Quick and dirty car wash thread!

SBPhoto wrote: »

I thought that i was great at keeping my car in gleaming condition until i joined this thread and saw the advice that Curran and Vectra and other like minded were giving, completely changed the way i clean and keep my car now.

I guess that's the difference with myself at least. I've been there, done that, back when I was a bit younger I would have been a much more extreme detailer. I still own a DAS6, I also have a draper rotarty, I have 2 power washers, a wet vac, a very useful steamer and a dramatic amount of pads for both buffers, for use by hand, bags of microfibres, countless bottles of swankily branded products, various sizes of brushes for both the interior and exterior both stiff and soft, various grades of clay, boxes of fine sandpaper and all other maner of detailing gear.

I can remember when I had the likes of my RS Vitz I used to put it on axle stands so I could wash the coilovers, I used to put tyre shine on the inner walls of the tyres, 100% of the time i'd have a paper valet mat on each car mat and a plastic seat cover on the driver seat. I used to try to avoid driving it in the rain ffs.

I remember on another occasion, must have been during the winter months, I was applying a coat of Werkstat Prime over my Corolla SR and by the time I had finished applying it, the product had frozen on the horizontal panels. I had rituals, first wipe the dash down vertically with a microfibre damp with APC mix then apply trim dressing with a foam pad in a horizontal motion afterwards, 6 wipes, no more, no less and ****ed up **** like that. No eating in the car, no letting the windows down if there is condensation on them to prevent streaks, no wiping the wipers if I could avoid it so the water marks would be consistant. If my car were dirty I would even park it where my colleagues wouldn't see it, for fear of being judged.

In my youth I also valeted for a Toyota dealership, so I have a good idea of the level of detail you have to go into to make a car look like new in terms of cleaning the inner dish of the wheels, brushing all the crevaces like around badges and emblems, along window bead etc. Making sure to wash the foot pedals and the complete 360 degrees of the door jamb, cleaning the grease out of seat rails and all that type of malarkey, brushing the vents and around the buttons on the dash and so on and so on.

I know how to get a car 100% "clean and presentable" and I spent manys a year as a detailing enthusiast. I know how to detail and the concepts and practises surrounding it.

Much as I love having a factory fresh looking car, I realised (for me at least) that life is too short to be worried about that type of thing and that (again, for me) my time and money could be better invested elsewhere and the thing that clenched it for me was that I could get results 80% as good with 10-20% of the time. My car is probably a 20:20 car, but that does me just fine right now considering the mileage I do in it (circa 1k miles per week) and time or money spent detailing it would quite literally be a waste.

They are just my findings and my opinions and i'm not trying to push them onto others, I was just thinking other lads who don't have much time or money for cleaing their car but who still enjoy doing it, might like to show off what they've got. Any chance their ever was of somebody else posting a quick wash is dead and buried now anyway after the flaming i've gotten and quite frankly the attitude of some poster is absolutely shocking. "You cant post this, you cant post that, if you're posting here, I will lecture you whether you want it or not, that is my right" etc etc. **** me like.

Anyway, there's a rant for ya on a Monday night. I'm off to watch the latest MCM installment.

Curran wrote: »

If folk weren't to offer advice or constructive criticism of a given wash routine, there wouldn't be much need for a Detailing forum; there could be a single thread in the Motors section, of 'Today I washed my car'

That mightn't be a bad shout actually as apparantly there is only one correct way to wash a car and this is not it. You should just have one thread in the main forum where the first post is the process step by step and people just post up finished photos to avoid monotinous repetition and save boards a bit of bandwidth.

What is the point of having a discussion board if a discussion cant be held? This hasn't been a discussion, more a scenario where the methods were dismissed rather than discussed (despite my best efforts) and it was quickly converted to the same format as every other thread "spend more time, spend more on products, listen to such and such, they are the only people who can be right etc etc"...

I actually wonder how many people read the OP and digested it rather than dismissing it.

This thread is more akin to someone on the main forum saying they have €2k to spend on a second hand Micra and the whole forum telling them to buy a brand new R35. They don't want or need one and they couldn't afford it either way, but it's very easy to keep saying how much better it is than the Micra and to keep making a relatively pointless case for it even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with the OP. Then when the OP asks is there any hope of getting back to the point - Micras, the rest of the thread just get crabby and say this is a car forum and R35's are cars, so we're going to keep going. Ignorance I think it's called, actually.

Curran wrote: »

Enjoyable!??

Supercharging the Mini hasn't been my favourite series they've done but I really enjoy the camaraderie between the two boys and all the witty banter, that and Dose Vaders level of knowledge.

They peaked as a show with Supergramps I think.

Augeo wrote: »

I could see your point for this entire topic tbh and thought you got a bit of unnecessary lecturing from people loving the soapbox but using a sponge on a car that had 3k miles of roadfilm is a bit mad really.

i don't deny that for a second. i guess it's all in the name of messing or something. i reckon she's ok after it, though i do admit it was less than careful. maybe i'm just trolling now :pac:

Curran wrote: »

- so you bought a new sponge, despite owning equipment already (what about the budget)

- using a mitt, why would it be deemed stupid? is it stupid using it on your driveway? wheres the difference?

- he was trolling you

- the most pedantic detailer would enjoy giving some advice on where you might be going wrong, or one or two things to simply improve, even at a jet wash - but they probably wouldnt be listened to!

i brought my own sponges the same ones from the OP in fact.

toyotafanboi wrote:

i used my own sponge

not that the mitt would be stupid per se, but more so that it would be like bringing your own bottle of Grand Cru to McDonalds and asking them to pour it into a paper cup with ice and serve it with your Big Mac because Coca Cola upsets your stomach.

the problem may be then Curran, that we don't all need to offer advice all the time. of course advice is generally considered as a positive thing, so it appears to be rude to turn it down.

However sometimes it can be like that friend we all have who keeps trying to sell us Aloe Vera products or Tupperware or Ann Summers; yeah maybe my skin would be softer with that Aloe Vera oil and my corn flakes would stay fresher in that nice tub but for the moment i'm happy with rough skin and putting a clothes peg on the top of the corn flakes bag and i'm sitting here wondering who else is still clothes pegging their corn flakes too and is too nervous to admit it for fear of being lambasted by the Tupperware crew...

like to be brutally honest and to give you a very basic example;

- i said i used a sponge.
- the first reply from a poster was to a wash mitt on what i understand is your site.

i like my sponge. can we not just continue having a thread about mediocre stuff without the detailing equivalent of the Herbalife crew come raining in on it

I would not even like my aspect of this thread to come across as "advice". we know there are plenty of guys with lots of time and big budgets who post on here; i was just wondering what the little guys are doing, so i posted up mine.