Hey what's up guys! Welcome to another episode of Pan The Organizer! So today, I'll be showing you how to wash your car, whether you're doing it outside or in the comfort of your garage, and regardless if you're a beginner, a detailing professional, an enthusiast or a weekend warrior.
I'll be giving you all the tips and tricks that you need. I'll be going through the products tools and equipment also to do a proper job and it's going to be a fun video because we're also working on my brand new 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S! So jam-packed episode!
This is my latest up-to-date tutorial. I'm sure you guys are going to love it! This is a big one guys!
Without further ado, stay tuned, you know the drill, let's go ahead and start the show! So hey guys! I'm Pan!
Welcome to the show! I hope you guys are having a great day. So let's dig right into it.
Today is the long-awaited updated tutorial on how to wash your car at home. So by the way, I'll have all the links to all these tools, equipment and products that I'll be presenting today. I'll drop the links in the description under the video for you guys to check them out so all you have to do is sit back, relax, and of course enjoy the show!
Oh and by the way, if you're new to my channel and you want to continue to learn more about car detailing, all the products, equipment, tips, tricks and techniques, make sure you click the subscribe button that's found under this video and that way you'll subscribe to my channel and never miss my future videos! So let's dive right into it, before we do, any type of detailing job guys always wear protective gloves. In my case, viewers always ask me the question what type of gloves these are.
Just black nitrile gloves. You want to protect your hands against all the chemicals. Of course if you need to wear eyewear as well, protective gear, so always health and safety right?
Also, first tip and trick if you have to work outside that's totally fine do it at the beginning of the day or very late in the afternoon so you avoid the noon time where the sun is at its brightest and hottest so you want to avoid direct sunlight. If possible, work in the shade on a cool surface or if you can in a controlled environment like your garage. Also let me know your tips and tricks once you're done watching this video and tutorial, drop a comment in the comments section under the video and see if there's anything that you guys want to add, I always love reading the comments and of course this is a place where we share with the crazed community of people who love car detailing right?
And yeah it'll be nice to see what you guys do for a maintenance wash or your wash regimen. So the first order of business in the new updated tutorial is we're going to be using a pre-treatment. So before we go ahead and rinse the vehicle, what I like to do is to have a pump sprayer like this IK Multi Pro 2 pump sprayer, and inside have a rinseless wash.
So whether you're using ONR or one of my new favorites the McKee's N-914 rinseless wash, this is basically while you dilute it to the proper dilution ratio, typically half an ounce to every gallon of water, follow the instructions but it's going to act as a lubricant and also it's going to help encapsulate and lift any dirt and grime that's on the surface and that's before you go ahead and rinse the vehicle. So by doing this you pump the sprayer up, you generously spray the pre-treatment on the vehicle, you let it dwell for a few minutes or a few seconds at least and then you're gonna go ahead and do the first step which is to pressure wash the vehicle. It's fine if you have a garden hose at home, I'll be showing the equipment that I use.
So we're talking here either professional level or detailing enthusiast level of a car wash and so you're gonna pressure rinse the entire vehicle and now that the dirt was encapsulated with the rinseless wash, well you're not driving all that dirt and grime directly into the paint with a thousand to two thousand psi of pressure right? ! So it's going to act as a lubricant, so it'll lift, encapsulate and pressure wash all that dirt off the the vehicle, and I'm using my Kranzle 1122TST pressure washer.
I set it to roughly a 1000 psi. So to wash cars you want to be anywhere between 1000 to 2000 psi anything above 2000 starts to be dangerous to damage the paint so if you have a high-powered gas pressure washer reduce that pressure. And so the first step, like I said, we pre-treated the the vehicle.
What you can also do in the winter as a pre-treatment is use something like Optimum Power Clean. So you can dilute this 3:1 or even 5:1 and spray it generously on the painted surface it's gonna help to dissolve any road salts, calcium, road grime and all that kind of stuff. If you were driving on the streets especially if you have a driven daily driven vehicle in the winters like here we have in Canada, or you use like I said the rinseless wash.
So you pressured washed everything off. So the first thing I like to do after the first rinse, is attack the wheels and tires because those are typically the dirtiest parts of your vehicle, so that's where you want to start. So to do a good job, once again, I have an assortment of different tools that I like.
First of all, for the tires, I'm gonna use a stiff bristle nylon brush. So something like this Tuf Shine bristle brush. So you need something pretty stiff to agitate the wheel and tire cleaner for the faces of the wheels.
I typically like using my Wheel Woolies boar hair brush, so a very soft brush for the wheel faces, so if you have delicate wheel finishes, that's perfect. There's also one that I featured on my channel the WoollyWormit. So this is a microfiber tipped brush that you can also bend if you want to reach behind the spokes and it has a lug nut brush attachment in the front so again very safe on finishes.
Another one that I absolutely like is from Microfiber Madness, so this is the Incredibrush Flat, so as you can tell this is the flat one so it helps to get behind bigger breaks it's flexible as well it's made out of microfiber. So I absolutely like this one and if you have super big breaks like the massive Porsche PCCB's or the carbon ceramics that I have on my Porsche, something like the Speed Master Daytona brush is perfect because you can squeeze the bristles and get behind those calipers with no problem. So get a good assortment of tools to do a good job.
Now, with those brushes, you need some sort of a wheel and tire cleaner. So I'm going to give you a few of the selections that I absolutely love using. The first one being Brake Buster by P&S.
So this one here is again great for wheels and tires. It mimics the power of an acid-based wheel cleaner but this is non-acid, so very safe for all factory wheel finishes. We have the wheel and tire cleaner by Adam's Polishes.
Again this is a 2-in-1, so before we used to have a product for the tires then another one for the wheels, but now I prefer 2-in-1 because they get the job done quicker. And a new product from Gyeon, we have the Iron wheel cleaner. So this also has an iron remover built in, so it's going to bleed to a different color: that reddish purplish tint to help remove that brake dust, and so you spray the product generously you can also add it to a foam cannon if you want for some of them like the Brake Buster, so I use 60% Brake Buster and 40% water in a foam cannon, to spray so you're just increasing your efficiency as far as speed is concerned right?
! If you want to do that or just a regular trigger sprayer you spray generously, you brush the the tire so you're going to get that foaming action and you want that! Once you're done, you can reapply another shot on the tires and see if you get a white foam.
Once that foam is white, that means you completely cleaned the tires and you're good to go. That's what you want. And for the faces and the inner barrels, use different sorts of brush assortment selections that I showed before and then you rinse off, and that's pretty much it for the wheels and tires.
What you can also do to help for protection to quickly top off if they're ceramic coated or if you've never had any protection on your wheels and you want to make sure that they're easier to clean during maintenance washes, give them a pop of gloss as well in slickness, you add a spray and rinse formula, so a sealant that's silica infused, so that's ceramic technology something like CarPro Hydro2 Lite. The Lite version means that it's pre-diluted RTU (ready to use) and you have another one of my favorites this is Gyeon Wet Coat. So again both of these products are spray and rinse meaning that once you're done cleaning your wheel and tire, you rinse it off, it's still wet you're going to spray a few spritzes of this directly on the wheel and immediately rinse off with a high-powered jet either from your pressure washer or your garden hose if you have a good volume of water.
And that's it! You rinse off and your wheels are protected. They should be beading and sheeting the water, and you can blow dry them off and that's how easy they are to maintain.
Then we move on to the paint work. So for that, we're gonna first start with a pre-wash once again. So always the steps that we're taking guys keep in mind, they're to reduce the chances of scratching and marring the paintwork, so the love marks that you see on a vehicle, all those that paint marring or those light scratches or swirls come usually from improper washing techniques and drying techniques, so to alleviate that, we're using good lubrication, good techniques, good products, on the paintwork to help prevent all those right?
So we're going to use a foam cannon. So this here is my MTM PF22. 2 so this is the newest generation.
You use a foam cannon with your pressure washer. If you only have a garden hose that's fine, you use a foam gun, so same principle just don't expect the same amount of foam or rich and thick shaving cream like lather that you would get with a proper foam cannon and pressure washer setup. So once you find your appropriate dilution, once again you have to adjust according to your setup, typically I'll use roughly 2 oz of snow foam for every 16 oz of water.
So two ounces of snow foam 16 ounces of water that's roughly 18 ounces total solution in my foam cannon, but again adjust according to your situation because it might be different depending on if you have hard water, soft water, what type of pressure washer, what type of foam cannon, so on and so forth. So among the snow foams that I like using, so that's the blanket the entire vehicle right with the layer of foam and that's going to help once again to lift and encapsulate any loose dirt and contaminants and act as a lubricating surface on top of your paintwork for your mitt to be able to glide a lot better, so one of my favorite snow foams currently is the Koch Chemie or KOHKEMI Gsf so gentle snow foam, this is a very very good one, by the way smells awesome! Then we have another classic that I like, Adam's Mega Foam, very very good foaming action and another new contender that I absolutely like CarPro Lift.
So very good especially if you have a ceramic coated car, not as much if you have a regular wax or sealant, this might be a bit too strong, but for coated vehicles absolutely. So you do your dilution, you put it into your foam cannon, you spray a generous amount on your vehicle, and you're gonna let that dwell right for a few minutes. If you're outside in the sunlight, make sure to take care to not let that stuff dry up that's very important, hence why we try to work in the shade as late in the day as possible or early on in the day, or even better if you can in a garage.
Then we're gonna move on, so you have that lubricating snow foam on your entire vehicle, and by the way under the wheels before you start your wash you should have something like these Detail Guardz hose guides, so what they do you slide them under each tire and they have these rollers that prevent the hoses from getting stuck underneath your tires right so when you're going around your vehicle, well you have this the little tool under each tire to prevent the hose from catching on and getting stuck under the tire. So next, we're going to move on to the washing stage of the paint. So first order of business, I like to use the two bucket wash method, actually three buckets because initially for the wheels and tires I have a separate dedicated bucket just for the wheels, that way I don't contaminate my buckets for the paint, and then we have two buckets for the paintwork.
So these are traditional 5 gallon buckets right, and you're gonna have two of them, so one with your soapy solution and your second one with the clean water. So you're gonna rinse your mitt in the clean water one, and then you dunk it in the bucket with soapy water and that way you're minimizing the amount of dirt that's going to be transferred to your wash bucket with the soapy water. And then the bottom of each bucket I like to have grit guards these are actually models from again the Detail Guardz and they're called Dirt Locks,, so they sit at the bottom of your bucket just as so so you insert them in the bottom hopefully you can tell on camera and what they do they act as a filter right so as you're pumping your mitt you're releasing all that dirt and grime and it's going to go underneath that grid guard or that grill and it's going to stay in the bottom, so it's not going to go back into your wash solution.
So again, all in an effort to minimize the chances of scratches and swirls. Now for the soaps that we're going to be using, super important as well if you have a waxed vehicle or something with a paint sealant you want to use always a pH neutral car shampoo. So one of my favorites, the Adam's Polishes car shampoo, by the way this is not a sponsored video obviously because we have so many different brands, I just want to make sure you guys understand.
So yeah, so a pH neutral car shampoo this can also be used as a snow foam in a foam cannon if you want a one soap that does it all, in the foam cannon and in the wash bucket for the hand wash. Then, if you have a ceramic coated vehicle and you want to restore the hydrophobic properties to remove that dirt and grime, there's a new one called Restart Wash by Gyeon. This also has a iron removing technology built in, so very good to restore hydrophobic properties because coatings often get clogged by a traffic film, road grime and all that kind of stuff, and that doesn't mean that your coating is gone, it just means that it's clogged and it's masking the properties so you want to restore those properties by having a proper dedicated shampoo and another one of my favorites for ceramic coated vehicles CarPro Reset, a classic in the industry for ceramic coated cars.
So this is a very intensive car shampoo with natural active ingredients inside, smells awesome, this can also be used by the way in your foam cannon if need be, so follow the instructions, pour the right amount into your wash bucket, fill it up with your water and then I recommend always that you have wash mitts that are microfiber, so forget any other types of wash mitts, what we want, in my case at least, are microfibers because they help to pull the dirt away and they trap that dirt in the fibers and you can release them in your wash bucket. So whether they're chenille wash mitts like this microfiber that's fine, and there's also this one that I absolutely love Microfiber Madness Incredimitt, so another very good microfiber technology. So you have the proper ingredients, you have the proper chemicals, you have the proper tools and the equipment to do the job, so now you move on you dunk your mitt in your wash solution and you're gonna work from top to bottom.
So I always like to start with the roof and the side glass first, because those are the less dirtiest parts of the vehicle right, so you don't want to cross contaminate with the dirtiest parts which are in the lower portions of the rocker panels, so work from the top all the way down, so you work the roof, the glass, you're gonna go all the way probably to the middle part of the car, and then at the end, totally that's when you're gonna do your lower rockers, your side skirts, the bumpers front and back, and that kind of stuff. So always work in thirds: top portion with the glass, and then mid portion of the paintwork, and then the bumpers and the lower parts at the end, that way once again you're minimizing the chances of scratches and swirls, you guessed it! So by having the proper soap, by having the proper mitts, and using the proper techniques, you should have a flawless finish when you're done.
So you're done washing your vehicle, then you're going to go ahead again and rinse all that soap up and it should rinse pretty free and clear if you're using quality products once again. And the car, at this point now, is going to be wet. So you fully rinsed the soap off, and the next step will be to use some sort of a drying aid.
So once again if you remember at the beginning of the video, one of the sections that you get the most chances of getting scratches and swirls or love marks is the washing phase and the drying phase, so while the car is still wet, to dry the vehicle, you usually have two options. So you can use a car dryer, so something like my MetroVac Master Blaster Revolution, one of the new Bigboi, that's the company by the way Bigboi, another one of their car dryers basically hot filtered dry air that's in a in a compressor should we say, or a blower or car dryer or you have cordless options that I also love like my EGO 580 CFM, this is a leaf blower with an ion-lithium battery, so this is a cordless option super practical and especially if you have a wax, a paint sealant, or a ceramic coating on your vehicle. Basically if you have protection, the water should have beading properties and also sheeting properties, so it should be very easy to evacuate so using a car dryer or a leaf blower will be very easy to blow the water off the car, and that's the most safe way to dry your vehicle because it's a contactless way right?
! You're not touching the car, so if you do not have a leaf blower or a car dryer rest assured no problems, you can use a microfiber drying towel, my favorite ones because they're the most absorbent types of microfibers, are twisted loop towels. Now I made a video on my channel featuring my favorite ones and the one that took it home for the win was The Rag Company Gauntlet microfiber towel.
So again, twisted loop microfiber drying towel very efficient this is a 20 x 30 by the way they make them in different sizes but this one here I find is easy to manage. It has two sides, and it's perfect for the task. You have CarPro Dhydrate that makes a twisted loop drying towel as well that is super efficient and we also have the Gyeon Silk Drer, another very good one a bit smaller this one along with the the CarPro, but these are twisted loop microfiber drying towels, so they're super efficient and they're safe enough for your finish so you won't be damaging anything.
So along with the towels, if you're towel drying your vehicle you're going to want to use a drying aid. Now what is a drying aid? Typically it's a form of a quick detail spray right, well it is a quick detail spray, or a bit of protection that you're going to be adding and it does two things: it lubricates the surface, and it's going to add gloss and slickness, so you're getting the best of two worlds.
It can also help combat any water spotting issues that you might get because they have sometimes some ingredients in there that help combat that. So one that I absolutely love is a drying aid you've seen me use it in many videos it's a classic by now so P&S Bead Maker, fantastic gloss and slickness. So once again, you spray on the wet surface and then you go ahead and use your microfiber towel to dry.
Another one Ethos Defy, so this is another crowd favorite and what they do lubricate the surface once again add gloss and slickness and another great one is the new Ceramic Quick Detail Spray or Ceramic Detailer by Gyeon. So you spray a bit on the surface, you're towel drying that off or you're using a compressed air like your car dryer or a leaf blower, and then you go ahead and dry the vehicle. So at this point now, the car should be pretty dry and looking mean and clean, but there's two finishing touches that are super important.
First of all: glass. Yes you washed your vehicle, but you still want to remove any remaining dirt and grime or maybe soap residue that still might be there, and you want crisp high definition glass right? That's super important!
So I like to use alcohol-based glass cleaners that will not streak and you can use in direct sunlight if need be. So the CarPro Clarify, this is a very very good glass cleaner and another classic Stoner Invisible Glass, so a streak free glass cleaner, and the other trick is to have appropriate glass towels once again microfiber, so these three are from The Rag Company, they're three different styles so you have the waffle weave glass towel that I absolutely love, so waffle weave because it's made like a waffle, so it has these pockets it glides super well, you have the diamond quilted glass towels, a new thing over at The Rag Company so this helps to glide over the towel, and you have kind of these corduroy short nap glass towels once again from The Rag Company premium Korean blend, and so these help the product glide on the surface. You're going to mist that generously, also don't forget to because it's all about the details, lower the glass a bit and then pinch the top part so you can access the dirt that's inside the frame of the glass if you have framed windows.
So you've cleaned the glass now and well you think you're done right? Nope! Just that other final finishing touch that we all love and that's a tire dressing.
Now three of my favorite dressings, pretty much all of these are water-based, so they won't last as long as those petroleum-based but ones which give that if you want that rich deep black super glossy wet look, you might want to go for petroleum based right to kind of like Meguiar's Endurance Tire Gel or tire spray but those typically I find that they add a lot of tire sling or those black dots on the vehicle and they're just a mess to remove, so I personally prefer a lower sheen but still a nice gloss, but a more matte effect, a deep black shine and that's easy to clean and will still give you roughly let's say one to two weeks of protection. So one of them is CarPro PERL that I dilute 1:1 so 50% water 50% PERL. Another one that I like is Chemical Guys VRP, so vinyl rubber and plastics, great tire dressing, and last but not least the Auto Fanatic Hole Shot, so this is good for tires and trim as well.
So those are three that will give you that nice awesome finish and what I use to apply them you can use foam applicator blocks or microfiber towels, whatever you guys like, but I like the Adam's Hex Grip Pro tire dressing applicator. This is my go-to, it works super well and you can evenly distribute the product on the vehicle. No now, well once you're done with that guys, I think the results speak for themselves.
You did a great job, pat yourself on the back, and you were able to do a professional level of car washing. Again I remind you that all the products, tools, and equipment that I talked about today, I'll drop the links in the description under the video for you guys to check them out. But yeah, let me know drop a comment in that comments section, is there anything else that you guys add to your car washing regimen?
And if you're a detailing professional and you want to share a bit of your tips and tricks as well, or if you're an enthusiast of detailing. I've been detailing for a long time and again want to share some tips and tricks with my viewers, let us know drop those comments in the comments section, let's get this conversation going, I think it's important to just share with the community, all the tips and tricks we have, because at the end of the day guys, we all absolutely are passionate about our cars but mostly passionate about keeping them clean. I believe, still to this day, after 24 years of detailing cars, that driving a clean car feels so much better.
By the way, do you want to see the same thing done for the interior of the vehicle? You want to see a tutorial? If so, again drop a comment in the comments section under this video.
If you've made it this far and you want to continue to learn more about car detailing, all the products, equipment, tips, tricks, and techniques, make sure you hit the SUBSCRIBE button that's found under this video, and that way you'll subscribe to my channel and never miss my future videos! And while you're down there, hit the bell icon that you're going to see next to the subscribe button, and that way when you hit that bell icon, you'll be notified every time I upload a new video to Youtube, and you will not miss a single minute of my future videos! So guys thanks for being there, thanks for watching, and in the meantime don't forget, keep it tight, keep it clean, and I'll see you on the next one!
