Car wash tips

[Savage160]

Along with becoming absolutely obsessed with tinkering on my truck after getting my Ranger, I’ve become pretty consumed with keeping my truck clean, inside and out. I was wondering if you guys had any best practices for washing the truck?

My current struggle is figuring out how best to dry my truck. I don’t enjoy using drying towels especially because it’s been so hot that the water dries before I can get to it with the towel and then I have to deal with the water stains… I’ve been curious about using a blower and have seen some videos about people using the Wolfbox blowers to dry their cars, but I didn’t know if that was an internet fad or if it’s legit. Anyone have experience with using something of this nature? Or is towel drying the best approach?

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[CACTUSGREYFX4]

I use the Wolfbox to blow the excess off. Use to use a leaf blower but this is way smaller and easy to get in tight places.

 

[Savage160]

Nice! Which one do you recommend? I just looked and it seems like there are a lot of options haha!

 

[stemplar]

I also struggled with water spots from water drying before I finished washing. I now use a "spotless" water filter system and that solved the problem, but it wasn't cheap. I got the dic-20 with resin bypass from crspotless.com and use it everytime I wash a vehicle, including my motorcycles, trailers, etc. I run the hose to it, and a short connector hose from it to my power washer with foam canon. I bypass the spotless resin (edit: bypass with the dic-20's built-in bypass valve or switch) while washing then switch to resin-filtered for rinsing and it works well. I use my leaf blower to get most of the water off, and quickly finish with soft towels. I'm able to store both the resin filter and the power washer near my garage door so it's really easy to roll them both out and use them.

 

[CACTUSGREYFX4]

Nice! Which one do you recommend? I just looked and it seems like there are a lot of options haha!

I got the Wolfbox MF200 with a spare battery. They have them on sale every so often. I comment on one of their sales saying nothing for Canada and then they sent me a personal coupon number. Think I saved like $75.

 

[jawzborne]

I bought the McKillans XL on Amazon. Works great, I can soak up almost the whole truck before I have to squeeze it out. I’ll then go over everything with waterless wash or meguiars detailer to get any water spots or areas I missed.

If you can’t get out of the sun, I think best process would be to strip it down once, get a good wax coat on there, and then every time you clean it from then on just use a blower to get what you can off as fast as you can.

I’ve found it’s best to wash in the morning before the suns out for the best results no matter what.

 

[bigb]

The Ranger is most drippy vehicle I have ever washed, there's so many places water gets trapped. I'm going to have to get one of those Wolfbox blowers.

For a spot free rinse I went back and forth trying to decide on a system. Where I live the water is high in alkali and the system cartridges probably wouldn't last long. Then I saw a You Tube of a car detailer using distilled water in a 5 gallon bucket with a WORX 20 volt pressure washer, genius. No cartridges to change and no system to buy and set up, a couple gallons rinses the whole vehicle and gives time to hand dry without worrying about water spots. I've been using it on all my vehicles for a couple years now.

 

[jordantii]

Use a soap that can dry on the paind and when re-wetted will rinse and use a spray drying aid. I wash my truck here in FL all the time in the sun. Keep it wet. If you do get water spots, get a water spot remover if needed.

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