Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Autowirral How to wash your car

You must remember three basic rules when washing your car:

· Never wash or detail your car in direct heavy sunlight.

· Never wash or detail your car in extremely cold weather, if you have to, do it in the garage (the goal is to wash the car in a somewhat heated place).

· Do not wash your car after you have driven it. Do the hand test, by placing your hand on the hood to feel if there is any heat, to test if the car has cooled.

After you have found the perfect car-washing environment, you are ready to start.

1. The first thing you should do is wet the car with a hose adjusted to medium spray. This will wash off any lose dirt, or pollutants.

2. Do not use regular dishwashing or hand soap to wash your car. Use any type of car washing solution, which you can find in any auto store.

3. Mix a small amount of the soap with water in a small bucket. You want the soap to get sudsy.

4. Using a clean cloth, dip it into the bucket, getting as much suds as you can get.

5. Using little application pressure rub the cloth in a back and forth motion to eliminate swirl marks in the finish. ( The goal of this step is to loosen the dirt on the car, and hold them in suspension within the solution)

6. Remember: To dunk the cloth frequently in the bucket to get rid of the dirt trapped on the cloth.’

7. Wash sections at a time. Some people wash the car from the wheels up, others from the roof down. It does not make a difference; it is how you prefer to do it.

8. Do not forget to wash the hard to reach places like the bumper or hood edges. Opening your hood may help in getting those areas.

9. Do not forget to also wash your wheel well, and spokes.

10.Rinse the car off with a hose, again adjusted to medium spray.

11.Dry the car with clean cotton cloths. The best cloth to dry your car with is terry towels.

Some people prefer to drive the car around after the washed off the soap to get rid of excess water, but not to dry the car you still want moisture. Drive around the block and then towel dry your car, so you will not get water spots.

Remember to dry your bumpers, wheels, and chrome pieces; leaving no water droplets, because they leave water spots. If you see any dirt on the towel, you did not wash the car properly.

I tend to wash the top first and do the wheels and lower parts last to stop the sponge getting dirty and scratching the paintwork.

Its a good idea to t-cut your paintwork now and again (not too often) to bring back the colour, but make sure you protect the paintwork again using lots of wax.

Oh yeah, and white cars are a git to keep clean

and buy diamond brite to stop the paint fading and do this after a good buff up to help prevent oxidising altough u need sunshine for this and as there is only 4 days of this per year in the uk..............

oh, p.s car wash for me, stuff scratches, sorry boys and girls but my motor is a working vehicle and i dont have the time (plus i am lazy)

3 I think you'll find

i am working on the hunch of it being sunny this leap year

Me too, cba with hand washing... pop down the local Arc 5 minutes and its done... hence al get it detailed in the summer.

plus it gets a dicenfectant wash twice a week at work

I always clean my car myself, that way I know it's done properly

+1

u wanna do mine as well then lol

is it bad ive never washed me car myself... ive hoovered inside a few times but jonah does it when hes doing his haha!

are u meant to vacuum them to, shit i never knew that

Lol I cant see the point in spending hours doing it, then for it to feckin rain a few hours later and wreck all ye hard work... until its sunny i dont see the point.

In the summer i dont mind doing stuff to it though!

i am still shocked u gotta vac them too