RE: Brakes:too much washing?

["Dan Sinclair" <sinclair@prospro.com>]

Re: washing your car often - pros and cons.

As a former professional auto detailer, I have some first hand knowledge in
this area.  I've been meaning to make a web-based detailing tips page, but
haven't got around to it.  Some of the cleaning agent companies have tips on
their web-pages, but most are fairly self-serving - go figure.

Washing your car 4-5 times a week is probably excessive.  I don't think it
will harm your brakes, but your paint will not fair so well.  No matter how
careful you are, washing your car will always rub microfine dirt particles
across the surface of your paint.  In time, these result in tiny little
scratches.  In full sunlight, you'll recognize these scratches as a
spider-web looking effect that's uniformly found all over the car.  They're
unavoidable, and waxing and compounding will usually take them off, but the
more often you wash, the more of these web-like scratches will appear, and
the more paint or clearcoat you'll have to compound off to get a nice gloss
back on the car.  Paint and clearcoat are finite, and it's very possible so
compound and wax it away - then you're left with glossy gray primer spots or
dull spots where the clearcoat is gone.

When you wash your car in general, you want to use a fairly high pressure
stream of water to pre-rinse the vehicle.  Don't use a high psi pressure
washer!  You can literally loosen paint and trim and moldings with some of
those suckers, and you can force water into places it shouldn't go (door
locks, seals etc.)  Get all loose debris off with a good stream of water,
and wash off as much grit as possible (most of it sticks, but more dirt
comes off in a pre-rinse than you might think).  The reason for pre-rinsing
is to get off dirt that you'd otherwise rub around on the paint if you just
went at it with a wash mitt.  You don't want to drag any more dirt across
the surface of your paint than is absolutely necessary.

Next, wash the car from TOP to BOTTOM, section at a time.  Start with the
hood and roof and trunk lid, rinse down.  Next, wash the upper part side
windows, rinse down.  Do the TOP HALF of the doors and UPPER parts of the
fenders, rinse down.  Then wash the lower parts of the doors, the rocker
panels, the nose and the tail.   Also, it's a good idea to hold the wash MIT
at arms length and rinse it with a jet of water out of the hose after each
section.  Most people just rinse the MIT in a bucket of water, but why add
all that grit to the water that you're going to ultimately throw back up on
the car?  There's a good reason to go from TOP down to:

A) keep from rinsing dirt and soap over areas you've already cleaned.
B) to keep your wash MIT as clean as possible (the lower parts of the car
have the most dirt, thus if you cleaned the rocker panels first, you'd drag
the crap all over the upper parts later).
C) to allow the pre-rinse water to soak and loosen as much of the caked on
crap on the lower portions of the car a possible before going over it with
the MIT.
D) I do the nose last because I like to let the bug guts and such soak as
much as possible - softens them up so I don't have to rub so damn hard.
Always get bug guts off you paint thoroughly.  Bug guts are caustic and will
eat tiny little pocks and dents in your paint.

ABOVE ALL - NEVER LET YOUR CAR AIR DRY AND DON'T DRIVE AROUND THE BLOCK TO
BLOW THE WATER OFF!!!  Letting water dry on your paint will result in WATER
SPOTS - just like on dishes in the dish washer.  Since you shouldn't use
Cascade on your car (I know a lady who tried it - her paint was nearly
ruined) you should always towel dry your car.  Water spots can only be
removed by compounding, and they will stain glass, paint, chrome, you name
it.

Rinse and repeat once a week or so would be my suggestion.  Everyone will
have a different opinion on frequency.  My suggestion is just to weigh the
pros and cons.  There are contaminants in the dirt (salt, pollution, etc.)
that are bad for your paint, but everytime you drag a MIT over your car, you
drag abrasives over the paint.  There's a happy medium that you have to
find, and it depends on weather, climate, contaminates, and energy level,
but keep your car waxed, wash it regularly, and keep it out of the sun
whenever possible and you should be fine.

I welcome any comments, criticisms, suggestions on my technique (and clearly
there's more to discuss but I'll save that for the web page).

Dan Sinclair
1988 Audi 90, 67K mi.
Picture and details online at:
http://131.107.68.28/a4.org/registry/details.asp?car=761




-----Original Message-----
From: owner-quattro@coimbra.ans.net
[mailto:owner-quattro@coimbra.ans.net]On Behalf Of J. Kris Baca
Sent: Friday, February 05, 1999 12:26 PM
To: quattro@coimbra.ans.net
Subject: Brakes:too much washing?


As a pride-ridden Audi owner I wash my new Audi whenever it gets dirty,
which is about 4-5 times a week.  I use Mequire's soft gel wash and just
soap the thing down and rinse it off with a hose (no spray, but not a
trickle either).  Recently, however, I was told the this can be bad for
the car (disc brakes, body, vent system, etc).  So is this overkill?  I
like my Audi to shine, but if it's going hurt it in the long run I'll
quit.  any thoughts?  thanks.