Review: Griot's Garage Spray-On Car Wash - How to clean your wheels without water

[Mike Phillips]

Review: Griot's Garage Spray-On Car Wash - How to clean your wheels without water



Griot's Garage Spray-On Car Wash







What is it?

A replacement for a normal water hose and bucket car wash.


What does it do?

Enables you to clean your car when you don't have access to running water.


When do I use it?

Anytime you want or need to get your car clean but don't have access to running water.


Why should I use it?

To restore that just detailed look anytime, anywhere in just a matter of minutes.



Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do...

I MUCH prefer to wash wheels and tires with running water and this is because due to brake dust and road film, the wheels and tires simply tend to be really dirty.

That said - I've cleaned a LOT of wheels and tires without running water. There's all kinds of ways to do this but the basics are,

1. Spray the wheel and tire down with your choice of cleaner.
2. Agitate with a brush
3. Wipe the wheel and tire dry

Here's Griot's Garage Spray-On Car Wash for the wheels.






I love this brush!

This is the Wheel Woolies Boar's Hair Black Wheel Face Brush. I must have hundreds of pictures on this forum showing me use this brush for wheels, engine compartments and car interiors. If you don't have one, get one and thank me later.






Rinse Wheels

You can wipe the wheels clean but it helps to be able to flush the wheels with water as it simply does a better job of removing all the gunk you've loosened. This is the IK Foam 9 Sprayer and it works pretty good for this kind of thing.








Not the best way to clean wheels and tires but you can see by the dirty water - it works.






Then wipe the wheels and tires clean.

IMPORTANT: Always have dedicated wheel and tire towels for working on wheels and tires. It's entirely possible to get metallic particles from the rotors and the pads LODGED into the weave of a microfiber towel and hoping these metallic particles will wash out when you wash the towels is too risky. So have dedicated towels for wheel and tire work and then only wash and dry them with themselves. NEVER wash them with your PAINT CARE TOWELS.






Blow out the lug nut barrels, emblems, spokes, etc.






The cordless FLEX Car Blower is perfect for this type of drying.






Final results...

Here's the wheels and tires cleaned using a waterless wash.




After cleaning the wheels and tires this way you can then apply your favorite tire dressing and even wheel wax.





Review

The Griot's Garage Waterless Spray-On Car Wash is a very capable product. I normally use this product to do a waterless wash to cars in good condition but when pushed to the limit to clean wheels and tires it handled the task with no problems. The accessory items I shared do go a long ways towards enabling a person to do this type of wheel cleaning when running water is not an option.

Another benefit to the Griot's waterless wash is you can use it for all areas of the car including all the door jambs, trunk lid or hatch back jambs, the hood jambs and also as a product to use for cosmetic engine detailing. And of course, for the car body panels themselves. I like this product for it's category and often times show it and use it in my car detailing classes. Griot's makes great products and this is just another example of their quality line.




On Autogeek.com


Griots Garage Waterless Spray-On Car Wash 35 oz.

Wheel Woolies Boar's Hair Black Wheel Face Brush

IK Foam 9 Sprayer

Cobra Microfiber All Purpose & Wheel Detailing Towel

FLEX Cordless Car Blower

[Mike Phillips]

Continued....


Here's the final results....



2020 Black C8 Corvette Stingray - detailed by Mike Phillips





Cool car and I love wheels that are easy to clean no matter how you clean them.

[oneheadlite]

The Griot's Spray On Car Wash continues to be my favorite product for doing door jams. Great cleaning power and leaves them looking like you've worked on them with intention. (They've got more pop than just a normal wipe down).

Good tip on flushing the wheels when you're done - inevitably when you do a waterless wipe down of the wheels, you always catch that one spot of brake dust and drag it onto your clean wheel face.

[Mike Phillips]

The Griot's Spray On Car Wash continues to be my favorite product for doing door jams. Great cleaning power and leaves them looking like you've worked on them with intention. (They've got more pop than just a normal wipe down).

Completely agree.

Everyone does door jambs differently. I see some people wash them when they are washing the car. Of course that works but to me it's kind of messy and sometimes, a tick on the overkill side if the car is newer as the door, hood, trunk and hatchback jambs won't be that dirty.

Instead, after washing a car after I'm done drying it with a few Guzzler Waffle Weave drying towels, I'll take one of the guzzlers that's not overly wet, spray the jambs down with the Griot's waterless wash and then use this dampened drying towel to wipe them all down. This kills a couple of birds with one stone and is very streamline as far as the process goes.

Quick, fast and easy. Just like I like it.

Good tip on flushing the wheels when you're done - inevitably when you do a waterless wipe down of the wheels, you always catch that one spot of brake dust and drag it onto your clean wheel face.

Been there, done that...