After about 14 years of being in the cleaning, polishing & restoring world, I have found some reliable, easy to use favorites. I hope that you can enjoy them as I have for so many years.
Quick Detail Spray
You use a Quick Detail Spray to mist onto your paintwork when it has accumulated a light amount of dust or light road film / dirt.
For example, you will use it in a scenario like these.
You pull your freshly washed “perfect” car outside to look at it while you mow on a sunny day for a few hours. Because you forgot to turn off your mower deck when you drove across the driveway, your car has a light layer of dust when you pull it back in the garage.
You drove your freshly washed car to work on a sunny day and drove it home after it sat outside all day. There is a gravel parking lot near where you park it, but not where you park it. It has a light layer of dust.
You drove your clean car to cars and coffee in the morning. The sky started to turn gray, so you headed home. It started to sprinkle as you pulled onto your street.
Think of it this way. This product is not mysterious. There’s no fancy chemicals or science behind it. It is almost completely water. The product in it simplest form is lubricant & water. Don’t overthink it.
If you try and mist the product on it after doing one of these — you’re going to damage your finish. (Unless you have paint protection film) You need to wash the car, don’t be lazy.
You drove in the rain for anything more than a 2 minute sprinkle.
You drove down a shitty old gravel road above any speed other than “creep” for any period longer than 4-5 minutes.
And countless other times when you do something that requires the lubrication of soap and water to emulsify and lift dirt off of your finish before you use any sort of mechanical abrasion (your wash mitt) to remove it from the car.
Products we recommend
We have been using both of these products for years. They are easy and reliable and don’t claim to do anything else other than clean the dust off of your car safely. They are DESIGNED to be diluted. You are buying concentrate. Too high of a dilution and its going to be a little streaky/smeary. Too little of a dilution and its going to feel like your pushing water around. Just right and its like spreading butter on a hot piece of toast & just melts into the finish.
Ultima Waterless Wash
- It’s not fancy. It’s inexpensive, it will last you a really long time, and it smells nice. MIST it, do not HOG it on 3-4 mists per panel from 24” away and follow up with a high quality MF towel folded into 4’s. Flip it and buff. Easy - done.
American Detail Garage Waterless Wash
Another option. Does the same as above. Smells good,
Microfiber Towels
Buying Expensive MF Towels sucks. Esp if they suck. There are a lot of different terms relating to the thickness and “absorbency” of MF towels. We aren’t going to get into that. But …
BASICALLY —— most quality MF towels consist of two main components. Polyester and polyamide. They blend them together. I don’t know how they do it, but they are combined. Science maybe? Anyway - one is absorbency and one is “scrubbing” or cleaning ability.
The blend that we have found is best for wiping down and maintaining a perfect finish is 80/20.
We have used a ton of expensive MF towels over the past decade and think that the best deal can be found in this product.
Autofiber Korean Plush 470 GSM
They come in a lot of colors but we like gray. They aren’t ruined after one wash. They are durable. They are the hot knife spreading out your country crock on a freshly toasted English muffin. Filling in all the nooks and crannies.
Microfiber Drying Towels
If your finish has a wax or sealant on it, its going to bead water. Which means the water will sit on your finish. It’s hydrophobic. If it were Hydrophilic (meaning it LOVES water) it would “sheet” water.
But thats neither here nor there. If you are reading this you have been hand washing your car for years. So let me cut to the chase and give you a drying towel that will change your drying experience forever.
So you have washed your car. It’s sitting there wet as hell. DON’T drive it around the block really fast to “dry off the water”. I can’t tell you how many times guys go “ i drove it to the hand spray bay at M**** car wash, rinsed it off and then drove real fast on the highway home. Then I towel it off when I got home.“ Tuck your shirt back in put the Budweiser down and listen to me - don’t do that. Shantelle can wait another 10 minutes the creamed corn isn’t getting any colder. That why they invented microwaves anyway, for Inconsiderate husbands.
Went down a rabbit hole there for a minute. What was i saying?
Oh yeah. You are going to love this towel.
Griots Garage PFM MF Wash Towel
Tire Shine
The days of spraying on tire shine via a spray bottle are over. That is something you can really only do with a solvent based tire shine. Solvent based tire shines are messy, oily and attract dust and dirt - to create that nasty brown layer over time on your tire.
Water based tire shines are less glossy, but have a rich dark satin/semi gloss shine. When sprayed onto a foam applicator, then rubbed into the sidewall of the tire, they look great. The product may sling a little bit, but if you let it dry for an hour or apply it in the sun and let it sit for 15 minutes you should be ok.
We recommend CarPRO PERL. Perl can be diluted (has to be diluted) to your desired shine level. We have been using it at 1:1 dilution ratio for years and love the way it looks. It lasts a while but nothing crazy. Cleans off easily.
CARPRO PERL
Car Wash Soap
If i had to pick a favorite car wash soap of all time it would likely be Chemical Guys Citrus Wash and Gloss. It smells amazing and foams great. They have a bunch of different labeled soaps but ultimately it is marketing and they are very similar. The company is famous for marketing and relabeling products that are basically the same thing and do the same thing. But they do have nice soap.
Chemical Guy’s Citrus Wash & Gloss
…. More Added later!
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