Detailing 101 Series: Car Washing Procedure

CAR WASHING PROCEDURE

Now that we’ve discussed the tools for the job, let me just give you a rundown of how to wash your car or bike in a manner that gets it clean and reduces the chances of your putting swirls into the paint. 

• Always wash your vehicle in the shade! This will keep your car wash shampoo solution from drying on the vehicle before it is rinsed off. If at all possible, it is best to wash on a relatively calm day as even a slight breeze can put particles of dirt in the air. These dust particles are attracted to the wash/rinse water on your vehicle and act like sandpaper when rubbed between the drying towel and vehicle surface. The breeze will also tend to dry your vehicle for you and this can cause streaks and water spots.


• Use two buckets. One is for your shampoo solution and the other is clean rinse water for your wash mitt.
  
• Fill a bucket 2/3 full with cool water. Add recommended amount of shampoo to the water. Using a stiff jet of water, fill the bucket to fully activate suds. Fill the second bucket with clean, water for rinsing your wash mittt.
  
• Thoroughly rinse the vehicle’s surface to remove the loose dirt and grime before you begin your car wash procedure.
  
• Only use high quality car shampoos and wash mitts.


• When washing your car remember to always go from top-down direction, never the opposite. Generally the dirtiest parts of your vehicle are those parts closest to the ground. Wheel wells, rocker panels and bumpers tend to have the largest accumulation of grime and you don’t want to bring that junk back onto the paint surface and risk scratching it.
• Meanwhile, when washing your bike, it is wise to separate the car shampoo solution for body-paint surface and engine/wheel parts. Generally the dirtiest parts of your bike are those parts closest to the ground. When engine, wheels and velgs tends to have the largest accumulation of frime and you don't want to use a shampoo mixed up with that junk for your bike-fairing surface.
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• Load up your wash mitt with your car wash solution and wring it out over the wash surface. This acts like a “pre-soak” and helps loosen surface gunk. It also adds more sudsy water to the surface more lubricity to help safely wash the grime away without scratching.
  
• Keep your wash areas small and rinse your wash mitt frequently.
  
• Wash in straight, overlapping lines as opposed to circles and remember to be gentle with the wash mitt on the first pass. This first pass will pick up the majority of the dirt, and loosens the remaining dirt for pick up on the second pass.


• Rinse your vehicle by opening up your Fire Hose Nozzle to the open flow setting or by removing the nozzle if you don’t have an open flow option on your nozzle and let the water run or sheet over the surface instead of spraying. This helps in two ways. First, generally when water has “sheeted” off of a surface it tends to leave less residual droplets behind. This means less to drying time. Second, since there is less water to pick up, there is less chance of your leaving water behind to “spot” the vehicle.
  
• When you dry your car, use only high quality microfiber drying towels, such as Meguiar's Water Magnet or Meguiar's Ultimate Wipe and wring out often. Gently dry the surface without much pressure. You don’t need to rub the surface…you’re just picking up the bulk of the water! Once you have picked up the bulk of the water, and the first towel is saturated, use the second towel to lightly pick up any remaining streaks or droplets.


• Lastly, if your wax is still in good shape, go over the vehicle with a quick detail spray such as Meguiar's Last Touch spray Detailer to restore a radiance and slickness to the paint. This last step will give your vehicle that “just detailed” look by enhancing gloss and will also remove any missed drips, water spots or streaks that showed up when you weren’t looking.

Happy Washing

Video: Drying your car with Meguiar's Water Magnet

with a courtesy from Youtube

Detailing 101 Series: Drying Towel

We are back again in Detailing 101.

You’ve spent plenty of money the purchase of your bike, or car, now the question arises, ‘How do I take care of it?”. The answer is vital to retaining the value of your vehicle and reducing future costs due to premature deterioration.

Previously, we already write about Car Shampoo and Two Bucket Washing Technique. Now, we will explore tools and procedures in drying wet car or bike. The most popolar option for drying your vehicle is the synthetic PVA towels or what we known as chamois. The synthetic chamois hold a large amount of water, wring out easily, and last a very long time (for the high-quality ones). The drawback is that they are not soft and gentle enough.

We at Motor Bridal Salon recommend to use Microfiber drying towel, like Water weaffle drying towel, Meguiar's Water Magnet, etc. The drying towel are very soft, safe and effective. They absorbs tons of water and when used properly are extremely gentle on your vehicle surface. It generally takes only two towels to dry vehicle to ensure a spot and streak free finish. The first towel picks up the majority of water and the second towel picks up any residual moisture ensuring a streak free finish. For economic reason, you may also use the combination og high-quality PVA chamois and the drying towel. The first step is to pick up the water using PVA chamois with no pressure whiping, and then use the drying towel to remove any residual moisture left on the vehicle surface.

Meguiar's Mirror Glaze Ultimate Wipe do the drying with excellent. It has a unique edgeless 40x40cm white hi-quality microfiber filamen.  

Our exprerience at the Motor Bridal found that Meguiar's Water Magnet also do the work greatly. It has a 40x60cm yellow microfiber but it less gently than the Ultimate Wipe

Enrich your knowledge about Washing your Bike or Car properly with reading also Detailing 101 Series: How to Wash Your Bike (car), Detailing 101 Series: Car Shampoo and Detailing 101 Series: Two Bucket Washing System

Detailing 101 Series: Car Shampoo

You’ve spent plenty of money the purchase of your bike, or car, now the question arises, ‘How do I take care of it?”. The answer is vital to retaining the value of your vehicle and reducing future costs due to premature deterioration.

Previously, Motor Bridal already discussed about how to wash your car properly toolkit. The next one we will described perhaps is the most important thing on washing car.


CAR WASH SHAMPOO



Car wash shampoos have come a long way since their introduction to the automotive detailing market. There was a time when we all just grabbed dish soap and went to work but those days are long gone. Dish soap is designed to eat away grease and food and while it works great for dishes but we need to keep it in the kitchen! The same attributes that break down the grease on dishes will strip your car wax and dry out your plastic moldings and rubber seals!

Some of the factors that establish a great car wash shampoo are foaming ability, lubricity, pH balance, concentration, gentleness and even gloss enhancers. High quality car wash shampoos will clean a car’s surface, enhance the gloss and leave the car wax, paint protectant or paint sealant intact to protect your paint. Generic car wash shampoos that you could purchase in bulk at a clearance or discount stores lack many of the attributes of the higher quality car wash shampoos. You will also find that the cost of the bottle of car wash shampoo does not necessarily mean it is less expensive. The high end car wash shampoos tend to cost more per ounce but they are also more concentrated so if you do the math, you may find that you are actually getting a better deal with a premium car wash shampoo.

In the market, there are lot of brand of high quality car shampoo, such as Meguiar's, Pinnacle, P21S, and a lot more. In our opinion, there are no significant differences between them as long as they are high quality car shampoo. The main differences are on the wax-concentration (gloss enhancer) inside the shampoo and the nice-smell of the shampoo, so you may decide which one is suitable for you. A car shampoo can be used also for washing a bike or boat.

One of Motor Bridal recommendation brand is Meguiar's Gold Class.. this shampoo easily found in the market.. or for better result, you may try Meguiar's Hyper Wash or Meguiar's Shampoo Plus.. both are the professional series from Meguiar's

Read also Detailing 101 Series: How to Wash Your Bike (car) dan Detailing 101 Series: Two Bucket Washing System

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Meguiar's Washing Technique

Video berikut merupakan cara mencuci mobil yang baik menggunakan kaidah dari Meguiar's, yang secara prinsipnya diaplikasikan juga di Salon Motor "Motor Bridal".

Beberapa hal yang kerap salah dilakukan ketika mencuci kendaraan:
1. Jangan menggunakan sabun untuk mencuci piring (seperti yang ditunjukkan di video di durasi 00:30)
2. Gunakan selalu sabun yang berPH netral dan tidak menggandung detergen ketika mencuci mobil. Tidak diperlukan sabun dalam jumlah banyak untuk mencuci mobil (seperti yang ditunjukkan di video di durasi 00:42)
3. Cucilah dahulu bagian atap mobil dan kaca, dikarenakan bagian tersebut yang merupakan paling tidak kotor,  (seperti yang ditunjukkan di video di durasi 01.45)
4. Kemudian setelah itu langsung dibilas oleh air bersih agar tidak menimbulkan bekas noda sabun (seperti yang ditunjukkan di video di durasi 01.13)
5. Bersihkan wash mitt dalam ember yang berisi air bersih untuk menjatuhkan kotoran yang menempel di wash mitt sebelum dilakukan pencucian di bodi panel berikutnya (seperti yang ditunjukkan di video di durasi 01:18)
6. Kemudian Wash Mitt dicelupkan kembali ke dalam sabun dan kemudian dilakukan pencucian di panel berikutnya, yaitu body (seperti yang ditunjukkan di video di durasi 01:24),
7. Usahakan mencuci mobil selalu dalam urutan top-down, yaitu dari atas ke bawah (atap - kaca - body - velg) dan bukan front - rear (dari depan ke belakang).

Kiranya video ini bermanfaat bagi rekan rekan untuk meminimalisir swirl-mark yang terjadi ketika mencuci kendaraan.

Easy Car Care is a Smart Car Career

baca juga artikel kami Detailing 101 Series: How to Wash Your Bike (car) dan Detailing 101 Series: Two Bucket Washing System

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Detailing 101 Series: Two Bucket Washing System

You’ve spent plenty of money the purchase of your bike, or car, now the question arises, ‘How do I take care of it?”. The answer is vital to retaining the value of your vehicle and reducing future costs due to premature deterioration.


At previous article, we already say one of the washing toolkit, Wash Mitt. Now, we will continue to the next one.


CAR WASH BUCKET (TWO BUCKET WASHING SYSTEM)

When it comes to swirl free washing, one of the greatest ideas to come along is the two bucket method of car washing. As the name implies you use two separate buckets to wash your car. One bucket holds the soapy car wash solution and the other holds clean, clear rinse water so you can rinse your mitt after each pass over your car. This keeps those dirt particles you just picked up on the surface from going back into the clean car wash solution and being picked up again by the wash mitt.


This brings me to another washing tools….Grit Guard Inserts. This is an optional additional tools for swirl-free washing. An enthusiast car owner should using the Grit Guart Inserts, and you will see the differences. The Grit Guard Inserts is a round plastic insert grate that sits on the bottom of your bucket suspended from the bottom by four lateral fins. Dirt from your wash mitt drops to the bottom of the bucket and is kept at the bottom of the bucket, ensuring that your wash mitt doesn’t pick up the dirt you just washed off of the car. When you finish washing your car and lift the Grit Guard Insert up and you will see how well it works. The Grit Guard Insert should be used in both the wash and rinse buckets for optimum protection against instilling swirl marks. 


We, at Motor Bridal, even tough, not 100% following the two bucket system, but we follow its principle. We separate the car wash shampoo for the body paint, and shampoo to clean bike's arm, tire, engine etc. We also having an unlimited running clean water to clean the sponge and wash mitts. Motor Bridal also separate sponge and wash mitts used for body paint and bike's engine.


Last but not the least, some Motor Bridal's customer are asking for two bucket system to clean their bike and it won't be a problem for us.




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Read also: Detailing 101 Series: How to Wash Your Bike (Car)

Detailing 101 Series: How to Wash Your Bike (car)

You’ve spent plenty of money the purchase of your bike, or car, now the question arises, ‘How do I take care of it?”. The answer is vital to retaining the value of your vehicle and reducing future costs due to premature deterioration.

Vehicle enthusiasts range from those who religiously wash or quick detail their vehicles daily, to those who love caring for their vehicle but only get the chance to wash them weekly or bi-weekly. Both categories of enthusiasts cringe at the very thought of taking their bike or car to a car wash, what we called as “automatic swirl factories”. In this article I hope to give you some ideas and tips that will help you maintain your vehicles appearance and teach you ways to avoid, or at least minimize creating swirl marks.

CAR WASH MITTS

Meguiar's Wash Mitt

Wash mitts can be microfiber style, sponges, synthetic and genuine sheepskin. I tend to lean towards the ridiculously plush genuine wool wash mitts. They are soft, hold lots of water and car wash shampoo and they rinse cleanly. You want to avoid shop rags, old t-shirts, and beach towels as the nap, or thickness of these items is so small that you can easily exert too much force onto the wash surface and inadvertently push surface dirt around instilling “washing swirls.” Also, these wash “rags” do not release trapped dirt as easily. The thicker mitts offer room for dirt to hide that is away from your car until your mitt is rinsed.

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Carnauba vs. Polymer Wax

Motor Bridal is a car and bike specialist salon. Our aim is to create a high-gloss mirror-like shine over the vehicle (car and bike) body paint and a clean all the body part. To do the salon treatment, Motor Bridal completely supported by Meguiar's, a proven brand name in the car care industry and car-enthusiasm. This mean all of our steps and products following Meguiar's rules.


Meguiar's provide this two type of waxes: The natural carnauba wax and the synthetic-polymer wax. Our customer often asked which one provides the best result.


The two basic choices of automotive wax type (carnauba and regular polymer) may seem interchangable at first glance, but don't be fooled; each has specific virtues, drawbacks and intended application

Carnauba wax is a natural wax that is made from components of the plant Copernica cerifera. This substance is extremely hard in its natural state. When engineered into a wax, this substance forms a tough shell over the finish of your car that is hydrophobic, or repels water. The other benefit to carnauba wax is that it is air permeable, meaning that air can pass through the shell.

Synthetic wax is a chemical compound that is created to work like carnauba wax, though scientists have yet to be able to completely mimic the natural substance. It is not as tough as carnauba wax, but it is easier to apply and is generally less expensive. Synthetic waxes, or sealants, protect your car's finish from water damage and pollutant damage and provide a high-shine finish.

	Carnauba Wax	Polymer Wax
Apllication	Carnauba waxes often require multiple applications and hand-buffing	As they are water-soluble, synthetic waxes can be applied as a spray-on
Shine	Impart a deep, lustrous shine that suits curving body shapes	Give a hard, mirror-like shine
Scratch Filling	Thick carnauba waxes to a better job of filling minor surface imperfections	Polymer waxes actually highlight and exaggerate scratches
Durability (under the best of conditions)	A carnauba wax will only have retained about 50 percent of its shine after 30 days, and will be effectively gone in 60 days	Polymer waxes will last as long as six months.
Heat	Carnauba wax will begin to melt and cloud over at around 180 degrees Fahrenheit, which is perilously close to the surface temperature of a dark car in the sun.	Synthetic waxes have a much higher melting temperature, and will never cloud over.

Car care tip and tricks:


COMBINATION TREATMENT
Many car enthusiasts use both by first applying a synthetic sealant and topping it off with a natural carnauba wax finish. The result is a luxurious, rich shine that will last much longer than a traditional wax or seal.