With a few basics you can take your car washing up a notch and get professional results
Washing your car at home is extremely simple, quick and guarantees better results than you will ever get from a 1 size fits all, generic car wash. It may take a little more of your effort and time, but you will be saving money not only on the service but also by minimizing the wear and tear on your vehicle over the years. You can be more gentle, more thorough, and more regular using this cost-effective method, leading to your car looking factory fresh, more often.
Today we are going to focus on the 5 basic consumable products you will want to add to your arsenal to kick start your weekly car washing routine. These super cheap and accessible items will give you a better return on investment than paying for any commercial or professional car wash!
Why Wash Your Car by Hand?
At this point you may be wondering why you would want to regularly wash your car by hand. I think I have already cleared up the financial aspect, but there is another aspect which I think is even more important. This is the damage that commercial car washes can do to the exterior of your vehicle, and I would briefly like to discuss it. Feel free to skip ahead if you are eager to get going!
Automatic car washes are a detailers nightmare, especially the full-contact car washes. Every time you pass through one you are dragging the previous cars filth all over your shiny paint, introducing scratches and swirls, not to mention stripping off protective layers with unknown chemicals. This happens when tiny particles of dirt, gravel or salt are wiped off the car in front of yours and embedded in the long cloth brushes typically seen in deluxe car washes. Those particulates impart micro scratches all over your vehicle slowly fading the paint, counter-intuitively diminishing results with every wash. Touchless car washes are a better alternative in a pinch, but the same idea still applies. The power washers are often to close and to harsh expediting paint failure. Most of the time, the lack of physical agitation doesn’t even result in a clean car and leaves you feeling ripped off.
When you wash by hand you treat the paint with care and reap the rewards of doing so. Paint is extremely expensive to repair and you are going to want to avoid damage at all costs. Every contaminant you can stop from touching the surface of your car is just elongating its life and saving you money!
We have a very thorough article outlining every step of the Two Bucket washing method, if you are ready to get the best results out of your effort, we recommend you take a read.
The Products
Assuming you are familiar with the process, lets discuss the 5 products that you are going to want, to start washing your car each week. This is not to say that there aren’t other products which would make the job more enjoyable or provide better quality results, but in this scenario, we are looking at the cheapest and most cost-effective way to get the results you are seeking. In our follow-up Intermediate and Advance Product Guides we introduce several items such as Snow Foam, Drying Aids, Ceramic Coatings and more.
1) Car Washing Soap
This is the only item on the list that is an absolute must! If you purely want to get your car washed and rid of dirt and grime build up don’t go any further than this. However, I will say the type of soap you pick is very important.
Household soaps and detergents just won’t cut it in this case. Degreasers, like dawn dish soap are higher on the PH scale than we need and could cause damage over time. You really want to make this small investment in a car wash specific soap which will be PH neutral and be the ideal product to get the job done.
Even better, car soaps are developed to avoid striping or wearing down the protective layers you might decide to apply to your car. If you have gone to the effort of applying a wax or a sealant, then a car washing soap is the guarantee that the coating will last as long as possible.
Lubrication is another topic you will notice I touch on a lot, if you continue to read through my more advance level guides. This is again very important for getting the best results on your car without introducing defects like swirls and scratches in your vehicles paint. By using a car washing soap developed to act as a lubrication layer between your wash mitt and the surface of your vehicle you can eliminate the worry that you are introducing scratches as you work.
2) Wheel and Tire Cleaner
A wheel cleaning product is necessary if you want to get your rims sparkling after miles of driving. Brake dust can be one of the toughest to clean off your car with out a specialized product like this.
Each time you get on the brakes the brakes pads are rubbing against the rotors, wearing off a little material at a time. This friction creates the brake dust which accumulates all over your rims and bakes on due to high heat in the area. This super tough grime can be a pain to get off by manually scrubbing but a dedicated wheel cleaner will make easy work of the job.
The dirty look of your rims might not bug you now, but the metallic composition of the dust tends to etch the surface leaving permanent damage over time. A wheel cleaner is made to react with this tough grime loosening the dirt first through chemical reactions, leaving you applying less effort to get a clean finish.
We still recommend agitating the dirt on the surface of the rims for the best results but the less scrubbing you need to do, the happier you and your rims will be. Soft tire bushes, wheel woolies or microfiber clothes are some great tools that make quick work of cleaning rims.
Avid Tip: These chemicals are a little but tougher than your usual soap so make sure not let it sit on any surface other than your wheels for an elongated time. Gloves are a great idea if you are planning to get in there and clean with your hands and a microfiber.
3) Tire & Trim Dressing
This goes hand in hand with the wheel cleaners and is one step that makes the biggest difference in your car’s appearance post wash. Nothing makes you vehicle look cleaner and more well taken car of than tire and trim dressing.
This category of products restores the look of plastics and rubber by remoisturizing the material, bring out a deep black color. Not only will these breath life into sun bleached plastics, but these coatings add an extra layer of UV protection reducing damage and keep them looking factory new.
Applying a thin layer to the rubber of your tires after each wash will make sure the rubber looks dark and fresh but also stops cracks from appearing in hot and dry climates.
A product I highly recommend is Car Pro Perl. This one is more on the high-end of the spectrum than the rest of the products on this list but is one of the best value products you can buy. This value inherently comes from the ability to dilute the product for you needs. By mixing varying amount of Perl with distilled water (Available at any grocery or hardware store) you can create a dressing for tires, plastics, interior leather and vinyl, use in the engine bay, or any other rubber trim pieces around your car. The best part about this product is its satin, non-greasy, finish leaving what every you coat with a fresh high-end look.
4) Glass Cleaner
Although this one is pretty straight forward, I would not discount the impact clean, streak free windows will have on your driving experience. Once you take a look through clean windows that almost disappear from existence, I promise you will never go back.
All you need is a low pile microfiber towel as well as an ammonia and soap free cleaner. I whole heartedly recommend Invisible Glass because it meets those two requirements.
Soap free means that it will not streak when applied and will evaporate off the surface naturally as you dry it off. Ammonia is a chemical that is included in most cleaners for its degreasing properties that tackle household messes much easier. If you have tinted windows you are going to want to priorities ammonia free as it tends to eat away at the film.
Invisible Glass might have a slight premium over other window cleaners you might find out there but it’s worth the cost. You can even use this one outside of your car cleaning regimen, so I see it as a win-win.
5) Wax / Sealant
Wax and sealants are the final touch to any wash if you want to lock in your work with a high gloss finish. You don’t even need to apply a wax or sealant after each wash but having some on hand means you can routinely reapply it as needed.
Wax is known for leaving a shiny finish and does so by filling in unwanted gaps in the clear coat. It wont magically get rid of deep scratches but it will definitely help to reduce the visibility of micro scratching. The color of your car will come through much better by enabling the light to reflect of the surface in a more uniform pattern.
This is not only going to give you a deep, wet looking finish to your paint, it is also going to act as the protective layer stopping the grime from regular driving deteriorating your paint. Essentially you are creating a barrier between the clear coat and any contaminants. UV sunlight and pollutants in rain and road water splashed up on to your car should roll right off.
This sacrificial layer is entirely worth applying for its water and dirt repealing qualities. A hydrophobic surface is going to make your job a lot easier when it comes to keeping your car clean week to week. If you want to protect your paint, add some extra shine and make your washing easier, we definitely recommend applying wax.
There you have it, with these 5 item easily bought at your local hardware store for less than $50 you can be prepared to wash your car all season long. Equivalently a carwash a week could cost you hundreds over one driving season. Get hands on, put in the effort and enjoy the lasting results!
