THE Fiesta Detailing Thread

[parv1]

Of one the BH works with only tap water

having to use water as the lube was the main reason I chose Bilt Hamber. please dont tell me i've got it wrong!!

[Gazjs]

having to use water as the lube was the main reason I chose Bilt Hamber. please dont tell me i've got it wrong!!

You've not ;)

Just some people would want to use a Lube regardless, you are correct though :D

[Strutter]

Serious Performance

That's where I get my FK1000P from (and a few other bits).

I do take my wheels off - but I wouldn't if I didn't have a decent torque wrench and trolley jack...

The bigger the better when it comes to drying towels.

Thanks again for that, this is strangely getting addictive

[parv1]

One thing i missed off my list.....

What shall i use to clean the glass.

on the outside, i used to used Halfords Rain Repellant. Was very good and the drops just ran off the glass, but it was hard

to rub off once it was dry and gave a bit of lighting smears at night until after a few weeks.

Recommendations?? B)

[parv1]

Hi

I am nearly abt to order my washing kit but then had a thought abt a pre rinser kinda thing.

I dont have a pressure washer so snow foam is not a viable option at the moment. I was thinking abt some kind of spray

i could put on the dirtyest parts of the car, ie, mainly below door sills, let it sit for a little while then rinse it off

before giving it a mitt wash with BTBM.

I've come across a citrus wash, any good?

I can put the citrus wash in a hand pump bottle and just dilute it then spray it around the required parts.

What do you guys think? Good idea or am i just wasting my time and should just rinse with hose pipe and go straight

with BTBM

[MARK WITH A VANNY]

Hi all

I would like a bit of advise as to what to buy for just giving the car a good quickish wash.

Should I add/remove anything from the following and which brands will do a good job

2 Buckets

Shampoo

Wash Mitt

Drying Blade

Drying Towel

Wheel Cleaner

Quick Wax / Polish

Glass Spray

Cheers

[aph1101]

Hi all

I would like a bit of advise as to what to buy for just giving the car a good quickish wash.

Should I add/remove anything from the following and which brands will do a good job

2 Buckets

Shampoo

Wash Mitt

Drying Blade

Drying Towel

Wheel Cleaner

Quick Wax / Polish

Glass Spray

Cheers

Hello and welcome :D

2 Buckets - good

Shampoo - dodo juice born to be mild is my shampoo of choice

Wash Mitt - good... down to choice really, MF, lambswool etc.

Drying Blade - Remove!! That'll scratch your paint to bits. It'll drag all kinds of crap across the paint.

Drying Towel - brilliant. Buy one or two nice big MF ones from i4detailing.com

Wheel Cleaner - Valet Pro Bilberry is brilliant. If you decide not to use this, make sure whatever you choose is acid free.

Quick Wax / Polish - Some variety of sealant would do. It would be best to get some wax (dodo hard candy or the like) but if money or time is a constraint, something like dodo juice red mist would do. Step away from the polish unless you need to correct your paint. Polish contains abrasives and you shouldn't really need to use it unless you are removing specific scratches/swirl marks

Glass Spray - I don't use a glass spray myself but people seem to like AG Fast Glass.

Hope that helps and feel free to ask any other questions :D

[Gazjs]

Hi all

I would like a bit of advise as to what to buy for just giving the car a good quickish wash.

Should I add/remove anything from the following and which brands will do a good job

2 Buckets - Correct, any buckets will do, could go with 3 to include a "Wheels" bucket.

Shampoo - Everyone likes different kinds, personally 3M car wash soap, Zymol Auto Wash

Wash Mitt - Meguiars Microfibre, lambswool "rot"

Drying Blade - Good if only for glass!!

Drying Towel - Must have - i use a small one as it keeps it dragging on the ground - Dodo Soft Touch

Wheel Cleaner - Bilberrys

Quick Wax / Polish - Autoglymm Super Reisn Polish - Duragloss AquaWax

Glass Spray - Meguiars Next Gen Glass Cleaner, Autoglymm Fast Glass, Glass Polish.

Cheers

[MARK WITH A VANNY]

Hello and welcome :D

2 Buckets - good

Shampoo - dodo juice born to be mild is my shampoo of choice

Wash Mitt - good... down to choice really, MF, lambswool etc.

Drying Blade - Remove!! That'll scratch your paint to bits. It'll drag all kinds of crap across the paint.

Drying Towel - brilliant. Buy one or two nice big MF ones from i4detailing.com

Wheel Cleaner - Valet Pro Bilberry is brilliant. If you decide not to use this, make sure whatever you choose is acid free.

Quick Wax / Polish - Some variety of sealant would do. It would be best to get some wax (dodo hard candy or the like) but if money or time is a constraint, something like dodo juice red mist would do. Step away from the polish unless you need to correct your paint. Polish contains abrasives and you shouldn't really need to use it unless you are removing specific scratches/swirl marks

Glass Spray - I don't use a glass spray myself but people seem to like AG Fast Glass.

Hope that helps and feel free to ask any other questions :D

Thanks for that.

I've brought a Meguires microfible wash mitt and a bug remover sponge yesterday from Halfords. Also brought the drying blade but will now take that back.

I will look into the shampoo, towel, wheel cleaner and wax that you mentioned.

MARK

[MARK WITH A VANNY]

Thanks Gaz

Good point about using a smaller towel for the bottom half of the car.

[parv1]

Hi

I am nearly abt to order my washing kit but then had a thought abt a pre rinser kinda thing.

I dont have a pressure washer so snow foam is not a viable option at the moment. I was thinking abt some kind of spray

i could put on the dirtyest parts of the car, ie, mainly below door sills, let it sit for a little while then rinse it off

before giving it a mitt wash with BTBM.

I've come across a citrus wash, any good?

I can put the citrus wash in a hand pump bottle and just dilute it then spray it around the required parts.

What do you guys think? Good idea or am i just wasting my time and should just rinse with hose pipe and go straight

with BTBM

Any ideas guys on a pre rinser or just wash with BTBM?

[Gazjs]

I have never really used a pre-wash aid. What I tend to do it just run some soapy water through the pressure washer and let this sit on the car for a while before rinsing it off and continuing with my normal wash. This is pretty infective though so just bash on without it. Someone may have tried the citrus wash before but I wouldn't want to say anything on it having not tried it.

[parv1]

I have never really used a pre-wash aid. What I tend to do it just run some soapy water through the pressure washer and let this sit on the car for a while before rinsing it off and continuing with my normal wash. This is pretty infective though so just bash on without it. Someone may have tried the citrus wash before but I wouldn't want to say anything on it having not tried it.

Thanks for the input. Right, time to order my goodies :D

[DanGull]

Prewash is essential as far as I'm concerned - citrus prewash products are very good but tend to not be safe to use with wax. As a result, I only use citrus-based washes when I'm stripping back for a full protection detail. For top up washes, if I didn't have a pressure washer and therefore snow foam I'd go straight in with the bucket wash.

[Gazjs]

I cant bring myself to fork out for snowfoam as I have read so many times that its pretty useless.

What's everyone's opinions?

[DanGull]

It's not useless - people tend to expect the wrong thing from it. They expect to foam their car and all the dirt to instantly fall off with nothing else afterwards.

It's a prewash - just like you would soak dishes or clothes to loosen tough grime, if you do the same on the car it makes the bucket wash much much easier and means it requires far less pressure. It does also shift the worst of the grime, meaning that there is less muck being dragged around the car by the wash mitts later. snow foam doesn't shift much on it's own, and it's not supposed to.

It's also great fun :D

[Gazjs]

May save up the pennies. Is it monoblock safe?

[mikester]

i foam everytime. it is as dan says an aid, nothing else. you shouldn't expect your car to be clean and shiny after. howeveryo can expect whatever dirt is present to be loosened off a hell of a lot.

i am terrible for 'wasting' water however, and if/when there's a hosepipe ban again, i'm screwed... i'll foam leave on for 3/4 mons then spend an age ging round the car blasting all the grime off (from a sensible distance of course) so when i finally put mitt to metal here is virtually no dirt on the car.. only the tar and stubbon much that i couldn't blast off.

i still maintain that snow foam then jet takes off more dirt than just jet before a wash. and thats from my pre-foam days, i have officially been converted.

intrestingly the mix of the foam does make a difference to the viscocity of the settling foam on the car, i tend to add a few suirts of maxi-suds ii, use almost boiling water (as it mixs with the cold tap water to produce a warm-hot foam... works better than cold foam) and about 15-20% snowfoam of the total mix is snowfoam. this gives me a really thick foam, that sticks to the paint rather than falling off, even with wax on.

using karcher prssure washer setup and a karcher fitment gilmour lance with pH neutral valet:pro foam.

and a vid for you: (didn't quite have the mixture right here, took a few weeks of experimenting)

[parv1]

So today, i finally managed to wash my car for the first time after buying it.

As I dont have the products I want (still on order) i used what i have at home.

Here is what i did;

Rinsed with hose pipe (no jet wash available)

Washed car with warm water and Turtlewax TripleWas Shampoo

Rinsed car off again

Washed again with the same Triplewax

Washed wheels

Used Autoglym Chamois on body (car body, not mine!!)

Used Autoglym SRP

buffed it off by hand

Cleaned glass with household glass cleaner

Put Halfords rain repellent on outside of windscreen and other windows

Put on Autoglym Extra deep gloss

again, buffed off by hand

And that was it, not a lot, but it took me 8 hours to do it all.

What shall i change in this routine according to the duration between washes or polishing?

[Jason Tierney]

Well I gave the Old fiesta a little going over with some products I already had. Il probs buy alot more after reading most of this thread(the rest is tonights entertainment!) to look after my mk7 ZS.

SO,

I rinsed the car all over with hose pipe(dont have a pressure washer...yet..)

Did Wheels with some gerenic alloy cleaner and washed off

2 bucket method

Shampooed car with AG Bodywork Shampoo/conditioner with a meg's Washmitt

Dryed with a large towel(I dont have a car specific one, was this ok?)

Once dry put AG SRP on the car, buffed off with microfiber cloth(Megs one)

Cleaned glass with AG Car Glass Polish

I bought some AG HD Wax for my new car, but figured, I may as well give the old one a good coat, so, after dinner when its cooler im goin to do this.

Any tips on best way.

Any3way, So far, The result.

Took some before and after pics of doors , for reflections etc

Before

After

Not too bad I dont think really.

[Jason Tierney]

Also, Before I use the wax.

How little Wax should I use. I will be using the applicator pad/s contained with the AG HD Wax

Is easiest thing to do rub the corner of the sponge applicator right round the tub? il just have wax on the edge of the applicators then.

[DanGull]

Less is more - thin layers are best. AG High Def is a good hard wax - a single swipe of the applicator over the pot should cover a bonnet sized area.

If it's too thick, it won't cure well and will be in turn difficult to remove. You shouldn't be able to see much of anythingon a white/silver car, just trust that it's there. You need to recharge only when the pad 'drags' rather than glides over the paint.

[Strutter]

Serious Performance

That's where I get my FK1000P from (and a few other bits).

I do take my wheels off - but I wouldn't if I didn't have a decent torque wrench and trolley jack...

The bigger the better when it comes to drying towels.

Hi Dan, do you have a direct link, cant find the 1000p in their wheel section and nothig is found under a search.

[DanGull]

Here

Google is your friend... B)

[Strutter]

Good ole google, seems odd I cant find it on their website tho

Ordered it with Serious Performance Uber Premium Drying & detailing MF Towel to be used as an extra towel and Duragloss Wax Eraser, not sure what its like but ive a couple of smeers around the plastics which are getting to me now, so hoping this sorts them.

This could be a day alone on the alloys as I have no way of removing them!

I assume, or hope rather, that the 1000p is good enough against the brake dust, does it last as good as a wax on the body, in that for a few months after its easy to lean them off?