car washing question - drying problems

[Prius_Gnome]

After drying the washed Prius, I go ahead and wring out the water and I can feel that it's soapy. Is that supposed to happen?

I thought I did everything right: wash the car with a microfiber wash mitt and then rinse it. Am I supposed to "agitate" while rinsing (i.e. like I would do if I was washing myself)?

And another thing: do your drying towels completely dry the car? Mine seemed to leave some "streaks" which evaporated away.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[bshef]

I'm curious what you are using as soap?

If you have sufficiently rinsed off the car after washing you should not experience any left over residue from the soap unless you are using some type of heavy dish detergent (which is really bad for the finish, unless you are doing a full detail and claying).

I suggest you get a simple car wash soap at your local store and go easy when mixing it......use 3/4's of whatever amount they recommend.
Also, if possible, try to avoid washing in direct sunlight!

keep it simple....you'll b fine!

[Prius_Gnome]

thanks for replying, bshef,

I was using Turtle Wax ICE Car Wash. It says to use 1 oz for every gallon and since it didn't come with a measuring cap, I just poured in what looked like 2/64 of the bottle (64oz) and filled up my 10 quart bucket with 2 gallons of water. Maybe I overdid it. Next time, I'll try not to be lazy and pour from the big 64oz bottle to a smaller container so I can more easily pour into my wash bucket.

I also just remembered that I used those drying towels last at a Texas Car Wash (a place where you put tokens into a machine and you get a certain time limit to shoot 1. soap, 2. water, or 3. wax with their spray gun) and didn't have a chance to properly "clean" them. The Texas Car Wash had a system to recycle the water but it must have been faulty because the rinse water was soapy. Needless to say, my drying towels were soaking up soapy water from my Prius after the wash which did not make for a happy ride home.

So anyone with that "streaking" thing while drying?

[rigormortis]

i dont think any drying towel on the market is going to remove 100% of the water, there is always a little left that just evaporates away it seems. i suppose you get 99% dry using multiple towels.

i have had good luck with multiple microfiber towels for drying. i tried chamois but
its requires a lot of wringing out

the mr clean autodry seems to work crappy for black cars

there are some new self drying car wash soaps on the market, i havent tried one yet
(simoniz and rain-x)

i wanna use a leaf blower, im betting the 200 ++ mph wind coming out of it
would just totally blow all the water off the car in 10 seconds

some reviews on the simoniz brand say the quality of the self dry has to do a lot with whether or not your
water supply is hard water or soft water..

i wonder if a water softner would eliminate all water spotting but that would be overkill?

some people have reported that it is a lot cheaper in the long run to use one of those de-ionizing inline water filters used for
mobile homes then the mr clean autodry filters

[GatorJZ]

Your drying towels (hopefully you're using waffle weave) absorbed that spray wax crap. Wash them alone in warm water with either MicroRestore or Charlies Soap and dry them on low heat. NO fabric softener or dryer sheets. You may have to wash them more than once to remove that junk and some vinegar in the final rinse might be a good idea.

[Patrick Wong]

Why not use a clean chamois skin to dry your car?

[patsparks]

I use a very large artificial chamois which give a good dry finish. Nothing will get all water off.

If you use a "wash and wax" type car wash the soapy feel may be the wax.

When drying a car do the glass and bright parts first then everything else. A big chamois should dry the whole car without needing to be wrung out. You may want to wring it out half way through. If you car has enough wax on the water will bead and most will run off on its own.

Dry wheels and tyres with a separate smaller chamois.

Always rinse out your chamois with clean water when you are finished and if it touches the ground.

[rigormortis]

Originally Posted by Patrick Wong

Why not use a clean chamois skin to dry your car?

chamois just seemed to be a pain to work with, for me using like 4 or more
microfiber towels works a lot faster, and you dont have to pre dampen
and wring out microfiber towels like you do with chamois


we should also open up the discussion to those silly infomercial towels
too.

1) bill mays's zorbeez is reviewed to be total crap, its supposed to be no better then felt that you buy at an art store

2) shamwow!, if you watch the commercial in slow motion thier is still some soda spilled under thier carpet that the product did not pick up

[Scruge]

This may sound odd, but I wash car in rain.. very easy and takes 15 minutes.

1. I let car get wet from rain.

2. I have a very dense soft brush on long handle like car wash places uses to pretreat areas. I then brush (no soap) down the car and rinse with hose. 10-15 minutes tops

3. I let sit in rain for awhile longer to allow rain to rinse tap water away.

4. I next put car back into garage. The car will dry spotless in garage. You can speed up drying by blowing with leaf blower before returning to garage.

[sdtundra]

Getting a soft water loop will help. When i lived in Queen Creek, Arizona we added it onto the house from the builder. I would wash my truck outside, move it into the garage wet and the heat inside hte garage dried it. Then went out and waxed. It was nice, and even sometimes when i had to leave it outside, with the sun beating down on it the water did not leave marks jsut evaporated off.