very well in a daily-driver application. Two coats should be enough to last you 4-6 months. I'll apply maybe 5 coats throughout the year between full details. With that much use, the bottle should easily last a few years. Obviously with multiple cars, it will go faster.

6. Trim and tires - I use Adams VRT and Stoner Trim Shine on all plastic and rubber trim, as well as weatherstripping in the door and trunk openings. I use Stoner More Shine on the tires and engine plastics. I may soon start using Black Magic Tire Gel, but that is more involved. Use a brush to get the gel into all of the features of the side wall. Do each tire, then come back with an old towel and buff off the excess product, otherwise you'll sling it all over the car.

7. Interior - Since this isn't in the interior section, I'll just quickly note how to clean the inside. Vacuum the carpet and mats. Use Bissel Mean Green Machine to shampoo if you have to. Vacuum seats. Use Z-10 Leather in a Bottle to restore your leather if you have it. 303 Aerospace protectant on the dash, console, door panels. Do not let it dry. Spray on a MF towel, wipe on, buff off.

Glass - Stoner Invisible glass every time. Safe on tint and doesn't streak.

Some tips:

Meguiar's ScratchX is great for getting out surface scratches and swirls in your clearcoat and paint.

Meguiar's PlastX is great for cleaning up headlight and tail light lenses. I used both of these on a salvage yard tail light for my show car that looked tired next to the mint light on the other side, and it cleaned up perfectly.

Nevr-Dull is an awesome product with many uses. I described it here for the wheel well liners, however I also use it on my polished exhaust tips, polished and machined wheel surfaces, and various metal surfaces under the hood to remove stuck-on dirt and remove contaminants from the metal. Wipe away the wadding chemical with a MF towel.

MF towels - Softer the better. I get mine at Costco - pack of 36 for $16

Black trim dressing - I use a product called BlackWOW to dress a lot of the trim on my show car. There is also PreWOW for cleaning the surfaces if needed. I have not used it on my dail driver and do not use it often, since the Pre-WOW and BlackWOW kit at Autogeek is $45. I used it on the rear window trim on my Special that has been nasty and fighting me for years. Now it looks brand new. I let it sit for several hours before allowing water to hit it, and it hasn't washed off yet, in spite of washing the car and driving it through two super cell storms in PA. The stuff smells great, too.

In between washes, as suggested the California Duster is great for removing dust. If it has rained, it's best to wash the car. Use only a GENUINE CALIFORNIA DUSTER. Knock-offs don't suck up the dust nearly as well.

After a weekly washed use a spray detailer - Meguiar's Quik Detail, Eagle One Nanowax detailer, Zaino Z-6 are all good. The Zaino is expensive, so I only use it for shows. Otherwise I use Meguiar's and Eagle One. Meguiar's NXT Generation and Final Inspection are also good ones to use, I have a bottle of Final Inspection in my kit.

[rbss]

Do NOT use fabric softener on your MF towels while washing them. Part of the charm of microfiber is the static charge that sucks up dust particles. Fabric softener ruins their ability to do this. Just use detergent (without softener). When drying, the preference is for low or no heat. Heat ruins the fibers.

Agree^^^^

Great post B4ZINGA.

[Mysty2]

What is the best way and product to bring the black back

[bigtsr]

There are numerous products to bring the black back

to original shading such Forever Black,Mothers Back to Black

and Wipe New.

I have used all 3 over a 10 year period and the best that I

personally found is Wipe New, put it on my DJ last year

and the black has not faded at all.

Not a cheap product and follow the instructions.

[Lobitz68]

What is the best way and product to bring the black back

There isn't a single product that will do what you want... What you need to do is a full detail every couple of years... Clay bar, polish, wax... In order to "bring back the black" you need to get rid of the swirls. I would also wax it 3-4 times a year with a good quality wax to help protect it and minimize the visibility of the swirling.

[hockey_puck]

What is the best way and product to bring the black back

I recently tried Turtle Wax's trim restorer and it does a very good job on the black plastic. Quite cheap at 7 bucks. A friend picked up for me in Grand Forks ND and have not seen it in any Canadian stores. Seems to last albeit, it's only used it 2 weeks ago. Since I wash and detail at least every two weeks, that isn't an issue for me. (a retired bastard)

[Lobitz68]

What is the best way and product to bring the black back

I recently tried Turtle Wax's trim restorer and it does a very good job on the black plastic. Quite cheap at 7 bucks. A friend picked up for me in Grand Forks ND and have not seen it in any Canadian stores. Seems to last albeit, it's only used it 2 weeks ago. Since I wash and detail at least every two weeks, that isn't an issue for me. (a retired bastard)

To clarify... Are we talking about black trim, or black paint??? Obviously very different products and processes depending what you are asking.

[B4ZINGA]

Sounds like black trim.

Personally I use Adams VRT and Stoner Trim Shine. The Trim Shine worked well to bring back my faded grey plastic on my 300M Special. I used VRT for years to bring back the dark grey plastic in the upper and lower grilles. This year I got good grilles from the junk yard and plasti-dipped them black. One less thing to do at shows... but I've noticed the VRT lasts longer than Mother's Back to Black. BTB washes off in the rain faster. The Stoner product is available at Advance, possibly AutoZone and O'Reillys. I usually pick up the Adams at car shows, but it is expensive. normally $18-20 per bottle. I'd get the Stoner product for daily driving use (applied with every wash).

[Lobitz68]

Man... Black trim really shouldn't need restoration on a 2013 already...

[bigtsr]

2013 in theory could have been built in early 2012.

It also depends on environment (lots of sun) and

where the car is normally parked (lets say in garage)

during the heat of the day.

The black plastic trim on all my Chrysler cars needed

restoration at least once a year,Wipe New is what I have settled

on for this purpose.

[shata]

That meguires finish is really nice good job. I really love Meguires ultimate car soap that stuff is pretty high up there in high quality soaps and non spotting/streaking.
Im in process of doing full paint correction with adams polishes ill make thread when im done.

[audioguy]

I figured I'd add a technique I use since I haven't seen it mentioned in this thread.

This is a trick I found over at the detailing forum I'm a member of. It allows me to dry the car with one microfiber towel. Completely. And with no water spots.

After I rinse all the soap off I turn the hose pressure down to a little over a trickle, about 1/5th full stream. I then re-rinse the vehicle immediately, but I keep the hose (without nozzle) at the top of the car pointing down and allow the trickling water to cascade down the side panels. Do this all around the car, including the roof and windshield. If you have a good enough wax base and minimal swirl marks, you will see virtually ALL the water droplets disappear in the stream as you progress. There will be hardly any water left on the vehicle and you can completely dry it with one microfiber towel in about two minutes. Try it!

Edited July 29, 2015 by audioguy