Understanding how to properly wash, decontaminate, and maintain the surfaces of your vehicle can reap long-term benefits. Proper techniques and products lengthen the life of your coating, preserve the glossiness, and prevents swirls, scratches, and water spots.
Preventing Water Spots
We’ll this section start with some words of caution: It is best to wash vehicles out of the sun, be sure to dry the vehicle thoroughly right away, and quickly remove water spots if they happen. Don’t park your car near any water sprinklers, as that water drying on your car can and will cause permanent damage to paint and glass.
These dried-on hard-water deposits may be difficult – if not impossible – to remove. Also, the longer they are on the surface, the harder it may be to remove as they chemically etch deeper into the surface. It may require the use of special water-spot products, or compounding, or sanding, or completely replacing the clearcoat to remove the embedded deposits.
Coating the vehicle in graphene will help prevent water spots and etching. Ceramic coatings are much better than no coatings at all, but ceramics are still more susceptible to water spots than graphene due to their chemical structure.
At a minimum, ensure that water never dries on the car in the sun. A pressure washer or mister on a hose can help keep surfaces wet as you clean outside. Manually dry the car quickly with a drying towel or forced air, or move it out of the sun to air dry. A leaf blower works well for drying a car, particularly after coating.
If you can use softened water, that certainly is better but it can still leave spots on surfaces. You can also rinse the vehicle with de-ionized water to prevent spots. These systems are expensive and have a limited life in a resin canister before they need to be replaced. For many, this is a necessity. The smaller units may use low water pressure and are ideal only for a final rinse step. You may see this low-pressure final rinse at tunnel car washes, too, and it is the same deionized water.
The First Step, Cleaning the Wheels
Esoteric Car Care has an Essential Wheel Care Kit that will get you started. The Chemical Guys have large wash kits that cover a lot of bases but don’t buy more than you need.
Before claying and polish you’ll want to remove brake dust (iron debris) from wheels and paint. We use Gyeon Q2M Iron or similar products that melt the embedded iron. Make sure any product you use on paint is actually safe for use on paint, and your specific wheels. These products need to dwell on the surface for a short time, so wash off the product when recommended. After this chemical decontamination, you’ll remove any remaining paint contaminants with the Claying process described later.
If you are coating your car the Graphene or Ceramic coating may also be used on wheel exteriors. A coating that handles high-temperatures like Ethos Graphene Matrix is needed if you remove the wheels and polish and coat the inside rim surfaces.
Then Pre-Treat the Car with Foam
Pre-treating the car with foam allows the shampoo to stick to and dwell on the surface to help lift and remove road grime. For coated cars, this may be enough to get the car clean, but most cars will benefit from another hand wash pass that agitates the dirt to get it thoroughly clean.
We use a Foam Cannon for pre-wash step; a cheaper option is a Foam Sprayer for a garden hose. There are kits from Chemical Guys and others that include a hose sprayer or pressure-washer cannon, and some pressure washers come with something basic. For in-garage washing, we may use a small pressurized sprayer to pre-treat the vehicle before doing hand washing, and then use a gentle spray from a hose to rinse with minimal water.
Use a Foam Cannon-specific shampoo such as Foam Party from Ethos, or Geyon Q2M Foam. Look for products that remove road grime, and are safe for your coating.
Bug and Grime Removal
Don’t let bugs, sap, and bird droppings sit on your car finish as they can stain. Polishing or compounding may help remove stains, but prevention is a better option.
We use Gyeon Bug and Grime Cleaner and the Sonax Insect Sponge. We also like the Turtle Wax Bug Remover, it seems to penetrate and lift stubborn bug splats.
Spray and wait, then gently scrub the surface. Graphene or ceramic coatings will make the debris easier to clean. Be thorough – the paint, glass, and trim need to be completely clean before polishing and coating, but be very gentle, and don’t scratch. It is better to do several gentle passes than aggressively scrubbing (and damaging) your finish.
You may need to do a one-step polish (or more) if you had to work hard at removing the bugs. Where the bugs hit your car are also where rocks hit, so compounding and polish may be needed anyway.
Washing the Car Exterior
There are complete kits for washing that can save you money as you get started. Ones from Chemical Guys and Esoteric Car Car are a great start. You may not know what waxes or polishes you’ll want to use on your vehicle, so a large Chemical Guys kit may have more products than what you will ever use, like Butter Wax, Speed Wipe, and Silk and Shine dressing. If your vehicle is coated or uses a specific system of sealants or polish, you’ll want products that work well with your coating.
Some shampoos leave gloss enhancers, SiO2, or other elements on the surface – avoid those if you are going to wax the car, or have or will add a coating. You only get the benefit of the last thing you used on the surface, so a cheap shampoo with SiO2 may leave the car looking dull compared to the coating. Use products meant to use with each other.
If you are going to coat or wax the car, definitely use only a pH-neutral shampoo without any residue, like Gyeon Bathe.
Use a wash mitt and drying towel; Esoteric, Ethos, and others, all have towels and kits.
Claying
The process of “claying” uses clay or synthetic mitt or block – along with a lubricant spray – that you gently rub across the surface of the car to remove contaminants embedded in the paint or glass. There are also synthetic clay pads for use with DA polishers. The synthetic clays are our preference, and they last for dozens of cars and are quite effective and economical. The DA pad is great for large vehicles.
Claying is slightly abrasive as it pulls up contaminants and this can mar the surface, so you should polish the car if you clay the paint. Using something like Gyeon Iron Out spray (“chemical decontamination”) before claying helps to reduce this marring by melting iron flakes embedded in the paint, which is then gently washed away. After you coat the car in graphene or ceramic, far fewer contaminants will get into the surfaces.
Ethos has a clay bar “mitt” kit to use after wash and before compound/polish – you may want more of the spray to have on hand, but the mitt will last a very long time.
Wash and Dry Before Polishing
After claying, do a quick wash or rinse to remove any clay solution prior to compounding and polishing. Inspect and clean anything remaining contaminants or bugs, and wash and rinse if needed.
If you are doing more work on the finish be sure to use an automotive pH-neutral shampoo that just cleans (like Gyeon Bathe) and doesn’t add anything to the finish like gloss additives or SIO coatings. You’ll only get the benefit of whatever is the top layer, so don’t add products if you don’t need to.
Never use a dishwashing liquid, even if it is safe to use on ducks.
If the vehicle is already coated, then use shampoo and other products that are recommended for that coating or system. We use Turtle Wax Hybrid Solutions and Ethos Ceramic Wax Pro as cost-effective options. For long-lasting coatings, we are sticking with Ethos Graphene Matrix with their Ceramic Shampoo and Defy SiO2 spray as a glossy sacrificial top layer.
Cleaning Glass
Use microfiber towels with a waffle-weave or texture that are made for glass. For Interior Glass, use this mitt.
Use an automotive glass cleaner that removes the film that builds-up inside.
It is cheaper by the gallon, just buy sprayers. The Sprayway cleaner works well, too.
Removing Winter Salt
For salt removal, we use the Road Salt Neutralizer from Eastwood. It is concentrated and one gallon makes 21 gallons of solution. The diluted solution may be put into a pressurized sprayer to spray the vehicle and should be rinsed off about five minutes later. This says it is safe for car paint; graphene and ceramic coatings will help protect from salt and chemicals like this.
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