Washing and Maintaining Your Twin
 

I just wanted to start a thread (hopefully new) about what products you guys use to wash your car from sponges, hand towels, soap, wax, glass cleaner, and etc.

I'm just trying to get a sense of what products give the best result so I can stack up and hopefully even enlighten a few of you on whats available. Any comment/experience always helps.

@kanundrum @Sargy

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Experts

How about ask this question in the correct forum? http://www.ft86club.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=42

I believe he's trying to ask for more of a local opinion/ideas. We have our own sale thread that's stickied. I don't see anything wrong with this as we all have our own different methods and experiments due to the weather. Embrace that Mid-Atlantic is very active unlike some of the other regional forums that I've visited.

Welcome! and Glad you are thinking about maintaining your TWIN.

So before I go about throwing links to products at you what is your skill level? Do you own a buffer or will you be doing everything by hand?

The products people use to wash their cars aren't regionally exclusive...

You're right. It's my fault for not looking further in the forums. Sorry

Some of the methods and products are better for certain regions. Now I don't know how many times South/southwestern members need to wash the salt off the underbody of their cars.

Also, they deal with the sun a lot more than we do so they may need to wax more often because of the UV rays hitting the car more than us northeastern.

All I'm saying is that it can't hurt to have a thread like this with advice from people who live in similar conditions as us. The counter argument to the regionally exclusive is that we have a sales thread that's regionally exclusive. It doesn't need to be there, but it helps us locals, just like this thread.

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I think this can also help for those willing and able to physically show people in person too. Way too many people hide behind screens instead of interacting with one another, like how it should be.

I think this is a great topic to have in our regional section. Maybe he doesn't own "x" product and said product is $200, but someone by him has it to show it to him. Makes for an opportunity to meet a new friend and get some good karma.

Just my .02 worth.

Point taken. Still doesn't mean he couldn't have posted and gotten great advice in the correct subforum.

As far as your argument for the sale thread, that one makes sense to post in a regional subforum. If you're selling something and don't want to ship it, then a local post makes sense. Asking for advice on how to wash/wax your car, though? It's not rocket surgery.

Also a good point. If the original post was worded as such, then I could see this kind of thread being useful for the region. As it is, though, it seems like OP wanted more information on how to wash/maintain their vehicle, which would have been better answered in the "Cosmetic Maintenance" subforum.

Well, I'll get this started.

I'm not that crazy about swirls and light scratches. My last car was 06 A4 and its paint was pretty good until I traded it in last year. So, I'm pretty much maintaining this car as same as the last one. Since my car is black, I use turtle wax black spray wax. It's not the perfect way to keep the nice deep black, but it does the job for me. I actually used it this past weekend and the result was nice. I will have to use some clay bar when the weather warms a bit more though. Weekly wash and quick spray wax keep my car nice and clean! I had a few turning heads on the street, still getting that nice attention :)

Since I look like a class A ****, here's some helpful info:

I don't remember what car wash soap I use, but I use it in a foam cannon. I use 2 bucket method when possible with grit guards to minimize swirling from my microfiber wash sponge.

When I'm done washing, I'll either clay or spray wax, depending on how much time I have and how deep into the rabbit hole I want to go. If I clay, I'll end up polishing, sealing, and waxing afterwards.

If I spray wax, that means I've already done the other steps sometime in the recent past (like within the past 6 months), and that's the end of it, really.

Clay bar: whatever's on sale at Advance
Polish: Sonax perfect finish 4/6
Sealant: Sonax polymer netshield
Wax: whatever's on sale at Advance (this step really doesn't matter to me much anymore due to the use of sealant). I'll usually end up using Meguiar's NXT 2.0.

I use a Griot's Garage 6" random orbital buffer to polish and wax. All other steps are without machine.

i go to the touchless at the greenbriar shell, or i pay someone...


lazy win.

Bucket, hose, dish soap. Wax a couple times a year, and don't worry too much about it. I love a clean car but driving and using it is more important than the shiny stuff. Mine has cone-induced scuff marks that I love. My personal opinion is that a clean and well-taken care of engine bay is more important.