Can someone recommend a car wash shampoo and drying protocol for PPF with ceramic coating?

I would always do a two bucket method with my cars, and dry the car with Absorber. For some reason I don't think absrober will work well with ppf.

I was going to get a foam cannon and use chemical guys or adams shampoo but not sure which one and how to dry? microfiber towels? Which is the best? Favorite wheel cleaner and I assume goat hair brush around the badges? Sorry for all the questions. Thanks!

 

I have used many brands over the years, but use Adam's soap for the PPF/painted areas, glass, and wheels. Adam's foam cannon works well to keep it slick and get soap everywhere, and the plush micro fiber drying towels are excellent. Any kind of wheel whoolies work well for around the barrel and calipers. I have a pack of three in different sizes which works well.

 

I wash PPF/wraps the same way as paint other than being a little more careful with the pressure washer so I don't lift up an edge. I feel like the absorber would be prone to scratching surfaces vs using something like waffle weave microfiber towels. The Rag Company is a good source for drying towels (or any microfiber). Other sources can either be questionable quality or often the same thing marked up.

Personally I have been using Adam's car shampoo in my bucket and Adam's mega foam in my foam cannon. I use the foam as a prewash and rinse it off before going back and bucket washing the car. With ceramic or wax on the car I find a lot of dirt comes off with the foam/rinse before I touch the car.

As far as drying, with a ceramic or waxed surface air drying works extremely well and will prevent scratches/swirls. An electric leaf blower works well. I personally like my Metro Master Blaster, but they are expensive, need a 20 amp circuit, and a lot of people still prefer leaf blowers. I rarely end up touching the car with a drying towel. If the car is not coated/waxed the air drying is frustrating, though.

 

Thank you Mike and mark for the replies! Looks like I will have to get to ordering some car care stuff this weekend!
Edit, not to take away from mikes reply but thanks for explaining your protocol markoware, that helps a lot!! I will do exactly this.

 

For drying I switched to CR Spotless demineralized water 3 years ago. Rinse with it and no need to dry. This year there are times I want the water gone faster than air dry so I got a Bigboi blower which works really easily on coated cars. This way I can dress wheels and spray some CarPro Reload on the body faster. But demineralized water is game changer, no towels, no risk of scratches, no water spots.

 

Thanks for the info storonto. I am going to look into ordering it right away ! Hope your are enjoying your spyder

 

Yes, never heard about this before. Thx. Though not sure if this means that I will start washing my cars again, apart from running them through touchless carwash, lol...

 

Np. If you use a pressure washer, you would hook up the CR Spotless to that. Use less water and resin.

I am, just need to get past break in. Have about 1550km on it now. Weather is starting to get cooler. Waiting on my link pipes because the sound is seriously lacking below 4000 rpm.

Do you have yours?

 

Car wash!? Touchless is even worse in terms of harsh chemicals. Also doesn't clean properly.

Water has minerals, that's what dries and leaves spots on the car. CR Spotless or any demineralizing system removes the minerals. Thus no more water spots. So you can let the water evaporate with no concern. Seriously the best unless you want the water gone immediately. Which is why I bought the blower this year, for those times. Towels are a pita and can scratch if debris is trapped in the microfibre.

 

Check out Obsessed Garage. He used to be on here, now running a very successful car care website with all the products you can dream of. Informative content as well, very detailed if that's your thing. He's running a sale now too.

 

Obsessed Garage also sells some packages, e.g. washing or wheels that are handy. It can seem a bit pricey, but the nice thing is he has curated specific collections of products he likes, whereas if one went to other car care sites one would find every product from each company available which can be confusing. Not to mention price or name brand does not always equal performance. His pressure washing packages are nice as well. I spent a couple of years going through cheap electric pressure washers and throwing them away after a year or two. They are okay for washing cars, but the weakest parts are the hoses and wands. He sells a few different pressure washers at various price points, but the great thing is he will package them with better hoses, wands, and fittings. I'm running his top of the line pressure washer and it is great, but with the right accessories one of the cheaper pressure washers would be fine, too.

I use the CR spotless as well. For me it gives me peace of mind that I don't need to go nuts drying the car when I blow it off and I'll still be okay. To reiterate what SToronto said, every time you touch your car with anything you scratch it. It's a game of minimizing damage through less touching, proper products, and proper techniques. Also, the touchless car washes sound great, but the only way they can clean the car is to use harsh soaps that strip off any waxes or coatings on the car. Even then they can't completely clean the car.

It's all a balance on how much time one wants to spend detailing one's car versus the level of paint quality that is acceptable. I never fault anyone for taking their car through a car wash if they don't care what their paint looks like, but I do like to educate people who are interested because a lot of people do care and just don't know any better. My wife was new to me as of a couple years ago and is now trained that the only part of her car she ever touches is the door handle. No grabbing the door or window frame to close it. Once I showed her the difference between polished paint and swirled paint, she started pointing out nice cars with bad paint on the road. I'm proud of her.

 

I use a CR Spotless with a pressure washer to wash my Porsches. Works great and don't have to worry about rushing to dry.

 

Soinds good! I am thoroughly enjoying my gt4. Need to rack on more miles. I very much am looking forward to ordering delete pipes and race exhaust. I will be getting the CR unit and car care products from OG thanks for the recommendation. Glad you are enjoying yours!

 

If you go all-in on car care stuff (which you might be if you are getting a CR Spotless unit), the full Kranzle pressure washing package OG sells is glorious. He did a lot of work putting that package together and it shows. The cheaper options OG sells would be way better than what you'd get at a big box store because the upgraded gun, wand, and hose make a huge difference, but the full blown Kranzle package is so nice if one is into detailing.

I'm a little jealous of everyone getting their cars...end of the year for my GTS. I guess I'll have a few winter months to get the paint/wheels/interior/soft top prepped and protected.

 

Google Pan The Orginizer and check out his site. He seems to do more testing than most folks and what he say seems to make sense most of the time. There is a lot of B.S. associated with modern coatings and picking the fly poop out of the pepper isn't easy.

I would certainly steer clear of any outfit that writes things like this: "............The polymer has been functionalized to provide much better..........."

In other words, inventing these products might be fancy science, but using them is NOT. If you're trying to sell me something, don't make up non-words in an attempt to impress or intimidate me. Some of us have been to school and when a salesman tries to blow smoke up my *** by FUNCTIONILIZING non-words, don't be surprised to see me raise the B.S. flag.

Gotta' go now. Breakfast time, so I'm headed toward my kitchen to FUNCTIONLIZE some bacon and eggs. You get the point.