car washing question - drying problems

I'm curious what you are using as soap?

If you have sufficiently rinsed off the car after washing you should not experience any left over residue from the soap unless you are using some type of heavy dish detergent (which is really bad for the finish, unless you are doing a full detail and claying).

I suggest you get a simple car wash soap at your local store and go easy when mixing it......use 3/4's of whatever amount they recommend.
Also, if possible, try to avoid washing in direct sunlight!

keep it simple....you'll b fine!

 

i dont think any drying towel on the market is going to remove 100% of the water, there is always a little left that just evaporates away it seems. i suppose you get 99% dry using multiple towels.

i have had good luck with multiple microfiber towels for drying. i tried chamois but
its requires a lot of wringing out

the mr clean autodry seems to work crappy for black cars

there are some new self drying car wash soaps on the market, i havent tried one yet
(simoniz and rain-x)

i wanna use a leaf blower, im betting the 200 ++ mph wind coming out of it
would just totally blow all the water off the car in 10 seconds

some reviews on the simoniz brand say the quality of the self dry has to do a lot with whether or not your
water supply is hard water or soft water..

i wonder if a water softner would eliminate all water spotting but that would be overkill?

some people have reported that it is a lot cheaper in the long run to use one of those de-ionizing inline water filters used for
mobile homes then the mr clean autodry filters

 

Your drying towels (hopefully you're using waffle weave) absorbed that spray wax crap. Wash them alone in warm water with either MicroRestore or Charlies Soap and dry them on low heat. NO fabric softener or dryer sheets. You may have to wash them more than once to remove that junk and some vinegar in the final rinse might be a good idea.

 

Why not use a clean chamois skin to dry your car?

 

I use a very large artificial chamois which give a good dry finish. Nothing will get all water off.

If you use a "wash and wax" type car wash the soapy feel may be the wax.

When drying a car do the glass and bright parts first then everything else. A big chamois should dry the whole car without needing to be wrung out. You may want to wring it out half way through. If you car has enough wax on the water will bead and most will run off on its own.

Dry wheels and tyres with a separate smaller chamois.

Always rinse out your chamois with clean water when you are finished and if it touches the ground.

 

chamois just seemed to be a pain to work with, for me using like 4 or more
microfiber towels works a lot faster, and you dont have to pre dampen
and wring out microfiber towels like you do with chamois


we should also open up the discussion to those silly infomercial towels
too.

1) bill mays's zorbeez is reviewed to be total crap, its supposed to be no better then felt that you buy at an art store

2) shamwow!, if you watch the commercial in slow motion thier is still some soda spilled under thier carpet that the product did not pick up

 

This may sound odd, but I wash car in rain.. very easy and takes 15 minutes.

1. I let car get wet from rain.

2. I have a very dense soft brush on long handle like car wash places uses to pretreat areas. I then brush (no soap) down the car and rinse with hose. 10-15 minutes tops

3. I let sit in rain for awhile longer to allow rain to rinse tap water away.

4. I next put car back into garage. The car will dry spotless in garage. You can speed up drying by blowing with leaf blower before returning to garage.

 

Getting a soft water loop will help. When i lived in Queen Creek, Arizona we added it onto the house from the builder. I would wash my truck outside, move it into the garage wet and the heat inside hte garage dried it. Then went out and waxed. It was nice, and even sometimes when i had to leave it outside, with the sun beating down on it the water did not leave marks jsut evaporated off.

 

Excellent idea as the rainwater does not have all the minerals that tap water has so it dries without spots. I wash in the rain also but I still wipe the car dry after I put it back under the carport. P.S.I really like your definition of political correctness! You hit the nail on the head with that one.

 

Mr. Clean Autodry needs no toweling.

 

I use a capfull of car shampoo in the wash bucket, and a large bucket of cold water to rinse the dirt off the washcloth before it goes back in the soapy warm water. Frequent rinsing is necessary, more so if it's really hot, though I try to work in the shade or at least the cool of the day. Maybe the local soft water helps, but a chamois does a fine job of drying, with no spots or streaks.

 

i have burned through 2 mr clean auto dry filters and the results were poor. it did
reduce spotting but it did not eliminate it. i got better results on my moms white
buick tho.

if u are really detailed about using the filtered water trying to get the non filtered
water off the car, you can burn through the mr clean filter really quick

its just not worth it, an inline rv filter would cost about 50-60 and it would last
a lot longer then "about 10 washes"

keep in mind i am just reporting my expierence with black paint

 

Do yourself a favor and try one (actually, buy two) of the models of waffle weave drying towels I mentioned above. If you spend any time at all at Autopia, you will quickly come to two conclusions. First, these people are absolutely anally retentive about car care. Second, you would be very hard pressed to find anyone there who still uses a chamois. There is a reason for that, it is old "technology" that presents a far greater chance of damaging your finish. If it was better, they would use it, if it was as good or nearly as good, there would be a "chamois camp" and a "waffle weave" camp. There is not a chamois camp" because the WW is the superior way to dry your vehicle.

 

I use old, laundered white cotton towels to dry Rudy.
I also use Zaino "Show Car Wash", only at half-strength, to wash him.
We use microfiber cloths to clean, a hose to rinse.

When the Zaino is all gone, I'll switch to Dr. Bronner's soap to wash him, as it is biodegradable.