Clean!

[sorka]

30,500 miles and still no swirls(under sun or paint light), scratches, dents, dings, or chips(thank god for x-pel ultimate). With the exception of the darned next gen seat bottom bolster seat crease, it could have come off the showroom floor yesterday.

Including the back sides of the brake calipers, axle boots, cv boots, etc

 

[NewJerseyMS]

Well done.

 

[SDRick]

The 30,500 miles must be garage miles. How often do you clean or detail it and do you dry wash or not? The car does look great!

 

[Canuck]

Just a little OCD?

Well done!

 

[sorka]

The 30,500 miles must be garage miles. How often do you clean or detail it and do you dry wash or not? The car does look great!

Not often. Probably once a month on average. I don't dry clean. I know some folks say you can do it without scratching but you can't prevent swirls with no rinse cleaning systems despite claims.

I used to use 3 buckets...one for soapy water and 2 for first and second stage rinses. But I stopped doing that about a year ago when I instead bought 14 micro fiber wash mits and use just one bucket with about a gallon of water with soap. There's no danger of not properly rinsing a mitt because each mitt is used just once(one panel or part of a panel per mitt side) and then the mitt goes in the dirty bucket. Never rinse the mitt and since I don't re-use the mitt, only one gallon of water is needed plus no rinse buckets.

That said, I use the most water in the pre-wash and rinse stage. First, I power wash the car to blast 90% of everything off. That's about 2 gallons. Then I use the power washer with the soap dispenser nozzle to coat the entire car in car wash. That's about 1/2 gallon. Then another 2 gallons to power wash the soap off. Then I wash with the mitts. Then I power rinse with about 2 gallons. So in all, I'm using about 7.5 gallons of water.

 

[mspohr]

Dirty!

 

[SDRick]

Not often. Probably once a month on average. I don't dry clean. I know some folks say you can do it without scratching but you can't prevent swirls with no rinse cleaning systems despite claims.

I used to use 3 buckets...one for soapy water and 2 for first and second stage rinses. But I stopped doing that about a year ago when I instead bought 14 micro fiber wash mits and use just one bucket with about a gallon of water with soap. There's no danger of not properly rinsing a mitt because each mitt is used just once(one panel or part of a panel per mitt side) and then the mitt goes in the dirty bucket. Never rinse the mitt and since I don't re-use the mitt, only one gallon of water is needed plus no rinse buckets.

That said, I use the most water in the pre-wash and rinse stage. First, I power wash the car to blast 90% of everything off. That's about 2 gallons. Then I use the power washer with the soap dispenser nozzle to coat the entire car in car wash. That's about 1/2 gallon. Then another 2 gallons to power wash the soap off. Then I wash with the mitts. Then I power rinse with about 2 gallons. So in all, I'm using about 7.5 gallons of water.

Interesting approach using 14 fiber minutes and one bucket. It makes sense to me significantly reducing the chance of doing any scratching. I have been in conversations with an auto detailer who uses a dry wash system on his black truck with ceramic coating. I was unable to discern any scratching. I tried his product once and it seems to work with the additional upside in that much time was saved not having to dry out all the crevices from a pressure washer (particularly all the door and trunk surrounds). I am not yet totally convinced about the absence of scratches using this method but his black truck seems to be living proof.

 

[sorka]

Interesting approach using 14 fiber minutes and one bucket. It makes sense to me significantly reducing the chance of doing any scratching. I have been in conversations with an auto detailer who uses a dry wash system on his black truck with ceramic coating. I was unable to discern any scratching. I tried his product once and it seems to work with the additional upside in that much time was saved not having to dry out all the crevices from a pressure washer (particularly all the door and trunk surrounds). I am not yet totally convinced about the absence of scratches using this method but his black truck seems to be living proof.

Well it certainly is more environmentally friendly and if done right you you don't create obvious scratches but the fine swirls that show up under the sun or with a paint light can't be avoided in that case. But one might argue that it's still better to do that with a minor paint correction every few years than to do what I do. But for someone who uses water, I think I'm using as little as possible with low flow and high pressure and almost no water for the mitts.

 

[ArtInCT]

Nice Job Sorka!

 

[Chopr147]

I wish I could say "no dings" It only took 2 months for some AS(^&*%%$& to open his door into mine. I tried a couple different methods but the ding is still there. Thinking about buying a glue puller. I'll test it on my sons car first
While I hand wash in good weather I do use the car wash . In NY there's not much choice. Water to hoses is shut off in the winter. My local hand car wash knows me now since I have to put it in tow mode for them and then drive it out. Self-service washes are good too.

(thank god for x-pel ultimate

Once I changed my purchase to a lease I decided not to do the X-pel. But the next Tesla will be a purchase and straight to the
X-Pel guy