KonaBlue11
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- Nov 25, 2012
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I couldn't find anything specific to this, but I'm not claiming any sort of devine inspiration other than just making due with what I have available. I wonder if anyone else finds themselves in the same predicament I'm often in?
1) Apartment living, no driveway and/or hose.
2) Fog nearly every morning "magnetizes" dust to the newly washed car daily.
3) Sick of paying $8 just to use the high pressure water sprayer at a "Do-it-Yourself" carwash (especially when your car will loose it's clean finish after the next days fog).
4) Want something more convenient and frequent and saves me a lot of money.
Even Youtube didn't show any results, but I'm not a genius when it comes to tracking things down, but I wondered if anyone else had experience with using any sort of bug sprayer, fertilizer sprayer, etc to help wash a car when a hose isn't readily available?
I ran down to Ace Hardware since it's the closest and bought two small pump sprayers for $9 each. Used one for just water, and the other for the soap/water mix. I laid down a light mist of water on the whole car in my parking spot in my communal garage ( fortunate that right next to the Pacific Ocean near SF it's never hot, so no drying water spots or heat issues) prior to going over one section at a time with the soap sprayer. I was hoping to get a bit of foam to lift the dirt, but I didn't. I'm not sure if that is something I can change or improve, hence why I'm turning to the forum for advice. I didn't go top tier on carwash soap, I just picked up a big container of McGuire's that I've been using for a while. Maybe increasing the concentration might do something?
Then it's simply folding microfiber towels (big bulk bag from Costco) into quarters, one wipe to one area, fold over, next spot, so on and so forth, so that I'm not grinding in grit and dirt into the finish any more than I have to. Car's done in a half hour, streak free and limited mess clean up. I used 6 microfiber cloths.
I'd be up to hearing anyone else's constructive ideas, but I'm just looking for a convenient way for me to keep my car cleaner. I've been using whatever that red yarn duster thing for a while, as long as it wasn't a foggy morning, just typical dust pulls right off. But I can spend $10 and an hour of my time down at the carwash only to have the car look dirty within two days, if the car is being driven in the morning when it's foggy, which is like 8 months out of the year here. It's like the fog hits the car and each micro-droplet turns into glue for dirt and dust to adhere to the car and I'm afraid to use the dust mop thing on a thick coat of dirt like that.
Is what I'm doing stupid? Anyone else do something similar?
The total amount of water I use is only 500cc, I don't even burn thru half the sprayer and I can get the job done in the comfort of my garage in ideal temps in about 30 minutes without getting soaked in the process. It beats handing some other place a bunch of tokens, and watch the timer beep down even when you're not using anything (nobody in their right mind uses the soap brush) * obviously I hand wash with my own buckets and wash mitts, so it feels like an even bigger waste of money.
My car was a filthy mess the evening before I randomly decided to take my girlfriend on a spontaneous road trip to Napa Valley and didn't want to make the cruise in a currently filthy dirty car. What I did worked pretty well for a guy who can't even attach a hose anywhere in his apartment complex and it beat the hell out of the alternative at the self wash.
Here it is after driving some dusty country roads in Napa on Wednesday. Note, I didn't spend any time on the wheels, I just wanted to test out the sprayer idea quickly.
1) Apartment living, no driveway and/or hose.
2) Fog nearly every morning "magnetizes" dust to the newly washed car daily.
3) Sick of paying $8 just to use the high pressure water sprayer at a "Do-it-Yourself" carwash (especially when your car will loose it's clean finish after the next days fog).
4) Want something more convenient and frequent and saves me a lot of money.
Even Youtube didn't show any results, but I'm not a genius when it comes to tracking things down, but I wondered if anyone else had experience with using any sort of bug sprayer, fertilizer sprayer, etc to help wash a car when a hose isn't readily available?
I ran down to Ace Hardware since it's the closest and bought two small pump sprayers for $9 each. Used one for just water, and the other for the soap/water mix. I laid down a light mist of water on the whole car in my parking spot in my communal garage ( fortunate that right next to the Pacific Ocean near SF it's never hot, so no drying water spots or heat issues) prior to going over one section at a time with the soap sprayer. I was hoping to get a bit of foam to lift the dirt, but I didn't. I'm not sure if that is something I can change or improve, hence why I'm turning to the forum for advice. I didn't go top tier on carwash soap, I just picked up a big container of McGuire's that I've been using for a while. Maybe increasing the concentration might do something?
Then it's simply folding microfiber towels (big bulk bag from Costco) into quarters, one wipe to one area, fold over, next spot, so on and so forth, so that I'm not grinding in grit and dirt into the finish any more than I have to. Car's done in a half hour, streak free and limited mess clean up. I used 6 microfiber cloths.
I'd be up to hearing anyone else's constructive ideas, but I'm just looking for a convenient way for me to keep my car cleaner. I've been using whatever that red yarn duster thing for a while, as long as it wasn't a foggy morning, just typical dust pulls right off. But I can spend $10 and an hour of my time down at the carwash only to have the car look dirty within two days, if the car is being driven in the morning when it's foggy, which is like 8 months out of the year here. It's like the fog hits the car and each micro-droplet turns into glue for dirt and dust to adhere to the car and I'm afraid to use the dust mop thing on a thick coat of dirt like that.
Is what I'm doing stupid? Anyone else do something similar?
The total amount of water I use is only 500cc, I don't even burn thru half the sprayer and I can get the job done in the comfort of my garage in ideal temps in about 30 minutes without getting soaked in the process. It beats handing some other place a bunch of tokens, and watch the timer beep down even when you're not using anything (nobody in their right mind uses the soap brush) * obviously I hand wash with my own buckets and wash mitts, so it feels like an even bigger waste of money.
My car was a filthy mess the evening before I randomly decided to take my girlfriend on a spontaneous road trip to Napa Valley and didn't want to make the cruise in a currently filthy dirty car. What I did worked pretty well for a guy who can't even attach a hose anywhere in his apartment complex and it beat the hell out of the alternative at the self wash.
Here it is after driving some dusty country roads in Napa on Wednesday. Note, I didn't spend any time on the wheels, I just wanted to test out the sprayer idea quickly.