Materials to Maintain Your ZHP IIIII Hand Protection IIIII Tools to Maintain Your ZHP
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  1. #11
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Location
    SF Bay, CA
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    1,266
    Quote Originally Posted by BMWCurves View Post
    Y'all are wild. I'm out here using old t-shirts and whatever grit sandpaper I can find.
    Now that you have your ceramic coating, just rinse it off once in a while, or leave it out in the rain /s
    2004 BMW 330CI ZHP (well, technically ZAM)


  2. #12
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Location
    Portland, OR
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    10,242
    Quote Originally Posted by t.er View Post
    Now that you have your ceramic coating, just rinse it off once in a while, or leave it out in the rain /s
    It does make washing easier. It needs it so badly right now, but making treks up and down I-5 daily for one of my rotations is making it pointless.

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    NJ
    Posts
    2,003
    Great topic!

    First, I think this is entirely dependent on how severe your sickness is. By sickness, I mean, how light of a swirl-mark will you pick up on when it is inevitably introduced into your clear-coat by the wash/dry process?

    If you're like me and OG Boss Kayger, the answer is all of them. We see and lose sleep over all of them. When we get gas at night under massive LEDs and see the love marks, we cringe. When the sun hits the hood just-so, we plan our entire weekend around correcting the issues.

    So, that said, if you're similarly afflicted (like the Obsessed Garage fella), then you'll do/try/experiment with lots of things to reduce the inevitable damage you're doing by washing and drying your car.

    How one washes a car would depend on the situation: maintenance, removing a lot of dirt, winter salt, spring pollen, water-less situation, rinse-less, etc...

    Rabbit-hole, it most certainly is! Let's agree up front that whatever is working for you and your car is the right way to do it. Some try to make this topic religious like oil type and approval. Washing a car is too joyous to ruin like that!

    Here's how I do it currently:

    Equipment:
    - Karcher power-washer, Obsessed garage wand/hose/attachments/gun/etc...
    - 3 buckets - wheels, soap, rinse, with grit-guards
    - Microfiber wash mitts
    - Various brushes for wheels/tires
    - Ego leaf blower
    - MF drying towels

    Chemicals:
    - P&S wheel cleaner
    - Degreaser/all purpose cleaner
    - Sonax bug-off
    - Any good car soap (Meguiar's, P&S, 3D, I'm not picky here).
    - Optimum No Rinse (amazing product)
    - Some drying aid (Beadmaker, Sonax Brilliant Shine, Nextzett something-er-other)

    Process:
    - Wheels/tires/exhaust tips
    - Rinse
    - If VERY dirty, pre-treat with degreaser OR solution of Optimum no-rinse
    - Rinse again if that step was needed
    - Foam (this is to lift and remove more dirt)
    - Rinse
    - Wash panel by panel, north to south, rinsing the mitt between panels
    - Rinse
    - Blow-dry the big stuff off plus crevices
    - Dry the rest with MF towels and drying aid
    - dress tires/plastic
    - clean glass

    Result:


    Full disclosure: my car has 174k miles on it, currently has minor swirls, and also some paint/rust issues, so these distance photos don't tell the whole tale.

    mb
    - Marc

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Katonah, NY
    Posts
    771
    When I was living with my parents I could spend all the time in the world doing my cars. Also because it was city water I really didn’t have to worry about using too much.

    Now tho I’m in the country and have well water, so I need to be mindful about how much I use. Also because of this, I have high calcium in the water and get spots like crazy, so a deionizer is next on my list. Adam’s has a really cool one I should have picked up on Black Friday. It has a switch so you can decide when you want to use the deionizing filter (if that’s what it’s called). So the idea is that you wash your car with the filter turned off, just regular mineral filled water, and then when you want to do a final rinse you turn the filter on. So the last water to touch your car has been filtered out and you don’t get spots and still save water.

    I do the two bucket method of course. Just griots garage stuff. I’ll do a big wash at the beginning of the spring using their high gloss wash. Then clay bar using speed shine as a lubricant. After that another quick wash and then I bust out the polishes- everything from the BOSS line. I use a GG orbital with 3 and 6 inch plates to cover all size surfaces.
    Then I wrap up with their ceramic spray wax. This coming season I’ll be trying out Adam’s ceramic coating with graphine so I’ll see what all the fuss is about.
    To maintain cleaning (when I have time to do that) I do GG rinseless wash best of show detailer.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Katonah, NY
    Posts
    771
    Quote Originally Posted by zhpnsnv View Post
    Result:


    Full disclosure: my car has 174k miles on it, currently has minor swirls, and also some paint/rust issues, so these distance photos don't tell the whole tale.

    mb
    Show people that pic and tell them the mileage and they won’t care about the rest of the tale. That looks great.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    NJ
    Posts
    2,003
    Quote Originally Posted by joeybananaz18 View Post
    Show people that pic and tell them the mileage and they won’t care about the rest of the tale. That looks great.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Thank you!!!
    - Marc

  7. #17
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    Quote Originally Posted by Fried_Chicken View Post
    I was always under the impression that DI systems are/were exorbitantly expensive.
    They are. You can DIY and it'll be cheaper. That's what I plan to do, but never got around to it lol

    Quote Originally Posted by Fried_Chicken
    For wheels I've found the BMW wheel cleaner works really well, although DO NOT USE WITH ALUMINUM WHEELS. That gets rid of brake dust pretty solidly. It's $20 at the dealerships, and turns purple as it reacts with brake dust.



    It's an insane rabbit hole. I'm kind of curious how big the market/industry is. So much snake oil.

    [edit]

    Actually it seems like the male equivalent to woman's hair products.
    Yeah the BMW cleaner is Sonax basically.


    Yeah I have been working on reducing the amount of time I'm washing my DD. I still do the 2 bucket method because I go a long time between washes now, so the rinse bucket gets pretty dirty. I use Bathe Plus as my car soap, it has some sealant properties mixed in. Then I use Meguiars Hybrid Ceramic Wax as a drying aid to seal the rest of the car. First time application, you wanna do it with a dry car, after that, drying aid every wash (at least for me cause I wash every 6 weeks, normally you would do every other wash or so). Just disregard their instructions cause it's a waste of product. For the wheels, I use a boar's hair brush at the end after I'm done with the car so I could reuse what's left of the soap bucket. Use the HCW on that too. If I'm feeling fancy, I will use PERL on the tires. But usually for the DD, I'm like fuck the tires lol Sometimes, I don't even wash the wheels lol

    Then when you go to wash the next time around, you'll see like 80-90% of the dirt just wash off with water (using the jet on the hose nozzle) lol and the water basically beads off, then repeat.

  8. #18
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Independence KY
    Posts
    2,831
    Right now I just use the two bucket wash method with some meguiars stuff

    I know I could drastically increase the quality of my washing but that would involve buying probably a few hundred dollars worth of equipment (power washing gear, orbital buffer, air jet drying equipment, some other stuff)
    2005 BMW 330i ZHP - BMWP brakes/intake/strut bar/shifter, Coby wraps interior, BBS CHs, Eagle Eye LED tails, LED fog lights, GC coilovers, Sprint Booster/sport button mod, 4.5 LCM w/ programming, Xtrons 9inch HU, BSW stg1, dynamat, M3 sedan dead pedal, oCarbon CF interior trim, CF seat backs, 2x2 CF MTECH2 diffuser, CF cabin filter cover



  9. #19
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Katonah, NY
    Posts
    771
    Quote Originally Posted by BADCLOWN View Post
    Right now I just use the two bucket wash method with some meguiars stuff

    I know I could drastically increase the quality of my washing but that would involve buying probably a few hundred dollars worth of equipment (power washing gear, orbital buffer, air jet drying equipment, some other stuff)
    Skip the power washer. With a good random orbital water will bead off and you wouldn’t need the jet dryer. That’s my line of thinking.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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