Washing and Detailing for Apartment Living

[dtbernstein87]

Hello! First time posting, so here goes! Living in an apartment complex - i.e. found out that I'm not supposed to use the complex's water to wash my car. I don't really love the idea of using commercial washes, but I want to keep my car looking nice. I do have detailing products from Blackfire and love them, but since I found out I cannot use the water, I now need an alternative to cleaning the car prior to any sort of extra exterior detailing.

So with that as background, I wasn't sure if I could find a coin-operated DIY wash or find a commercial handwash or if I would be able to get away with using the waterless washes. My concern with the last option is that the car will be too dirty initially (as I'm not 100% what lightly soiled really means). I've done a lot of looking into this, but it seems that the best idea would be to ask the expert what to do when one's living situation is less than ideal.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[TLMitchell]

Welcome to AGO

:welcome:

An alternative to waterless washes when things are a little too grungy are rinseless washes. There's a few around, I have experience with ONR. This is assuming you aren't going to get excessive static about using a couple of gallons of water in a bucket. If you have to deal with the crud of winter where you're located a coin-op to get the worst stuff blasted off before a more detailed rinseless or waterless wash is always an option.

Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine: clay lubricant, optimum rinseless wash, no rinse car wash, optimum detailing products (http://www.autogeek.net/no-rinse-wash.html)

Also available in qts & gallons

Here's a thread on washing some pretty grungy cars with ONR, mine's post # 8.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/auto-detailing-101/16638-too-dirty-onr.html

TL

[wytstang]

I live in an apartment with no car care center and ONR is a blessing. ONR a 5 gallon bucket, a grit guard, wash median of choice and you have everything you need.

[dtbernstein87]

Great! Thanks guys! This is very helpful and I think I will be going with some ONR. TL your thread/impromptu review is very impressive! Well done!

[ski2]

Great! Thanks guys! This is very helpful and I think I will be going with some ONR. TL your thread/impromptu review is very impressive! Well done!

There are allot of videos on YouTube showing different ONR techniques which may help you out.

[ShinyRex]

For me I usually use a DIY car wash and bring all my stuff but if I clean up at the apartment i use ONR (2 bucket) or a waterless wash.

For my wheels I use a lot of the disposable shop towels to soak up run off then I use wheel and tire cleaner as normal and rinse with a pressurized garden sprayer.

using the shop towels to clean up the run off keep the management from giving me grief as the communal garage is underground.

If you are like me and have to move stuff around the collapsable hand trucks etc.. make moving buckets and towels easy.

[CalSun Detail]

Just call a pro detailer to do it for you. It'll save you a lot of time and effort.

[dtbernstein87]

Just call a pro detailer to do it for you. It'll save you a lot of time and effort.

Says the pro detailer ;)

That being said, you see a lot of "horror stories" about pro detailers, so it is kind of intimidating to find one if you're in a new city (that being said, I'm nowhere near Cali)

[Murman]

I just ordered a gallon of ONR, on Amazon, from PBMA. $41.94 shipped.