I wouldn't say that's true. You have to use your judgment. If you have just a very thin layer of dust, a quality quick detailer and plush MF will do the trick. A bit thicker, consider the waterless wash like UWW+. More than a few days, better use a rinseless wash with thick MF.
You can in fact keep your car clean and swirl free taking the right steps and using good judgment.
It's all a matter of what level of swirling and how quickly it builds up over time is acceptable to you. My level of judgement means I take precautions that you probably don't fee are necessary.
Touching your paint with anything that results in moving that thing across the surface of the paint will eventually cause swirls no matter how careful you are.
My washing steps are:
- Out of direct sunlight either early in the morning or dusk unless it's a cool cloudy day.
- Pre-soak by pressure washing exterior with 3000 PSI pressure washer (1 gallon used)
- Pre-soak with car wash fed through pressure washer on low pressure mode (1/2 gallon used).
- Allow to soak for 5 minutes. If it's really cold outside, 10 minutes.
- Pressure wash off pre-soak (1 gallon)
At this point, pretty much anything you can see has been removed.
The next steps used to involve using three 5 gallon buckets (1 for wash and 2 for rinse) with grit guards and 3 or 4 microfiber mittens, but even this introduces risk and it wastes water and it takes more time than what I do now.
- Now I use 14 microfiber mits in a clean bucket with a 1/2 gallon of water and wash concentrate. So rather than using 3 or 4 mittens and rinsing every few panels, I use one mitten for a panel, turn it, do another panel and then throw it in an empty buck. I then grab another mitten and move on. This way there are no rinse buckets filled with 5 gallons each and there's no need to rinse and touch the next panel with a mitten that has been rinsed in water that might have a few bits of dust on them. They are used once and go into a bucket.
- Do wheels with microfiber towels labeled for wheels. Never mix these with mittens or towels that have touched paint.
- Pressure rinse (1 gallon)
- Pull car in to garage and close door quckly as air filters have been screaming to clean the air.
- Waffle towels to dry.
- Compressed air for seams. If water comes out from that, only pat dry as the water from seams might have debris, dirt, etc and water that runs down the paint from a seam needs to be pat so there's no chance of scratching.
Never wash the towels and mittens that touch the paint with anything that has touched the wheels. Label mittens used on the paint around the wheels wells. These can't ever be used on the other panels.
Never wash the towels that have touched the wheels BEFORE the towels that have touched the paint. Always do them after. This allows enough regular clothing loads to get rid of any residual break dust.
If you mess up and mix wheel towels with paint towels/mittens, then you have to throw those away so don't do it.
Never heat dry the mittens and towels. This will ruin them.
When washing, use light pressure. Never use firm pressure as this will scratch your paint a little no matter how clean and dirt free your paint already is.
