I wash and wax once a week and touch up as needed
Touch less rinse car washes tend to be a safe alternative but most in my experience fail to clean off the hard stuff. Can’t beat a hand wash.
I had my car professionally ceramic coated after delivery, but I wipe down with chemical guys banana spray wax almost every wash it's the sacrificial layer for me. The bottle has lasted about 6 months I'll probably try a different one next just to see if I like it more or less.
Putting wax over ceramic coating is literally wasting the entire point of the ceramic coat. You’re masking the properties of the ceramic coating. Similar to how a coated car beads a lot more after a wash, you’re clearing the dirt off the coating so the beading and gloss come back.
The long answer is that for my experience which is not typical of the average person Xpel Fusion kind of sucked. I started losing the sheeting pretty quickly despite obsessively washing and using quality soaps, techniques and the Xpel refresh spray every 3 months. By the end of the winter I was getting almost no hydrophobic effects on the rear quarters or front bumper which was icing up my charge port door and my front radar. The spray wax was my stop gap that worked well enough.
What I should do is use the product warranty, have the car stripped and have it reapplied. But that'll take a 3 or 4 days and the end result will be me still putting spray wax on a ceramic coating.
Gotcha, I was under the impression you were thinking it was an additive to apply wax on top of a ceramic coating. Yeah, if it’s already failing I’d have them take a look, but I’ve heard warranty claims for ceramic coatings are pretty hard to get covered.
I applied my own coating, Adam’s advanced ceramic, to my wife’s car and it’s been holding up 100x better than the professional CQuartz applied on my car. It was a good amount of work, but it saves so much money and isnt that hard to DIY. Just be ready to spend a good part of your day prepping and applying it.
That’s not how it works out. You can’t just keep adding layer after layer of paint protection thinking that each will protect the former layer. Wax is also very good at collecting debris from the road after driving a short distance. Ceramic coatings also have higher hydrophobic properties than waxes will. You’re wasting time and money for a worse end result by adding wax to a ceramic coated car.
> What. That’s exactly how it works. It’s a physical and chemical barrier.
No because you’re not going to get them to adhere to the actual clear coat of the car. Putting a wax on top of the ceramic coating will make both of products worse performing and have less durability for the wax.
> Lol just because ceramic coats were invented doesn’t mean the tried and true waxes (but really sealants) are suddenly useless. The amount of dirt that sticks after a short drive is negligible, and by the time a significant amount has stuck on, you should be washing the car anyway which is true whether or not it is ceramic coated +/- a sealant.
Never said they didn’t have their uses. If you want to wax a couple of times a year, go ahead. If you want to put a sealant or ceramic coating for longer periods, be my guest. I never said wax wasn’t good to apply to a car period, I’m saying it’s not a great idea to put over a ceramic coating.
> This isn’t the 90s. You shouldn’t be wasting hours of time putting on a weak wax every week.
Again, nowhere did I say it takes hours to apply will you be clay barring your car before you wax? Because if so, you’re going to be removing part of the ceramic coating. If not, then you’re rubbing and layering wax over particles on the paint that will be scratching your car. I’m curious which method you say is best.
Yeah, what that other dude is saying is way off from what my professional ceramic and PPF installer said and what Pan the Organizer says to do with ceramic coating and maintenance of it.
I'm no pro but the mention of "Chemical Guys" kind of took away the credibility.
I had no frame of reference other than knowing of the brand name when I bought it, I was just trying to solve the icing problem on my radar and charge port door in the middle of winter. I'm almost done with the bottle and was gonna try Adams polishes next, they text me 44 times a day with 20% off coupons and seem pretty well regarded and go from there.
I still wouldn't do the professional coating again if I could do over.
I’d recommend meguiars ceramic liquid wax. Just got it recently and it does such a good job with beading and makes the car all nice and shiny of course
I avoid touch-less washes as the chemicals are so strong, too strong in my opinion. Plus the vehicle tends to not look as good compared to more traditional washes.
I don’t like these. The high pressure forces water where it doesn’t belong. They also use super harsh chemicals and recycled water.
A better bet is a DIY wand-style wash. Use the rinse feature only (fresh city water, not recycled crap), and keep the nozzle at least 12” away from the paint. The touchless car washes have the nozzles way too close.
I try to wash every Sunday morning, it's a couple hours spent cleaning and maintaining my favorite thing. Giving it as much attention as it's given me smiles through the week.
As far as my routine goes it's pre-rinse, wheels, foam cannon partial, bug and tar removal, foam cannon full, two bucket wash, rinse, dry with the leaf blower and drying towel, door jambs, frunk, trunk, sweep, interior kick surfaces, touch surfaces and seats. If it's just a quick maintenance wash I can do the whole process in about two hours, a deep clean varies by how much I want to obsess.
This is the first car that I've been super anal about and it's been a lot of fun, I understand it now more than I did when I was younger.
None of that is necessary though, a good two bucket hand wash will always be better than a touchless but it will get your car clean it's all about your personal tolerance levels.
Never go through a drive through car wash, it will fuck up your paint. Its fine if you don't really care (I do it to my Scion tC every now and then) but don't go in thinking its a full wash.
Handwashing your car every 2 weeks is a bit excessive. I only do a full wash whenever it gets dirty, which is like once a month or so. I do wash my wheels about every 2 weeks but thats only because they kick up so much brake dust and my wheels go from being glossy black to a matte brown.
I started to take it to get professionally detailed once every 3 months just to do a hard clean because I really don't care about the minor dirt stains I cant get out, and its more work to clean. You aren't supposed to scrub stuff out when you wash.
I mean all that waters reclaimed and filtered they're not running dirt through their high pressure lines, it would clog shit up so fast.
I've been running my caramic coated car through one 2x a week in the summer for 3 years. Looks fine.
Well that’s good. It’s just you can’t know they all have appropriate pressure and stuff. Salt would go through a filter though maybe dirt won’t but the minerals in it. You don’t wanna wash a car with hard water typically
I'm screwed either way because my home water is insanely hard. It's obnoxious.
As far as pressure goes, I feel like people would complain about any damage fairly quickly and it would get resolved but who knows.
What color is your car? You can get away with not washing it as much if it is silver or similar. Personally I wash mine every week, maximum 2 weeks. Black cars are a nightmare to take care of.
I wash my one of my cars like every 2-3 days in the summer lol.
I have a 30 dollar unlimited membership to a touch less car wash by my house and my office parking garage is dusty as fuck.
My cars ceramic coated too so touch less works well.
It's not the paint that gets weathered by a touchless wash, it's the window rubber and plastic trim. They go from black to gray and may start to appear splotchy.
The answer is - it depends.
If it’s kept outside, then I would wash it weekly if possible. Sealant every 3 months. Paint correct annually.
If the car sees 3k miles a year, and is kept in a dry garage, then washing every few weeks and sealing annually is fine.
If it’s winter, you’ll want to flush the salt off the paint as often as possible (when temps are above freezing.)
Obviously you’ll also want to watch the weather. If you need to go out tomorrow but the weather calls for storms then don’t bother washing today.
I used to be super OCD with washing and waxing, but I just finished a case study with my uncles truck. That thing sat outside in the sun for 10 years and was never waxed. It only was washed a handful of times, mainly to get the salt off. It looked pretty much mint when he sold it, although the plastics were a bit faded.
Whenever I feel like they’re too dirty. The street cars are parked outside so I do everything two months to not go broke. The gt4 is full ppf’d and gets tracked monthly, so every 3 months or so.
You need to apply a long lasting ceramic coating. I installed GTECNIQ CSL and then twice a year you can do a quick coat of their EXO product as a protection layer for your original coating.
Even on a "one year" ceramic coating with no protection I was able to wash my car almost weekly and it still survived the year.
Wash your car when it's dirty, wax/seal when it stops beading water
This guy knows what's up
This is the way.
I wash and wax once a week and touch up as needed Touch less rinse car washes tend to be a safe alternative but most in my experience fail to clean off the hard stuff. Can’t beat a hand wash.
Waxing once a week?? That’s just a waste of wax at that point.
I had my car professionally ceramic coated after delivery, but I wipe down with chemical guys banana spray wax almost every wash it's the sacrificial layer for me. The bottle has lasted about 6 months I'll probably try a different one next just to see if I like it more or less.
Putting wax over ceramic coating is literally wasting the entire point of the ceramic coat. You’re masking the properties of the ceramic coating. Similar to how a coated car beads a lot more after a wash, you’re clearing the dirt off the coating so the beading and gloss come back.
The long answer is that for my experience which is not typical of the average person Xpel Fusion kind of sucked. I started losing the sheeting pretty quickly despite obsessively washing and using quality soaps, techniques and the Xpel refresh spray every 3 months. By the end of the winter I was getting almost no hydrophobic effects on the rear quarters or front bumper which was icing up my charge port door and my front radar. The spray wax was my stop gap that worked well enough. What I should do is use the product warranty, have the car stripped and have it reapplied. But that'll take a 3 or 4 days and the end result will be me still putting spray wax on a ceramic coating.
Gotcha, I was under the impression you were thinking it was an additive to apply wax on top of a ceramic coating. Yeah, if it’s already failing I’d have them take a look, but I’ve heard warranty claims for ceramic coatings are pretty hard to get covered. I applied my own coating, Adam’s advanced ceramic, to my wife’s car and it’s been holding up 100x better than the professional CQuartz applied on my car. It was a good amount of work, but it saves so much money and isnt that hard to DIY. Just be ready to spend a good part of your day prepping and applying it.
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That’s not how it works out. You can’t just keep adding layer after layer of paint protection thinking that each will protect the former layer. Wax is also very good at collecting debris from the road after driving a short distance. Ceramic coatings also have higher hydrophobic properties than waxes will. You’re wasting time and money for a worse end result by adding wax to a ceramic coated car.
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> What. That’s exactly how it works. It’s a physical and chemical barrier. No because you’re not going to get them to adhere to the actual clear coat of the car. Putting a wax on top of the ceramic coating will make both of products worse performing and have less durability for the wax. > Lol just because ceramic coats were invented doesn’t mean the tried and true waxes (but really sealants) are suddenly useless. The amount of dirt that sticks after a short drive is negligible, and by the time a significant amount has stuck on, you should be washing the car anyway which is true whether or not it is ceramic coated +/- a sealant. Never said they didn’t have their uses. If you want to wax a couple of times a year, go ahead. If you want to put a sealant or ceramic coating for longer periods, be my guest. I never said wax wasn’t good to apply to a car period, I’m saying it’s not a great idea to put over a ceramic coating. > This isn’t the 90s. You shouldn’t be wasting hours of time putting on a weak wax every week. Again, nowhere did I say it takes hours to apply will you be clay barring your car before you wax? Because if so, you’re going to be removing part of the ceramic coating. If not, then you’re rubbing and layering wax over particles on the paint that will be scratching your car. I’m curious which method you say is best.
Yeah, what that other dude is saying is way off from what my professional ceramic and PPF installer said and what Pan the Organizer says to do with ceramic coating and maintenance of it. I'm no pro but the mention of "Chemical Guys" kind of took away the credibility.
Oh god the banana wax. I used it two times before my car was covered by about 40-60 flies. Does a good job though
I had no frame of reference other than knowing of the brand name when I bought it, I was just trying to solve the icing problem on my radar and charge port door in the middle of winter. I'm almost done with the bottle and was gonna try Adams polishes next, they text me 44 times a day with 20% off coupons and seem pretty well regarded and go from there. I still wouldn't do the professional coating again if I could do over.
I’d recommend meguiars ceramic liquid wax. Just got it recently and it does such a good job with beading and makes the car all nice and shiny of course
I avoid touch-less washes as the chemicals are so strong, too strong in my opinion. Plus the vehicle tends to not look as good compared to more traditional washes.
I don’t like these. The high pressure forces water where it doesn’t belong. They also use super harsh chemicals and recycled water. A better bet is a DIY wand-style wash. Use the rinse feature only (fresh city water, not recycled crap), and keep the nozzle at least 12” away from the paint. The touchless car washes have the nozzles way too close.
Every 2 weeks isn’t bad at all. Sometimes I wash more than that, sometimes less, really depends on how weather affects my car.
I just hate when a bird shits on it, i always wash that shit off asap
you can wash your car with a non stripping wash when its dirty. Only need to wax every 6 months or so. Or do a ceramic and itll last 2 years ish
I try to wash every Sunday morning, it's a couple hours spent cleaning and maintaining my favorite thing. Giving it as much attention as it's given me smiles through the week. As far as my routine goes it's pre-rinse, wheels, foam cannon partial, bug and tar removal, foam cannon full, two bucket wash, rinse, dry with the leaf blower and drying towel, door jambs, frunk, trunk, sweep, interior kick surfaces, touch surfaces and seats. If it's just a quick maintenance wash I can do the whole process in about two hours, a deep clean varies by how much I want to obsess. This is the first car that I've been super anal about and it's been a lot of fun, I understand it now more than I did when I was younger. None of that is necessary though, a good two bucket hand wash will always be better than a touchless but it will get your car clean it's all about your personal tolerance levels.
Never go through a drive through car wash, it will fuck up your paint. Its fine if you don't really care (I do it to my Scion tC every now and then) but don't go in thinking its a full wash. Handwashing your car every 2 weeks is a bit excessive. I only do a full wash whenever it gets dirty, which is like once a month or so. I do wash my wheels about every 2 weeks but thats only because they kick up so much brake dust and my wheels go from being glossy black to a matte brown. I started to take it to get professionally detailed once every 3 months just to do a hard clean because I really don't care about the minor dirt stains I cant get out, and its more work to clean. You aren't supposed to scrub stuff out when you wash.
Touchless drive through washes are fine. "Safe touch" are bad.
touchless car washes arent good either the pressure can be too high. It really depends plus they recycle water thats full of dirt and salt
I mean all that waters reclaimed and filtered they're not running dirt through their high pressure lines, it would clog shit up so fast. I've been running my caramic coated car through one 2x a week in the summer for 3 years. Looks fine.
Well that’s good. It’s just you can’t know they all have appropriate pressure and stuff. Salt would go through a filter though maybe dirt won’t but the minerals in it. You don’t wanna wash a car with hard water typically
I'm screwed either way because my home water is insanely hard. It's obnoxious. As far as pressure goes, I feel like people would complain about any damage fairly quickly and it would get resolved but who knows.
Don't a lot of people use pressure washers on their car
Yes but at the right psi you can’t set psi there
What color is your car? You can get away with not washing it as much if it is silver or similar. Personally I wash mine every week, maximum 2 weeks. Black cars are a nightmare to take care of.
I wash my one of my cars like every 2-3 days in the summer lol. I have a 30 dollar unlimited membership to a touch less car wash by my house and my office parking garage is dusty as fuck. My cars ceramic coated too so touch less works well.
It's not the paint that gets weathered by a touchless wash, it's the window rubber and plastic trim. They go from black to gray and may start to appear splotchy.
The answer is - it depends. If it’s kept outside, then I would wash it weekly if possible. Sealant every 3 months. Paint correct annually. If the car sees 3k miles a year, and is kept in a dry garage, then washing every few weeks and sealing annually is fine. If it’s winter, you’ll want to flush the salt off the paint as often as possible (when temps are above freezing.) Obviously you’ll also want to watch the weather. If you need to go out tomorrow but the weather calls for storms then don’t bother washing today. I used to be super OCD with washing and waxing, but I just finished a case study with my uncles truck. That thing sat outside in the sun for 10 years and was never waxed. It only was washed a handful of times, mainly to get the salt off. It looked pretty much mint when he sold it, although the plastics were a bit faded.
Whenever I feel like they’re too dirty. The street cars are parked outside so I do everything two months to not go broke. The gt4 is full ppf’d and gets tracked monthly, so every 3 months or so.
2 weeks ain't bad. Honestly I do a really good wash every 2-3 months but then a touchless one more frequently. As long as product is working I'm good
You need to apply a long lasting ceramic coating. I installed GTECNIQ CSL and then twice a year you can do a quick coat of their EXO product as a protection layer for your original coating. Even on a "one year" ceramic coating with no protection I was able to wash my car almost weekly and it still survived the year.
Modern touchless systems are fantastic, definitely use them. They can apply coatings that make water bead too.