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I'm getting my first brand new car in a few weeks (build date is April 9th  ). It's nothing super fancy, just a Chevy Sonic Hatchback LTZ Turbo, but I'd like to try and treat it as right as possible.A few problems in my case: 1) I live in an apartment and don't have access to a hose. 2) I don't have a garage so my car is parked outside and in the elements 99% of the time. Once or twice a year I'll drive to my parents' house and wash/wax by hand, but that's not something I can do very often. Instead, I just put $5 in the Shell gas station's automatic drive through car wash and get it done. Someone in another thread said doing that is bad. What's the best way to do a good wash every now and then given my circumstances? I'd love to be able to wash once or twice a month, but not having access to a hose kinda kills it. I'm considering paying extra for a carport or a garage, but that's another $30/50 a month, which solves #2, but there's nothing I can do about the first issue. Also: what's so bad about a drive through car wash? I can see sperging out if you have a nicer car, but for a Chevy Sonic it seems kind of overkill. Frozen Peach fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 04:28
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 11:11 |
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hedge posted:Those of you without access to a hose should look into a product called Optimum No Rinse. You mix an ounce into 2 or so gallons of water and essentially use it as a sponge bath for your car. It acts as a surfactant so it encapsulates dirt so you don't scratch the car going over it with the sponge. The key is to use up a lot of the liquid in the process (ie don't wring out your sponge) and I try to keep the sponge clean by scraping it against the grit guard. That is seriously awesome and just what I was hoping to find out about. If doing that is all it'll take every few weeks to keep my car looking awesome I'll be using it in a second. I'm assuming you can get that kinda thing at Autozone or O'reilly?
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Mar 26, 2012 06:56
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My "Easter basket" for the year. It also had some car wash soap in it, but I left that at my parents' house since I can't really use it here. The microfiber sponge thing and "The Absorber" will come in handy when I order Optimum No Rinse. My car gets built tomorrow!
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Apr 8, 2012 21:30
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Used Optimum No Rinse for the first time today and I gotta say that I'm drat impressed. The only thing I would have done differently is washed one panel at a time, because it dried and left gross water spots everywhere by the time I made it around the car. My fancy Absorber towel thing was able to clean the water spots off and dry the car better, but I should have been using it on each panel as I washed. It definitely doesn't do as good of a job as a full wash with a hose, but for a single bucket quick clean it did just what I hoped for. Now I have a nice clean car and it only took ~20 minutes including Invisible Glassing the windows.
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May 8, 2012 23:27
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SentinelXS posted:What can I do to remove hard water stains from windows and side mirrors? Invisible Glass and a good microfiber cloth http://www.amazon.com/Stoner-92164-Invisible-Windshield-Cleaner/dp/B000M3V95U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337717418&sr=8-1
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May 22, 2012 21:10
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Another attempt with optimum no rinse. Going one panel at a time and immediately drying before moving on to the next turned or a lot better. This stuff rules. Still not as great as a full wash, but with what little access I have to a hose it's great.   A single bucket, a sponge, and a towel was all it took. ~30 minutes and I was done. Frozen Peach fucked around with this message at 00:56 on May 23, 2012 |
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May 23, 2012 00:52
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foundtomorrow posted:Woah now. A towel? Singular?! I hope you meant towels! Looks good though. What sponge did you pick and what towels? One gallon bucket with a few capfulls of Optimum No Rinse: http://www.amazon.com/32oz-Optimum-Rinse-Wash-Shine/dp/B000E9TS6O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337778892&sr=8-1 A Towel: http://www.amazon.com/The-Absorber-Synthetic-Drying-Chamois/dp/B0000AY69V/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337778394&sr=8-1 The sponge was one like this: http://www.amazon.com/Armor-All-6347-Microfiber-Sponge/dp/B002NXUDWM/ref=sr_1_8?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1337778642&sr=1-8 I don't see the actual one on Amazon and don't remember the brand. It's blue microfiber and a yellow sponge pad thing. Also 2 microfiber cloths and Invisible Glass.
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May 23, 2012 14:15
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My new car has a couple small chips on it already, and there's a scratch on the front hood, seemingly from a rock or something.  What's the best way to deal with these? I'm afraid to try and touch up paint myself for fear of making it look worse. Are there any good tips/tutorials on cleaning up things like that, or am I better off getting it professionally detailed if I want it to be done right? If so, what's that generally cost? Other than those, the only issue I've been having is that the rear end of my car gets exceptionally dirty. I haven't been able to wash it lately, because of the drought and water use restrictions, so here it is after a few weeks:   As you can see, the side and front don't look that bad. They're obviously dirty, but not an eyesore. The back, though, is disgusting. Every time I clean it, the first thing that gets dirty is the hatch. Is this just something that hatches do, or maybe some kind of weird "design flaw" in the Sonic itself that it collects dirt that way? I'm just wondering if there's an easy way to prevent it from getting dirty like that. Mud flaps on the back tires or something?
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Aug 4, 2012 19:01
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meatpimp posted:
It's not the edge of the door, it's the edge of the door frame, which is what makes it weird. I don't know how that chip could have been made because the door can't physically hit that spot, and it'd be really hard for someone else's door to hit that exact spot either since it's pretty much in the gap. Pardon my lovely MS Paint skills, but this is the location of that chip:  Either way, I've never used touch up paint before. I don't know the first thing about using it in a way that won't look like poo poo and be immediately obvious. I'm a complete idiot when it comes to anything car related. I still don't understand what to do about the scratch, besides a magic eraser possibly being bad.
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Aug 10, 2012 19:48
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My car desperately needs a good cleaning. Salt is all over the gorgeous black paint 
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Jan 26, 2013 05:02
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Finally got my car washed. Tonight was the first night I was able to get to a decent hose when it also wasn't too cold or pouring down rain. A whole winter worth of grime was too much to handle with just a bucket, a sponge, and Optimum No-rinse. But now it's washed and waxed and it looks gorgeous.  Really makes me wish I had a house with my own driveway and hose
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May 25, 2013 03:30
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 11:11 |
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Last October I bought my own house, with my own driveway! Then 2 weeks later Winter hit us like a sack of bricks and I never got a chance to actually use the driveway. Today it was the first 60+ degree day since then, and I decided to finally give my Sonic a good cleaning.   Bonus: I HAVE A GARAGE!!! I've never had a garage to keep my car in until now. Always been in the street or an apartment parking lot.  I didn't get to wax it. It's a bit too cloudy out to get it to dry in any decent amount of time. At least I got all the terrible salt and grime from the winter off it though.
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Mar 10, 2014 23:36
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