Rinseless car wash on a heavily soiled car: Here are the results

A slight tweaking in the basic method is what’s needed.

BHPian traderjagadeesh recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

In my previous post, I have documented my method of rinseless washing a moderately dirty car. If you haven’t gone through that, I strongly suggest to go read that first before continuing with this one. Here is the link.

In the rainy season, our drives end up with accumulating a hell lot of dirt from the we roads (especially the bottom 1/3 of the vehicle). Here is how I tackle that kind of heavily soiled vehicles with a rinseless wash and no pressure washer setup. A slight tweaking in the basic method is what’s needed.

Equipment and the consumables used.

1. Koch chemie rinseless wash. 30ml mixed in 8L of water. 2L garden sprayer will be filled from this bucket for the rest of the wash whenever needed.
2. 8L water filled in the garden sprayer.
3. 100ml of Greenstar APC+1.5L water+1 cap of car shampoo in Wavex foamer.
4. Three noodle mitts of softspun. One for the top 2/3 of the car, one for the bottom 1/3 of the car, one for front and back of the car.
5. One tyre brush. Trying finger shaped microfiber mitts for wheels. ShineXpro drying towel, BSD 1:10 as a drying aid (not needed if you don’t want)

The basis is the same. Chemical –> Rinse–> Chemical–> Contact wash–> Drying–> Wheels

This is the condition of the vehicle I am dealing with. Travelled in rain almost everyday since the day I previously washed it (12 days back). Neither I dusted the car since then, nor washed it. Way dirtier than it is appearing in the following image.

The Preparation.

Filled the 2L sprayer from the rinseless wash bucket. Pressurized all the three sprayers. Dumped the two noodle mitts into the wash bucket and let them soak.

Pretreatment

Foamed the wheels, tyres and the tyre wallls with the APC solution. Sprayed rinseless on the body. I let it dwell for few minutes. Almost used 2L of rinseless and 300ml of the apc solution here.

Sorry for the lighting. It’s raining outside and the car is parked in the cellar.

Rinsing

Used the water in the 8L sprayer to rinse off the encapsulated grit. Almost used 5L here. This is where the car stands post the rinse.

Filled the 2L sprayer from the wash bucket again and I am gonna use this for pretreating before contact wash for the rest of the session.

Pretreat half of the vehicle from the 2L sprayer, take the mitt from the bucket, give a small squeeze, place it on the panel, move left and right, reverse the mitt while moving to the next panel and do the same.

Once both the sides are used, dunk the mitt into the bucket to clean it and refill with the new rinseless solution. Do the same. Roof, windshield, hood, side panels.

Drying

I use 1:10 BSD as a drying aid. Sprayed it and dried the first half of the vehicle using my drying towel.

Did the same to the second half, then the back of the vehicle and then the front of the vehicle.

I use a different mitt for cleaning the back and front parts of the vehicle.

This is the condition of the vehicle after all this. As you can see, I intentionally left the bottom parts from this contact wash step as they are way dirtier post the rinse. This is where we tweak the method a bit.

Cleaning the dirtier bottoms and the wheels.

Foamed the APC solution on to the wheels and the bottom parts of the vehicle and again I let it dwell for few minutes.

First sprayed some rinseless from the sprayer onto the bottom parts, taken the mitt from the wash bucket, did the contact wash, and then dried them.

Then cleaned the tyres using the tyre brush, wheels using the finger shaped mitts which has been soaking in the rinsless solution from the start. Claiming guilty of not doing the contact wash on the tyre walls. This is the only place where I wish I have a pressure washer. But they gonna get dirty with a 50 metres drive anyways. So no regrets.

This is how the vehicle is post this wash.

Here are few points I would like to add.

1. When the vehicle is this dirty, I just wash the car following the above method. But I don’t do the clay and seal as I prefer to have a slightly soiled vehicle before the wash to proceed with the decontomination and the sealant sessions. Now that the vehicle is decently cleaned, if I have to do that, i will schedule that on the next weekend (again depending on how dirty the vehicle is then).
2. Dust when mixed with water turns into mud, and that’s where the washing becomes tougher. Just use the APC diluted to 1:15 of 1:10 (if needed)to deal with those. Let it dwell for a while, spray rinseless on it, do the contact wash and then dry.
3. If you have a pressure washer, you can still use rinseless as a pretreat, rinse it off using pressure washer, reapply rinseless, do the contact wash and dry.

I hope you are learning few things. Next thread in this series will be on decontomination and applying sealant depending on the rain God’s plan next week.

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.