Do you wash your car? Or do you 'prep' it for deep cleaning?

[designit]

What do you do when you wash your rig?...

Do you do the top?...

 

[GAINMOB]

 

[ELVATO]

Depends what you will do after.

Ideally, you want to use the two bucket method, with each bucket have a Grit Guard in it. One bucket has water, the other soap mix. Make sure to mix the soap mix to proper spec. Too little soap will not provide enough lubricity for the dirt to be emulsified by the soap, and can cause micro marring. Too much soap can weaken your wax.

You start from the top and wash down. For cars, I like to start with the roof, then the trunk and hood. Front fenders and front doors come next, all the while staying above the rub strip. Then the back door and rear fenders. I then do the rear area (staying above the rub strip) and lastly front bumper. I then go back and do below the rub strip around the car (since this area is usually very dirty). A lot of detailers will have separate mitts for various areas of the car. I usually only have a top body, bottom body, and wheel mitt.

For SUVs, the process is pretty much the same. For other people's cars, I'll wash the whole roof. For mine, I just do what I can reach from the side step .

Overall, the main idea is to work from cleanest area to dirtiest area, so as to try to not introduce dirty particles in the cleaner areas.

I obviously do wheels, tires, and wheel wheels last. If it's mine, I'll just clean the faces with whatever is left of the soapy mix, do a quick brush of the wheel wheels with APC, and brush the tires. For other people's vehicles, I'll also brush the barrels and clean whatever the brush couldn't reach in the wheel wells by hand with a microfiber.

If you wanna get fancy, you bring out the foam gun...