The 6 Different Kinds of Car Wash

So I've come up with six different car wash categories if you like and I'm going to go through them and I'm going to talk about the main reasons you perform each one of those washes. It's kind of tools and products you'd use and time scales and then my thoughts on them you know do I find them a bit of a ball ache and laborious or be super satisfying transformative and then what you can expect performing similar. So the first one represents the most laborious, the most time consuming, the most product intensive and the most impactful on the surface and that's the multi-stage decontamination wash. So I'm quite familiar with this I would guess you know if you're fairly well versed with car cleaning you're probably quite familiar with it but I would say the main reason that you perform a multi-stage decontamination wash is fundamentally to prepare the car for further work usually in the form of enhancement and or protection. Enhancement being polishing and protection being well protecting whether that be a wax, a sealant or in this day and age something like a dedicated ceramic coating. Now in terms of products and process you're going to want to start with something like heavy pre-wash, a citrus degreaser, an all-purpose cleaner maybe even a traffic film remover and whereas with other kinds of washes you'd apply that to maybe the lower third or half of the car generally speaking I'd recommend caking the entire car with it because you're going to want to soak things like window rubbers, wing mirrors, grills, badges you know roof rails and things like that in a fairly heavy chemical. So you cake the entire car in that I would then personally snow foam over that to allow it to sit for a little bit longer. Allow that to soak arguably for as long as you can whether that be five minutes or 15 minutes depending on the conditions and then thoroughly pressure rinse off. Now it can get messy you'll get a lot of splatter and kickback some people will enjoy the messiness of it knowing that it's ultimately leading to a decent place in terms of how the car is going to be turned around. You're then going to want to go in and hit it with sort of a traditional contact wash so you want kind of a maybe a strongly alkaline strip wash kind of product you're not going to be using a wash and wax at this stage but something like that you know that's designed to strip back rather than superficially maintain. A microfiber mitt sort of gentle but also has a bit of bite to it when it's got a bit of elbow grease behind it I would recommend. I'm not too concerned with potentially inflicting damage at this point because nine times out of ten for me I'm working on a neglected car that's probably covered in damage anyway. The focus is just to get all of the or as much of the dirt off the surface as possible. So after a heavy contact wash you're then going to want to go in with a softish brush maybe a traditional bristled brush rather than say a super soft bristled brush and work something like an all-purpose cleaner in in separate fashion to things like the window rubbers around badges grills trim all the areas that sort of suds shampoo and a wash mitt alone can't truly access because there's almost certainly going to be you know either visible built up or hidden dirt in them agitating it over as best as possible letting it soak for a little bit maybe and then I'll generally rinse that off separately before moving on to the next bit just to prevent any strong residue from drying on the surface. And this is what sort of distinguishes this kind of wash from another kind of wash. Once you've spent a fair amount of time contact washing both with a mitt and a brush you're probably then going to want to go in I'd say at this stage after the contact wash with heavier chemicals to chemically decontaminate. I'll generally go in first with a fallout remover you want to douse the entire car in chemical let it sit for however long needs be two minutes five minutes ten minutes once that starts reacting and you can see that working you may want to agitate it with a super soft brush or a microfiber towel you might not you might just want to rinse it off if it isn't too bad you might need to reapply that and you just keep on reapplying it until it no longer lights up on the surface and that can take a fair amount of time in itself and you need to be careful with things like rubbers wiper arms you know plastic trim that you don't let that product dry on which can be a bit of an awkward faff so you might want to have your pressure washer to hand to intermittently rinse things over so yeah it's a bit of toing and froing but it does need doing and it will make the difference even if that dirt you know that bonded sort of ferrous dirt can't be seen on the surface to begin with. You might then have to move on to a dedicated tar remover whether that be in all-encompassing fashion i.e. the entire car is left to soak and then wiped over or in more of a targeted spot cleaning fashion in my experience tar tends to accumulate around the wheel arches and lower sills and so you might get away with just performing a focused tar removal on those areas. A keen eye helps because you know tar spots aren't always particularly visible and so you've got to really focus in before you commit to drying the car and it can be done dry later on if needs be also a physical decontamination with a clay bar or what have you can remove tar so it's not the end of the world if you miss it but if you suspect the car has got tar on it or you don't think it's ever been treated to a tar remover it's worth doing just for the sake of it so you can tick that box say you've done it even if you don't see any tar the combination of tar removal and fallout removal for me are the least pleasant the combination them two smells is pretty disgusting you're going to want to wash your face and your mouth out afterwards you can apply it to a towel instead and wipe it over the surface you might get away with that but if the car is quite heavily contaminated you're just going to have to douse each panel as you go and go with that and if that means a bit of splash back or a bit of crap in your face so be it's all part of the fun as they say so once you've thoroughly chemically decontaminated you're then ideally going to want to look at mechanical decontamination with the use of something like a clay bar a clay mitt or a clay towel to physically remove anything that the contact wash and the chemicals alone couldn't now to dig into mechanical decontamination a little bit deeper yes you can perform it if you're not going to machine polish because it will allow a protectant arguably to adhere and cure far better than you know if there's still ingrained dirt on the surface but generally speaking the process of mechanical decontamination inflicts marks of its own so the argument is or generally speaking my argument is you would only generally do that if you're then going on to polish because that will remove those marks as well as the others that were there to begin with but you can still technically mechanically decontaminate if you're not going to polish because it will strip all the remaining dirt back it will leave the surface nice and slick and smooth and then you can go on to apply a dedicated protection on that sort of naked surface and get the best out of that so it's what works for you in the moment you can technically do both but generally speaking don't mechanically decontaminate unless you're going to go on to also polish afterwards so to finish off a decontamination wash you're going to want to treat the car to one final thorough rinse so when i say thorough i mean thorough even though you've probably rinsed it off multiple times you just want to make sure you cover everywhere as methodically as you can one last time before committing to drying because the last thing you want to do is dry the car off realize you've missed a few nooks and crannies and have to re-wet it again so spend some time treating it to one final thorough rinse and then you're going to want to dry it now generally speaking i would recommend a towel for a decontamination wash because there might still be some chemical residue left on the surface here and there a towel will sort of absorb and remove that better than a blow dryer also the car won't be hydrophobic and repellent enough at this stage to warrant a blow dryer although you can use a blow dryer to force the water out of cracks and crevices that's entirely up to you but i'll generally thoroughly towel it over from top to bottom there might be a few little blemishes a few little marks the odd little tar spot that's been semi-softened up with your prior work that you might have missed a damp towel can just just tease off you know so it makes sense to me to to use a towel rather than a blow dryer but whatever floats your boat so yeah laborious time consuming impactful to the car but important at the same time and you can't really call a car fully detailed or even in good condition if it hasn't been treated to a dedicated decontamination washer it's definitely something you should be looking to perform with your car at least the once so the next wash i want to talk about falls at the opposite end of the spectrum to a decontamination wash and that is the routine maintenance wash now this is primarily intended to maintain a car that's been fully treated to decontamination wash enhance and protect primarily just to remove a light layer of dirt and to keep it looking as good as it possibly can be with a minimal amount of impact and effort on your part so for me all you'll be looking to do is lightly pre-wash lightly contact wash and dry and that's it so realistically speaking you'll need a snow foam for a fairly thorough pre-wash and soak maybe a pre-wash for the lower part you know if you've got a bit of traffic film or you've got some bug splats but generally speaking if the car's been adequately enhanced and protected none of that should be ingrained and bonded so a snow foam and a thorough pressure wash should generally take care of sort of 80 or 90 percent of that prior to making contact once pre-soaked and pre-rinsed you'll then want to employ a contact wash now i would advise the two bucket technique perhaps a couple of different wash mitts here because the whole point of this washing to be as gentle and sympathetic as possible and not undo either the work you've carried out on the car before or that you've paid someone else to carry out for you so when it comes to making contact with a routine maintenance wash you're probably just going to be employing a single swipe of a shampoo primed mitt you might even want to coat the car with an extra layer of either snow foam or suds through a foam cannon after you perform the initial pre-wash and rinse that off just to provide another sort of safety blanket for when you're making contact to protect that surface even more so that you wouldn't perhaps do with other washes you're probably going to want to employ a ph neutral shampoo or maybe even a wash and wax to keep any previously applied protectant topped up or to at the very least not degrade what protectants already being applied you're not looking to deep clean you're not looking to incessantly scrub away you're not even really looking to get into the nooks and crannies because the nooks and crannies shouldn't be dirty or be hiding anything you know a routine maintenance wash for some people might be performed on a weekly basis for others say if your car's kept garaged and you only use it once or twice a month you might get away with washing it once a month but generally speaking i'd say anywhere from 5 to 14 days would warrant a routine maintenance wash and anything longer than a month whether the car is filthy or not i would then go into detail wash territory which i'll again i'll talk about in a bit you might be cracking the brushes out and things like that maybe spritzing a bit of fallout but generally speaking for me a routine maintenance wash is purely a wash mitt there's no brushes present i'm not tickling around the badges you're just washing over the openly accessible panels in a sympathetic fashion you're then subsequently rinsing off fairly thoroughly and then you're drying and that's pretty much it you know anything else that you want to do which you know you you can have a soft bristle brush to hand and tickle over the badges that it's not the end of the world people if you're just using suds then that's arguably fine it's just for me personally once i start sort of considering and encroaching on the details i will then class that as a detail wash and approach it slightly differently from the get-go now it can be quite enjoyable in the sense that the car's not too dirty to begin with it's in good condition so you're just sympathetically revealing what was there underneath that light layer of dirt you should be able to feel the slickness of any previously applied protectants under the mitt as you're washing perhaps if it's been treated to a dedicated coating that will be repelling the suns as you wash which i find quite satisfying you know water being repelled is one thing but suns being repelled on the surface is another but generally speaking because it's not particularly laborious and you're not you know you're not worrying about releasing deeply ingrained dirt it's it might not be satisfying but i'd say it's therapeutic and in fact you could make the point that you know a lot of people might perform a routine maintenance wash when the car doesn't even really need it you know it's more about them just getting out escaping for half an hour getting a breath of fresh air getting a bit of light exercise catching up with a podcast listen to a methodically it's not going to do the car any harm either and then again you could even say you know the non-car guys that are still out there performing a jumbo sponge wash with fairy liquid every every sunday morning at the same time even though that's not the same approach and methodology as you might take it's still classed as a routine maintenance wash because they're routinely maintaining their car if that makes sense so after a final rinse when it comes to drying you can use a soft towel which i have done many times you might want to pat it you might want to gently draw it over the surface rather than you know wipe and scrub but a blow dry is probably more appropriate both in the sense that it reduces the amount of contact you're making and therefore the chances of damage being inflicted but also the car should be slick and repellent by that point if it's had previous work done and so a blow dry should work really effectively and be quite satisfying to perform so if you can go ahead and get the vast majority of the car dried off without having to make contact then great another thing you could do if you were towel drying was use a bit of a detail spray as a lubricant or a drying aid just in case there's any stray dirt particles on the surface that they can sort of encapsulate as you're drawing that towel over the surface but yeah it's a sympathetic pre-wash it's a sympathetic contact wash and it's a sympathetic dry just to reinvigorate that surface and bring it back up to where it was say a week earlier so sat in between the likes of a routine maintenance wash and a multi-stage decontamination wash is what i'd refer to as a detail wash now a detail wash could simply be could be seen as sort of a routine maintenance wash plus if you like so you might have a couple of shampoo prime super soft bristle brushes that you utilize to work some suds into and around the badges and grills details and trim that you wouldn't with a routine maintenance wash and that's fine that technically in my mind then becomes a detail wash but it can also go a bit further than that if you suspect your car despite having been previously enhanced and protected might now be sporting a bit of bonded contamination in the form of iron fallout you might spritz a bit of fallout remover over and you might chase a few tar spots probably in targeted fashion you're just generally going into a little bit more detail than you would with a routine maintenance wash but generally speaking nowhere near the level of detail you would with a decontamination wash you might use a gentle ph neutral shampoo like you would with a routine maintenance wash but you might also use a slightly acidic reinvigorating shampoo to try and declog a coating for example that's what i would class as work to be done within the the detail wash confines now for me i would personally say it's probably the most satisfying of all the wash categories because it kind of encompasses a bit of all of them without being too time consuming too impactful and too laborious it ticks all the boxes without creating additional work for yourself so before moving on to non-frothy or sudsy wash approaches i thought it was worth mentioning contactless washing which isn't something i regularly do but i think a lot of other people do and it can be useful especially if your car isn't that dirty to begin with so basically it's a pre-wash soak and subsequent rinse then either blow dry or natural drip dry if you're using rinseless water now although it's not you know particularly thorough it can be beneficial for cars that are quite well kept to begin with that have been well protected and what dirt it's sporting isn't bonded or ingrained and a soak and pressure wash can perhaps get rid of 80 percent of that without you having to touch the car so even though you're left with 20 percent of the dirt afterwards it's still 80 percent better than it was to begin with so while the traditional contact washes with shampoo suds are going to tick the boxes for most people i thought it was also worth mentioning the likes of rinseless washing and waterless washing because they are you know technically a legitimate approach that a certain amount of people will use on a fairly routine basis now i'm not too familiar with it i haven't fully discounted it yet i can understand how it might work for some people and i can understand people's reservations on how washing a car that's covered in dirt without a pre-clean might inflict damage but i thought i'd give it a mention here i haven't got a huge amount of footage to include here because i've only filmed myself doing a few cars maybe two or three over the last decade or so so i'll include what i can but if you're familiar with the process you're probably better well more well-versed in it than i am so don't really need to hear my opinion or see my technique in the moment anyway so in addition to rinseless washing you've also got waterless washing which is a bit of a misnomer i think if that's the right word because there is water in the product itself that you're spraying on the car it's primarily water and it's called waterless i think because you're not using any water in a bucket in a hose or in a through a pressure washer to pre or post rinse so i've only used it once or twice you know as a bit of a novelty in videos you spritz it on you let it encapsulate any dirt on the surface you gently wipe it over and you reveal a freshly clean surface and that can work to a certain extent you know i've seen it on the shopping channels and use sort of those kinds of products sold on there for videos there's pros and cons you know it doesn't take a lot of time it doesn't cause a lot of mess it's not very expensive if you don't really care about scratches and swirls up front then you know it allows you to quickly wipe your car down in as hassle-free manner as possible you will need a certain amount of clean towels more so than you'll need with say a wash mitt or two and that might be seen as a downside some of them can be a bit smelly and greasy feeling that can be seen as a downside i suppose for non-car people i understand the appeal of not having to have loads of equipment and just spritz something over the surface wipe it down and have it have it looking considerably better than it did before but as i say it is arguably like like rinseless a legitimate approach that might work for a certain amount of people a certain proportion of the car cleaning population so forth it was definitely worth a mention even if to just sort of jokingly discount so i'm going to wrap things up there because i don't know exactly uh how much more i can say about car wash categories i think for the most part i've got it all covered but in a way it's nice to leave things open because then you can get involved in the comments and say what do you think about this why didn't you mention that i can give you my input and then that sort of sparks debate and a bit more interaction in a different means so yeah thanks for watching i will be back with hopefully a chat me way through in the moment video like the so stay tuned for that and thanks for watching this