BHPian traderjagadeesh recently shared this with other enthusiasts: Hi all, Had a long road trip to Dwarakatirumala from Hyd, and a return journey last weekend with the family. Around 1500kms ride to and fro. The roads were not good, night driving on the highway for around 500kms. Resulted in a front bumper and the grills filled with bug gutts and a couple of bird bombs which dried hard on the hood of the car. My kid is 11 months old. So a lot of food traces all over inside the car. Today is a holiday for me. So decided to deep clean my xuv. You will see the importance of sealing the paint by the end of this thread. First lets inspect the condition of the car pre wash to decide on what to use. 1) Bug gutts on front bumper and the front windshield. The camera and the low lighting hid a lot of them in this image. 2) Tree sap as I have parked it under a tree. 3) Vehicle soaked in heavy traffic film and the grit. Again, the lighting and the camera is hiding a lot of that here as well. 4) Parked it in the basement of my in laws flat yesterday. Someone was being artistic and has drawn a nice painting on the dirty hood. It really pisses me off, but what to do.. 5) Few bird bombs here and there on the car which are 4 days old, and are completely dried out on the car. Now lets prepare the game plan: 1) Bird bombs can be easily tackled by a pH neutral rinseless or an APC. So not worrying much about that as they aren’t that old. 2) Bug gutts are acidic in nature. So an alkaline treat might kick them out as the car is properly sealed and maintained, and I use Sonax BSD 1:10 as a drying aid on every single wash. And they are just less than a week old. So I might not need a dedicated bug cleaner. The APC might do the job. But I have carpro bug out handy if needed. It’s been sitting on the shelf with dust for a long time as I never find the need of using a dedicated bug remover. 3) Tree sap are like adhesives. If the apc pretreat will not take that off as it is somewhat fresh, I have mafra deca flash which I bought more than an year back to take care of some sticker residues. I will be using that post the wash if needed. Lets get into the wash. Prep:- 1) Pretreat solution. RO water 1.5L Koch Chemie Greenstar 100mL Koch Chemie GSF 30mL in a manual foamer. 2) Koch Chemie Greenstar diluted to 1:10 in a spray bottle with RO. I just want an extra bite on the bug gutts and bird bombs before foaming the alkaline pretreat. 3) Koch Chemie RRW. I will be using 10L of water in the wash bucket. So will be using 40mL of RRW for that. 4) ShineXpro tyre dressing. Turtlewax trim restorer for trims. I even thought that I might need a iron decon. But I will let you know about a trick to decide on whether we need that or not. 5) ShineXpro cordless pressure washer for rinsing (falling in love with it every time I use it because of the convinience it offers), 6) 25L paint bucket with wavex grit guard. I will be using this to pull water to pre rinse, then as a wash bucket post that. I have a 10L bucket in spare for the cordless pressure washer if needed once this 25L bucket turns into a wash bucket. Marolex sprayer and manual pump foamer. 7) Wash media like tuqo rinsless sponge, double sided chinnelle mitt for the front of the car, twisted loop drying towels, foam applicators for dressing, brushes for wheels, tyres and barrels and stuff and few microfiber rags for handy jobs. The procedure. 1) I sprayed the Greenstar diluted to 1:10 in the mist mode liberally on the front bumber, windshield, tree sap spots and the bird bombs spots. I let that dwell for around 2minutes. 2) Then I foamed the pretreat solution. Starting with wheels and then on the bottom 2/3 of the car. Simply put, I foamed the whole area below the windows on the side, and the below the windshileds on the front and the back of the car. I have a left over of rinseless in the marolex sprayer from the previous wash. And I used that as a pretreat for the top 1/3 of the car. The top 1/3 doesn’t need an alkaline pretreat majority of the time. Rinseless is more than enough. I let this dwell for another 3 minutes. 3) Rinsed the car top down with the cordless pressure washer. Kept 45 degrees for the top 1/3, 25 degrees for the bottom 2/3rd, and 15 degrees on the tree sap, bird bombs and the bug gutts. I have used the whole 25L of water for this rinsing. And guess what, everything that I worried about before the wash were gone. That’s exactly why it is important to keep the paint protected. It makes the life easier to wash the contaminants away in maintainance washes. And yes, you don’t need to go for professional grade ceramic coatings as the sealants are so much better than before now. Anyways, lets get back to the process. And there is one more important thing that I would like to point in the next step. So be attentive. I used normal tap water for this rinsing btw. 4) Filled up the bucket again. Kept 10L in this bucket, and transferred the remaining to the spare bucket which I will use for the rinsing of the tyres and wheels. As I have 10L in the wash bucket, mixed 40mL of Koch Chemie RRW into it, dunked the marolex sprayer into the wash bucket, pressurized it and sprayed the rinseless solution on the whole vehicle. Yes, the whole vehicle, not panel by panel. As I have used tap water for rinsing the pretreat, the moment I put rinseless solution on the surface, I don’t need to worry about it drying out and leaving water spots till the wash is completed. So I sprayed on the whole car first. Then filled the sprayer again from the wash bucket, kept around 2L of solution in it which I will use to wet the dried surface again during contact wash if necessary, and to clean the wheels. 5) Contact wash. I just let the sponge, mitt and a microfiber soaked in the wash bucket. Just take the sponge which is on the verge of dripping, place it on the panel and move it left and right without any pressure, flip the sides while moving to the other panel, dunk and squeeze it in the wash bucket once both the sides are used. Spray some rinsless if it dries on the surface before the contact wash. Used mitt for the front of the car as it is easy to move within the grills. 6) Drying. Sprayed BSD 1:10 liberally on the section that I have completed the contact wash, and then dried it with a twisted loop drying towel. Time to check the wash bucket. It is almost as clean as it was before the contact wash and that’s how you know the procedure you followed is safe. So don’t believe in anyone who recommends you to buy for expensive equipment and the products. Your wash bucket post the contact wash is the litmus test for the safety of the method. 7) Trims. Taken out the microfiber from the wash bucket, folded into 4, and wiped the trims clean. Fresh side on every wipe obviously. 8) Wheels. Transfered the bruses and the finger shaped mitt into the wash bucket taking out the sponge and the mitt from it. Sprayed rinseless from the sprayer onto the wheel, tyre and the wheel wells. Agitated the them with the brushes and mitts with their corresponding wash media, rinsed them off, sprayed BSD onto the wheels, dried the wheels and tyres with old rags. 9) Applied tyre and trim dressings, let it sit for 5minutes, and then wiped them off. Important to wipe them off as I don’t want dust to stick to that which makes it easy to clean next time. 10) Forgot to mention, I took the floor mats out and got rid of food traces, wiped the whole interiors with a rinseless damped microfiber cloth, and then with a dry cloth, cleaned the door jambs, fuel inlet and the truck baselines and all with a wavex hybrid x waterless wash before starting the wash. I actually have to detail the engine bay. I do it once every 5-6 months. That will be my next post I guess if I find time to document that in detail when I do that. So that’s it. Will post the post wash image in the comments section as I have reached the limit for maximum uploads. But I would like to address few points here. 1) Seal the damn paint and keep the maintaince wash routines. This makes sure that the contaminations doesn’t get etched into the paint, and can eaily be removed with the normal chemicals which you already own, and with less equipment. You rarely need to use dedicated chemicals like tree sap removers, bug removers and stuff if you are disciplined with the maintainace routines. 2) Here is a pro tip to decide on whether you need an iron decon or not. Just spray some iron remover on the backside number plate. If it doesn’t bleed purple, you can post pone the iron decon for a while. Emphasizing the word backside number plate here. 3) Try to treat organic contamination like bird bombs, tree saps and bugs within a week even after you seal the paint. The more you wait, the harder it is to tackle. Keep DIYing. Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
