'Washing' a Ferrari Without Water

Hi there and welcome to another Car Cleaning Guru video. Here, I used this striking blue Mirabu Ferrari F430 to test out a new waterless wash product I had recently been sent. Having generally shied away from these types of products in the past, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and see what all this waterless hype was about, plus with the Ferrari sporting only a light layer of dirt and its owner wanting a basic pre-sale spruce up for prospective buyers, I felt the circumstances were safe enough to give it a go. The waterless wash from Smart Polish Pro is designed to deep clean, enhance and protect the exterior surfaces of your vehicle, leaving what they call professional grade results from a few simple steps. Although there's no ingredients to refer to on the bottle, the website featured on it does say it contains natural carnauba wax which is a good sign, with other active ingredients presumably being things like wetting agents and surfactants designed to lubricate the surface while encapsulating dirt particles ready for transfer onto one of two microfibre towels which came with the wash. Shaking the product first to activate its ingredients, I liberally sprayed it onto the Ferrari's dusty paintwork in a direct summer sun as I had no other choice before lightly wiping over the area with the first towel, followed by a thorough buff with the second dry towel to leave a noticeably shinier, slicker feeling, smear free finish. Employing the same methodology as you would when washing a car with water and soap I worked methodically from top to bottom cleaning either a panel or section at a time, spraying directly onto the surface, gently wiping over and then buffing off with the two separate towels. I did have some issues with the waterless wash smearing on the windows which meant I had to follow up with a separate glass cleaner but to be fair I was applying it directly onto baking hot glass which even the most robust of glass cleaning products would struggle to obtain a crystal clear finish on, I'm sure in slightly more favourable conditions the Smart Polish Pro would have finished the glass off a treat. For me it's areas like these around detailed badges and trim that waterless washes fall short as they simply haven't got the all encompassing cleaning action that suds and a stream of water have to access accumulated dirt from intricate areas. The product was however giving excellent results elsewhere on smooth panels like the bonnet, lifting away the light dirt with ease and buffing off to a high shine under the summer sun. I continued to work my way around the Ferrari, doing my best to work the Smart Polish Pro into the headlights, badges, vents and grills to showcase Pininfarina's design features in all their glory. It's worth noting that with trigger spray applied waterless wash products like this there will inevitably be some overspray contaminating previously cleaned panels meaning a quick rebuff will probably be necessary at the end in order to give a true uncontaminated finish which isn't really a big deal but does add an extra few minutes onto the overall wash time. Again, despite the excellent finish the Smart Polish Pro seemed to be achieving, you can see how not just this but any waterless wash product will struggle to fully remove dirt from tight or deeply recessed areas such as underneath this F430's rear lamps. Still, the flip side is that you aren't going to be chasing rinse water drips from these areas during the drying process. Although they weren't picked up on camera, there was a small number of bug splats inflicting the front end of the Ferrari which, with some gentle persuasion, seemed to lift off relatively easily with the wash. One benefit of using a waterless wash product to clean a car like this is that you won't be left with frustrating puddles of standing water inside air intakes which can be difficult to fully expel after using a hose pipe or pressure washer. I finished off the exterior paintwork by cleaning the lower sills as I would if washing the car using the traditional medium, before attending to the rear diffuser which on a car like this aside from the wheels tends to accumulate the most dirt. The door shuts were also given a thorough wipe down with the Smart Polish Pro before being buffed off to a shine to match the surrounding paintwork, and lastly the wheels were attended to and being a satin finish they thankfully didn't require the extra buffing the rest of the car did. If you were considering starting a waterless wash regimen it would probably be wise to purchase another pair of towels to use exclusively on the lower areas of the vehicle to prevent cross-contamination with the ones being used on the upper painted panels. Obviously waterless wash products like this aren't really designed for fully detailing the painted callipers of a supercar and so I just did what I could with the microfibre towel to remove as much of the surface brake dust as possible but this does illustrate another limitation of this kind of product. And once I had given all areas a final buff over to remove any overspray or remaining smears this is the finish I was left with. Admittedly the car was relatively clean to begin with but the Smart Polish Pro did do an excellent job at lifting off what light dirt there was while noticeably improving the finish. The blue Mirabu paintwork now looked much brighter, felt far slicker and most importantly there didn't appear to be a swirl mark in sight. Does this then mean that we should all switch to waterless washing and hang up our hose pipes? No, of course not, but this product could effectively be used to complement your existing wash regimen. For example it could be employed to safely maintain a previously fully detailed vehicle, to quickly remove unwanted contaminants like bird droppings or to rejuvenate the finish of a well maintained vehicle where access to water is limited or restricted such as at a car show. So long as you exercise a little common sense there's no reason why you couldn't use this product on a regular basis to at least maintain your vehicle without damaging it if traditional washing with soap and water was not a viable option. Remember washing in the traditional manner still results in dirt being drawn over the surface no matter how careful you are, so why not maintain using a product specifically designed to encapsulate and suspend that dirt away from the surface. As always thanks for watching, constructive criticism is welcome in the comments below, be sure to subscribe and stay tuned for more videos like this.