Winter washing, new to all this

[Mikesdak]

Hey you guys. After years of neglecting my vehicles, I've gotten a decent car and want to keep it clean thru winter. I live in South Dakota, where it routinely drops below zero in the winter. I park outside, and drive on a mixture of gravel and salted asphalt. The car will get pretty dirty.

What's your recommended method of washing through winter? I have access to a self-serve pressure washer wash bay. I'm thinking of pre-rinsing with the pressure washer, and then applying some sort of ONR type product with a hand sprayer? Then, I'd probably wash with presoaked microfiber towels, and pressure washer rinse, and then towel dry.

Thoughts on the process and products?

[Mikesdak]

Incidentally, I'm going to apply fk1000p sealant prior to winter, to hopefully protect it better.

[PaulMys]

Sounds like a good plan.

The FK1000P is a great sealant/hybrid.

[Mikesdak]

Thanks. I'm thinking McKee n914 waterless cleaner looks good.

[PaulMys]

N914 is excellent.

[Mikesdak]

Ahh good. I can't wait to pick some up and try it.

[evo77]

How often during the winter months in SD are temps ABOVE freezing where you can actually wash your car?

For the majority of the season when temps are BELOW freezing, I would just run it through a touchless car wash just to keep the salt and gravel off. The car isn't going to be perfectly clean nor stay clean for long, and that's just the way it is in the winter. Unless you can secure an indoor heated location where you can thoroughly wash by hand, touchless car washes are good enough.

[chilly]

How often during the winter months in SD are temps ABOVE freezing where you can actually wash your car?

For the majority of the season when temps are BELOW freezing, I would just run it through a touchless car wash just to keep the salt and gravel off. The car isn't going to be perfectly clean nor stay clean for long, and that's just the way it is in the winter. Unless you can secure an indoor heated location where you can thoroughly wash by hand, touchless car washes are good enough.

And if you can find a touchless wash that has an undercarriage blaster feature so much the better so your frame and underbody get as much salt removed as possible

[Mikesdak]

Hmm, good thought there. I think I'll do a hybrid of both, depending on how warm is the wash bay ...

[Coatingsarecrack]

Hey you guys. After years of neglecting my vehicles, I've gotten a decent car and want to keep it clean thru winter. I live in South Dakota, where it routinely drops below zero in the winter. I park outside, and drive on a mixture of gravel and salted asphalt. The car will get pretty dirty.

What's your recommended method of washing through winter? I have access to a self-serve pressure washer wash bay. I'm thinking of pre-rinsing with the pressure washer, and then applying some sort of ONR type product with a hand sprayer? Then, I'd probably wash with presoaked microfiber towels, and pressure washer rinse, and then towel dry.

Thoughts on the process and products?

The last pressure rinse isn’t needed. Basically you’d just bring doing a normal bucket wash instead of a rinseless but just using rinseless wash.

If you are going to do all that a bucket of soap would be better.

If wanting to stay rinseless I would pretreat with a soap/traffic film remover applied with a pump foamer.

Let dwell 2-5 mins.

Then rinse with PW.

Clean panel by panel with a rinseless product.

Dry panel by panel. Use a good drying towel.


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[noorth]

Sounds much like i do it.

1. Pressure wash
2. Pre-treat with N914 or Ech20 from a regular pump sprayer section by section.
3. Soak 10+ towels in 2-3 gallons RW solution
4. Use Carpro dehydrate to dry panels or if using ech20 use 500gsm towels or my older gyeon silk dryer.
4a. You can spray a little bit of ech20 at 1:20 dilution ratio to help dry the paint. You have to play around with how much you should use and how much water is left on the panels when you use the drying aid. You don't need much.

It's pretty simple once you do it a few times. Next on my list is one of those rinseless wash sponges however.

I love rinseless washing. I'll be trying p+s absolute next just because it's cheaper than N914 - in Canada. :D Still have half a bottle left, 32oz of N914 lasts a long time!

[Mikesdak]

Thanks for all the input you guys. There may be days where I'll do the touchless wash, but I'm going to gear up for a periodic hands on wash... Touchless always leaves it a little dirty...but I'm sure not gonna use the brush washes in town....

[chilly]

The touchless washes around here just keep going up in price and cutting back on the amount of chemicals they use

They do have unlimited wash cards you can buy where you can get a wash every day for anywhere from $45-$60 a month, depending on the level you choose

But in my case it doesn't matter because none of them are getting either of my cars clean, even with the premium wash, which is up to $22 each time unless you buy the unlimited card

Not that long ago they would get baked on dragon snot off your car, now, the weak a$$ chemicals won't even get normal soiling off

Very frustrating especially heading into winter

[Mikesdak]

Holy cow, that's crazy pricing. Ours is probably $10 for a premium wash, that won't get it fully clean.

My wife uses the brush wash on a monthly subscription basis, about $35 per month which includes MF towels and high powered vacuums... But it's a brush wash. (She has a silver car, and is not as discriminating as I am when it comes to scratches). Brushes won't touch my maroon Accord.

[chilly]

Holy cow, that's crazy pricing. Ours is probably $10 for a premium wash, that won't get it fully clean.

My wife uses the brush wash on a monthly subscription basis, about $35 per month which includes MF towels and high powered vacuums... But it's a brush wash. (She has a silver car, and is not as discriminating as I am when it comes to scratches). Brushes won't touch my maroon Accord.

It’s Alaska

Everything is more $$$

I will run my 14 year old 4Runner through the brush wash when I’m desperate but even that doesn’t get the rear end clean, especially the upper part of the back window/door because of a top rear spoiler


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