Car Care Product Recommendations

[Josh (PA)]

I thought it would be useful to have a general catch all thread for care care / cleaning product recommendations.

This is something i just found, that seems to work well at eliminating water spots at the last rinse:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure how many washes I'll get out of it, but I put it between the hose and nozzle for my final rinse and did not that water spotting was significantly down.

I am really hooked on Zaino Leather in a Bottle for my seats. It does a great job of conditioning without leaving residue or clogging up the ventilated seats. The leather cleaner is quite nice too.
https://www.zainostore.com/product/Z-10.html

I'm still using Sonax wheel cleaner, is that still the easiest, or has anything taken its place?

[kognito]

I've gone through a shitload of those water filters while we were full time RV'ing. I didn't think they did anything toward deionization.

I'll have to give it a try.

I am getting quotes right now for adding a whole home water filtration system. (maybe a softener too) it will be installed in the small room in the back of my garage (like the room Clyde just got rid of) I'm thinking of having an additional line run to the garage door area that I can filter with one of these

And I want to thank the recent round of stimulus checks for making these home additions possible

[FC]

I'll add Meguiars wheel brightener for trying to recondition yellowed wheels. It's aggressive so make sure you don't leave it on for more than the 30-45 allowed. You can then rinse and re-apply. But it does a hell of a job. And it's concentrated, so that gallon will make 5 gallons and you don't need a lot of it. That thing will last me a lifetime.

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by FC

I'll add Meguiars wheel brightener for trying to recondition yellowed wheels. It's aggressive so make sure you don't leave it on for more than the 30-45 allowed. You can then rinse and re-apply. But it does a hell of a job. And it's concentrated, so that gallon will make 5 gallons and you don't need a lot of it. That thing will last me a lifetime.

And when Wheel Brightener won't do it, straight up muriatic acid saved my OZ Superleggeras from caked on track pad dust. No damage to the powder coated finish, but that's definitely a last resort.

CarPro Clearcut is my favorite current heavy cut compound, superceding Meguiar's M105.

Sonax Polymer Net Shield is an absolutely killer product for the lazy. Wipe on, wipe off, durable, flexible.

Sonax Wheel Cleaner is still good, but all of my cars produce brake dust that requires physical effort. This really limits the benefit over soap.

Iron-X is also still better for iron deposits on paint, although the Sonax works reasonably well for that.

[clyde]

Originally Posted by Josh (PA)

This is something i just found, that seems to work well at eliminating water spots at the last rinse:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm not sure how many washes I'll get out of it, but I put it between the hose and nozzle for my final rinse and did not that water spotting was significantly down.

Somewhere in the description/questions/comments, I saw something about 500 gallons.

This guy didn't seem to think it was a good bet for eliminating water spots:

Originally Posted by some guy named "Greg" on amazon

[I purchased this to produce a spotless rinse while cleaning cars but ran some tests on the filter. Long story short, it didn't work out. Here's how I tested:

After receiving the filter, I attached to my water spigot and purged for 2 minutes. I took glass 1, rinsed and filled the glass with filtered water. I removed the filter again and filled glass 2 with tap water. Examined 3 areas:

1) VISUAL: Both tap water and filtered water appeared clear or colors or sediment. PASS

2) TASTE: The filtered water had slightly less taste, but hardly noticeable: BARELY PASS

3) TDS metering: I bought a "Total Dissolved Solids" meter than measures purity. (ex. tap water: 100-400ppm - Distilled water: 0ppm). My tap water measured at 402 ppm, but the filtered water came in at 442ppm!! What?? The filtered water came in LESS pure?

Most likely the higher TDS rating likely came from harmless excess sediment from
the carbon filter. It appears these carbon filters are designed to only filter out non TDS solids (ex converting gross well/hose water into more pleasant drinking water).

OVERALL: These may still be good for converting clean hose water into something more palatable for RVs, but certainly not for creating a spot-free rinse. I don’t think any carbon filter can obtain a low TDS (spot-free) rinse. If that’s what you’re looking for, your remaining options are likely either triple osmosis or distilled.

Water spots have become relevant to me. I never had an issue on the gray Camaro, but have noticed them the last two washes on the orange car despite using the same big ass and waffleweave drying towel process on both cars. It was not a problem with earlier washes of the orange car, but I had to replace the hose recently, and that's the only thing I can think of unless the water authority made some changes.

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by clyde

Somewhere in the description/questions/comments, I saw something about 500 gallons.

This guy didn't seem to think it was a good bet for eliminating water spots:


Water spots have become relevant to me. I never had an issue on the gray Camaro, but have noticed them the last two washes on the orange car despite using the same big ass and waffleweave drying towel process on both cars. It was not a problem with earlier washes of the orange car, but I had to replace the hose recently, and that's the only thing I can think of unless the water authority made some changes.

In DC, they just swapped chloramine for chlorine for the spring decontamination of the water pipes. I wouldn't be surprised if there's extra deposits in the water for the next month.

[equ]

I use raggtopp cleaner & protectant 2-step for the boxster's top, only about once or twice a year; it seems sufficient as it's almost never parked out.

[Josh (PA)]

Originally Posted by equ

I use raggtopp cleaner & protectant 2-step for the boxster's top, only about once or twice a year; it seems sufficient as it's almost never parked out.

I've been happy with 303 products for my convertible tops.

[clyde]

I've been watching a lot of detailer Youtube channels lately. I've found a few that I've been enjoying and learning (hopefully good stuff) from. Chicago Auto Pros kind of stands out for some really high quality content in terms of explaining what, how and why they're doing things as well as showing (and generally do a good job of speeding up the parts that should be sped up).

A few months ago, they applied 26 different coatings and ceramics to a less-than-perfect Lexus that's daily driven in Chicago to follow up with to see how well the products work and how long they last. Since it includes a Chicago winter, the comparison includes a pretty harsh environment.

Application:




Two weeks:



One month:



Three months:

[Nick M3]

I should note that anyone in the midatlantic area should keep up on sealants/waxes BEFORE cicada season gets going.