At first glance, I'm sure most of you did too, I thought wow that's a personal question. Toilet paper or Bidet?

Usually wash than wipe dry. On both accounts. YMMV. The color is Slate Blue for MY 84 so not much shows up except on the chrome (wheels and headlight bezels).

My apologies for offending anyone, that's just what I do.

Jon '84 US Auto

 

My cars aren't garage queens.

Wash 'n wax

 

This exactly what I do too when I wash my car.

 

Spray detailer, or wash then spray detailer.


For my black semi-DD, I use a combination depending on how dirty it is and with what.

-- It gets dusted with a Cali duster with Endust applied to the duster and let dry. Then it gets a sprit of Adams detailer, with microfiber. The car lives in the garage, often under a cover, so dust is the principal contaminent.

-- If it's been out enough to get more than casual dust-dirty, it gets a water wash with just enough detergent (a few drops) to get the water 'wet' and dissolve any airborn filmy stuff that seems to gather on the paint. Or bugs, droppings. etc. I use very soft water (through two separate cation resin beds) so less issues with rinse spots, but still do the full drying of jambs and underhood stuff EVERY time without fail. I do get out the compressed-air for moving water out of tail light cavities, foglight cavities, behind license playes and such.

-- Wheels are cleaned with the same detergent mix but from a separate dedicated bucket with its own dedicated sponge. Then the suspension bits, wheelhouse liners, and the bottom of the bottom rocker areas from the same 'lower half' bucket. The wheels are waxed on the front face, with 'rejex' on the barrels so the brake dust comes off easily with a wipe of the sponge.

Once all the washing and drying is done, it gets a spritz of the Adams spray detailer and a final microfiber wipe to clear any possible remaining deposits before they become one with the paint.

 

i wash, but not often enough..
i am in a salty environment so i wash it off often..

i also use a lawn sprinkler under the car to clean it there

 

+1

With five black cars in the stable, you learn really fast where swirl marks and halo's come from......99% come from improper washing techniques.

Soap not only pulls off dirt, it's a lubricant.
I also use multiple (see about a dozen) rags when I do anything.
What you are pulling off the car on one panel will add scratches on the next one.

One??? Well, you do have a red car, very forgiving

I have about three dozen of these:
http://www.autodetailingsolutions.net/m9910.html

I'm not saying they are "the best" but they have everything you look for. No sewn edges, no seams, no labels hanging off etc... all things that cause swirl Marks.
I use at least two dozen when I wash / detail a car. If I'm just dusting a car off with a QD, I'll still use 6-10 of those. No reason to keep using the same rag over and over.....put the dirt in the laundry bin, not on the next panel.

I also have specific towels for wheels, lower edges etc...

Electric only, many (maybe most?) gas blowers allow exhaust to escape out the chute. I prefer using a filtered air compressor with a spray nozzle.

+1
That's the best way to go. The pressure washer I picked was due to an adjustable throttle and pump (most don't have this):
https://www.ridgid.com/Tools/RD80770...r/EN/index.htm

Two buckets with a "grit guard" at the bottom to catch the dirt. After the mit comes off the car, rinse the mit off in one bucket (rubbing on the grit guard) then again in the other.[/quote]

Not to mention the very harsh detergents used in car washes.

You can get away with a lot with a red car (not kidding). If I sneeze up wind, my 79 goes form concours to filthy

 

You guys are starting to sound like those you were making fun of a while ago:

“Oh My God, my car got rained on. What should I do?”

It’s a car man, get over it.


Ditto that .....

Does anybody actually drive their car?

 

Getting dirty is one thing, washing it and harming the paint is another topic altogether.

Just because some of us take great care when we wash our cars does not mean we have garage queens that are rolled out of the garage to get wiped down with a diaper then rolled back into the garage.


If I never drove it, I wouldn't have to wash it!!!

 

^^^^^ I like those wheels! ^^^^^

 

It seems the more I used this one microfiber the softer it gets. It is quite a bit softer to the touch than any other new or old microfiber I have used. The one I worry about is the california duster. I try to go as lightly as I can with that. I have never heard of Enddust. I will have to check on that stuff.

 

The Cali dusters are treated with a resin something when new, so they hold on to dust and junk from the car. So after a little bit, you have a nice dirty scratch-generator on a stick. I wash the duster with shop laundry after every use, and whatever original resin that was on it is gone along with the dirt it removed. So I spray Endust on it and let it dry before storing it. If I 'forget' to let it dry, it will streak on the paint.

I'm generally not a fan of dusters unless the car is just very lightly dusty. It's a handy tool to scratch the paint with anything more than just a little surface dust. If there's anything more significant anywhere at all on the paint, the car gets washed. The duster MUST be washed when it shows any sign of dirt at all.

 

You often see someone use a "paper" towel to remove a small bit of dirt on the paint....but paper towels often have embedded bits of other stuff like dirt rocks metal and wood is not all that soft. Very easy to scratch the paint.... I once got a little speck on the aluminum foil seal off a polish/wax container on my very clean rag....managed to put a few swirls onto a black Ferrari..

 

Interesting topic. I do use a car wash - a lot!! I'm reluctant to let salt stay for any time on the car; this was particularly true when I lived on the east coast where the salt is really heavy. I don't drive the car in the winter as we are in the mountains thirty miles west of Laramie . I still use the car wash in the other three seasons because I like the undercar spray to get rid of all of the mud (we live a considerable distance away from hard surface roads). I use a German non-wax once or twice a year.

 

As previously stated, black cars are nearly impossible to maintain to perfection. Here are some closeups of the paint on our black GTS. It looks pretty good, although, this car is a garage queen.





This one is my daily driver. Red is a much more forgiving color. Between polishes, just slap a coat of wax on, and the paint looks like brand new.

 

I wipe in the mornings but I prefer to wash my car in the afternoons. Not sure how these things are related.