Instructional Padlet: Properly Washing Your Car by Max Weiss

Paint prep

mjweiss04 — 2025-09-12 21:43:03 UTC

Washing your car may seem pretty simple, but in order to properly wash it and keep it clean it takes a lot more than one might think. Primarily, for a full detail, you will need to rinse the car with deonized water, especially if you're working outside. It will make it so that the sun won't dry the water into water spots, which leave mineral deposits on the paint. You will then need to use a snow foam, a touchless soap that is sprayed onto the car via a foam cannon. This loosens up any grit or debris on the car so that you aren't grinding it into the paint when you hand wash it. After it soaks down the car, rinse again and you are ready to wash it. You may also use a iron remover to get iron off of the paint if you plan to polish, clay, or coat the car.

Hand washing

mjweiss04 — 2025-09-12 21:45:26 UTC

In order to have an effective and paint-safe hand wash, you will need two buckets, one of them with a grit guard at the bottom. If your car is already coated with a ceramic treatment, you will need pH-neutral soap. It's a good idea to dilute your soap according to the instructions on the bottle. You fill up the grit guard bucket with the correct proportion of soap and water, then fill the other with water. Every time you move from panel to panel of the car, wash the mitt against the grit guard so you aren't rubbing the dirt it has caught back into the paint. Sometimes it's useful to do this step twice. It's always important to start from the top down, and to wash the bottom panels and the wheels last.

Detailing options

mjweiss04 — 2025-09-12 21:48:32 UTC

Detail options, such as polish, paint correction, ceramic coating, and several others, all vary depending on what you want out of washing your car. I've personally ceramic-coated my car in order to make washing easier. It's essentially a chemical layer, stronger than a traditional wax layer, that not only protects the paint, but makes debris fall off easier on account of the slickness, and makes washing super easy as well. Doing this is a pretty laborious process, the car needs to be clean and free of contaminants. Using an iron remover or a clay bar will do so, and you will need to apply the ceramic coating panel by panel. You apply it with a hand-size applicator and buff it off after the time limit on the bottle has elapsed. Each ceramic coating is different, some have glossier finishes, others do not, some are sprayed on, some are applied by hand, etc. It's best to select one based on personal criteria. After application, there is usually a top coat that needs to be applied. You will need a garage or covered area for usually a couple hours to a full day in order to keep the car in there so that the ceramic coating can cure.

Keeping it up

mjweiss04 — 2025-09-12 21:50:25 UTC

While there are so many other things you can do to clean or detail your car such as tire dressings or glazes, the ceramic coating after a thorough wash will make maintaining the freshly cleaned look a lot easier. Weekly or biweekly washes are going to be extremely beneficial. You may not even need the hand washing step, a simple rinse down and use of snow foam will be enough to remove the debris depending on the time of year and the area you live in. Its important to also not go into a drive-through car wash at this point, as their soaps and large towels and mitts will damage your paint and erode the ceramic coating.