The paint on a car can last ten to fifteen years. Of course, that assumes the car's finish is properly cared for. This brings us to the question of the day - what is proper care? Those who run their car through an automatic car wash may want to think about what really happens to their car. At an automatic car wash, the car is sprayed with soap, and the dirt is then literally beaten from the car's paint with nylon brushes. Do this on a weekly basis, and in no time the finish will loose it's depth. On the other hand, many people grab a bucket, some household soap, a few towels, and they wash the car themselves. Depending on the materials used, that may be harder on the paint than an automatic car wash. Proper car care requires a little knowledge, the correct materials, and some time. How much time? A quick wash may take twenty minutes. For a more detailed wash that includes the wheels and tires, make it forty-five minutes. A wash and wax will take between one and three hours. Depending on how long it's been since your car was actually clean, getting ready for SevenStock may take forever. Lets start with a regular wash, and go from there.

Before going into how I wash my car, I'll review a few things I don't do. I don't wash a hot car in direct sunlight. Spraying a 110-degree car with cold water will shock the paint. I don't leave water to air dry on the paint. I don't use any of these services - Automatic car washes, "Touch-Less" car washes, car washes put on by fund-raisers, high-pressure coin car washes, either of my kids, or those mobile detailing services that frequent corporate parking lots.

The Materials

I prefer a boar's hair brush a couple of cotton mitts, and a five-gallon painters bucket. The idea here is to avoid scratching the paint. Boar's hair brushes don't hold grit, so they won't damage the paint. For spots the brush won't clean, the first mitt will usually do. The second mitt is only used on the wheels and tires. Even though synthetic mitts are available, I use cotton. Sheepskin mitts are safe as well. Some people use towels, pads, and/or sponges. Any of those will scratch the paint much easier than either a mitt or a boar's hair brush. The scratching will happen if dirt is trapped between the paint and the pad/towel/sponge. If the car is just dusty, I prefer to wash it with straight water. This will allow the wax to last longer. If I have to use soap, I use liquid car wash soap. I use liquid car wash soap, because granular car wash soap doesn't always dissolve properly. If the granules get caught between the car wash mitt and the paint, they can be abrasive. For anyone who doesn't know, there is a difference between car wash soap and the cleaners found in most kitchens. Car washing soap is a cleaner that is used to remove surface contaminants and leave the wax. Dish washing soaps, such as Ivory Liquid, are designed to remove caked on animal fat from pots. They are two completely different products. Dish washing soaps typically strip wax from paint. How? Carnauba wax is a type of vegetable fat. Unless a person wants to wax their car every time they wash it, they probably shouldn't use something that strips fat. According to Mothers (the car cleaning manufacturer, not my mother), their car wash soaps are pH balanced, have gloss enhancers, and resists water spotting. Turtle Wax sells a car washing soap that has water-soluble wax in it. Certain dish washing liquids may resist spotting, but that's about all they have in common with car washing soap. Hopefully at this point, I've convinced you that car wash soap is a better choice than dishwashing liquid, and a far better choice than using granular dishwasher soap. Lastly, I don't use don't use hot water in the bucket. Hot water will soften wax.

The Wash

OK, so the car is cool, the materials are handy, and your wife won't interrupt you by asking where the extra strength Ajax is. Where do we start? I start with the wheel wells and wheels. Depending on where I've been driving, this area can take the most time. Also, if I do the wheels last, the water may be drying on the body while I'm scrubbing brake dust. I shoot under all the wheel wells with a high pressure nozzle to break the crud loose. If I've got some dirt in the wheel well that requires an oil and grease cleaner, I'll spray the cleaner, scrub it with a brush (not the boar's hair brush), and then use another shot from a high pressure nozzle. After the wheel wells are done, I remove the high pressure hose nozzle. For the rest of the wash I'll be using a steady stream directly from the hose. I do this because a high pressure nozzle can damage paint. It is especially bad to use a high pressure nozzle where you have paint chips. After the wheel wells, it's on to cleaning the wheels.

I usually clean my wheels with car wash soap, one of my older mitts, and a wheel brush. Once or twice a year, I use a wheel cleaner product. If you decide to use a wheel cleaner, get the right one for your wheels. Chrome, steel, and roughcast aluminum wheels typically use a different type of cleaner than polished aluminum, anodized, or clear coated wheels. The label on the cleaner will state which application is correct. The wrong product may etch your wheels, so please be careful. Before cleaning the wheels you should make sure they are cool to the touch. I work one wheel at a time. Drench the wheel with water, and then either use the mitt to apply the soap, or mist the wheel with the wheel cleaner. I immediately start washing the rim, using the wheel brush for hard to get to spots, and finishing as soon as possible. I don't want the soap to dry and the less time the wheel cleaner has, the longer the finish on my wheels will last. I rinse the wheels thoroughly when I have finished.

After the wheels, I dump the soapy water from my bucket and refill it again. I do this because I don't want any brake dust from the wheels or grime from the tires to get on the paint. If I use soap on the paint, I use half as much soap as the directions on the container recommend. Less is better because although car wash soap is pH balanced, it still attacks the wax. After refilling the bucket, I rinse the entire car with a steady flow of water from the roof down. Then I immediately get the brush loaded with suds and start at the roof. I wash the roof, and then rinse. Next I move to the hood, nose, front fenders, doors, rear glass, rear fenders, rear lights and bumper. Every time I finish one body panel, I rinse that body panel AND THE BRUSH. I do this to avoid moving dirt from the car, to the brush or mitt, and from there to the bucket of soapy water. If that happens, most of the heavy dirt will sink to the bottom of the bucket, but the lighter dirt will stick to the suds on top, only to be picked up and scrubbed on the paint again. This type of abrasion is one of the things that can cause swirl marks. Going in the order I outlined takes me from the least dirty parts of the car to the dirtiest parts. That is the preferred route. Once I've rinsed the bumper, I re-rinse the entire car.

That's how I wash the car when I use soap. Many times I clean the paint with just the brush and water. If this business about washing a car with plain water sounds odd to you, go get your Rx-7 owner's manual. My FC manual has an "Appearance Care" chapter. In that chapter, there is a "Finish Maintenance" section. That section states to wash the car "thoroughly and frequently with lukewarm or cold water". Later on in that same section, it also states "Insects, tar, tree sap, bird droppings, chemicals from industrial plants or other similar deposits can damage Mazda finish if left on. Prompt washing may not remove all these deposits. A mild vehicle wash soap, safe for use on painted surfaces can be used." Basically, Mazda recommends Rx-7 owners wash their car with water. If there are deposits that washing doesn't remove, then soap should be used. Porsche, Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, and Bentley all recommend using plain cold water to wash their vehicles. Why not soap? When paint looses it's natural oils, oxidation occurs. Even the mildest of soaps accelerate the process.

Now that we're leaning toward a soap-free cleansing, why not just dust the car? It's probably dustier that it is dirty. That may work, but I don't think dusting is good for the paint. This is not to imply that I know dusting the car will scratch the finish, but I prefer to err on the safe side. Besides, with my boar's hair brush, I am dusting. I'm just rinsing it at the same time. To wash a car without soap, I hold the water hose with one hand, and the brush in the other. I keep the water flowing over the painted surface, and simply wipe that surface with the brush. I start at the roof, follow the same route I outlined earlier, and end at the rear bumper. When I wash the car this way, I don't have to rinse the brush because the water is doing almost all the work.

If you're not familiar with a boar's hair brush, unfortunately they are not cheap. I've found them for as little as $20, and as expensive as $80. This may seem like a lot of money for a car wash rag, but when compared to a paint job, it's inexpensive. A boar's hair brush is probably the best brush you can use on a car. Unlike a mitt or sponge, natural boar hair wicks dirt away from the finish and will not scratch your paint. Another advantage of the boar's hair brush is the dirt doesn't stick to the hairs as easily as cotton. That being the case, a boar's hair brush rinses out easier and what the rinse doesn't catch, will come off in the bucket when I shake the brush. That's also the reason I use a five-gallon painters bucket - it gives me a lot of room to shake the brush. If a boar's hair brush is out of the budget, a cotton mitt will do the job almost as well, but you have to consistently rinse it out.

Drying

Why bother to talk about drying? If I allow my car to air dry, the minerals in the water will cause it to spot. The harder the water, the worse the spotting will be. That means I have to dry the car. What's so hard about drying a car? You grab a towel and wipe it down, right? That is basically the way it's done, but many of the scratches and swirl marks in paint are the result of wiping the car down improperly. That is because many times the most important part about drying a car is overlooked. The most important thing to insure when drying a car is the car should be clean. If after I dry a car, my chamois or towel has any dirt on it, then either the car was still dirty when I finished washing it, or my chamois or towel was dirty when I started. In either case, any dirt that is wedged between the chamois or towel and car, will scratch my paint. These minute scratches usually aren't noticed immediately, but over the years these scratches add up and result in what is commonly called swirl marks or spider webs.

Here is something else to consider - the type of towel that is being used. There is only one instance I can think of where a polyester towel will not scratch the finish on a car - a micro fiber towel. It doesn't matter how soft the towel feels, if it is made of polyester, it scratches. So how do I avoid getting scratches? I check the care tag on the towel for polyester content. The tags on some towels are wrong, but I check them anyway. How do I know when the tags are incorrect? I've set a few on fire. When I burn a corner of the towel, and it burns clean, then it's cotton. If the fibers start melting, then it's polyester. Setting things on fire in the house ware section is frowned upon where I shop, so you may want to try this at home. Not that your spouse is going to be enamored with the idea, but at least you won't be arrested.

If your local towel emporium's return policy doesn't look favorably on fire damage, you might want to bite the bullet and buy either a micro fiber towel or a chamois. There are several grades of micro fiber towels. I was given a pair at a P21S demonstration and they work great, except they are too small to dry the whole car. It would take three or four to dry an FC. While micro fiber is made with polyester, each individual fiber is much more slender than a single strand of cotton. Because of this, it can absorb more liquid than cotton. The slim fibers are also the reason micro fiber towels don't scratch the paint. If you'd rather not use a towel, another route is to use a chamois.

There are two types of chamois, natural and synthetic. There isn't much difference in using either one, but I prefer a synthetic chamois. When a natural chamois gets old, sometimes they smell and get stiff in parts. Whichever one you choose, make sure to wet the chamois before using it. A dry chamois will scratch the paint. A wet chamois is safe for paint and glass, but I don't use it on the wheels. A chamois should be kept as clean as possible and most clean wheels are still dirty. For this same reason, I don't recommend using a chamois on the lower rocker panels, or the door and trunk jambs. I wipe those areas down with a cotton towel. Depending on the type, there are two ways to store a chamois. If you use a natural chamois, wring it out, stretch it back to its original shape, and allow it to air dry. Some synthetic chamois can be stored in their original container while still damp. If a natural chamois is stored in a container while wet, it will mold and/or rot. Chamois tend to leave a very small amount of moisture on the surface of the car. Usually it's not noticeable, but when prepping a car for photos or a car show, some people will go back over the car with a cotton towel. Lastly, whether you use towels or chamois, if you drop it on the ground, rinse it thoroughly before continuing to dry the car. It will scratch the finish if dirty.

Now lets contrast what I just outlined to the local "brush free" hand car wash. Do you think the guys who scrub your car are rinsing their mitts between body panels? Are the drying towels clean? Are those towels all cotton, micro fiber, or the cheapest polyester available? When they clean the windows with their blue dyed container of ammonia and water, do they take the exact same towel to wipe down body panels? What kind of soap do they use? You know those signs that say, "We recycle water"? Does that also mean they wash your car with dirty water?

OK, so you've got the point, NO MORE TRIPS TO THE CAR WASH. Now that you've bought the supplies and properly washed your car, what do you see? If this is the first time your car has been washed and the paint hasn't been scratched in the process, it's clean but the paint still needs work. If your car has swirl marks, spider webbing, scuff marks, etchings, hard water deposits, or oxidation, you don't necessarily need a new paint job. The bad news is, I won't cover that until the next article.

Check back soon and we'll have another article on waxing your car. What's so special about wax? Well, do you use natural wax, synthetic wax, hot wax, colored wax, hard wax, soft wax, or Lemon Pledge? Does your wax contain acrylics, polymers, or Teflon®, and is that a good, or a bad thing? Read the follow-up article and you'll know.

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