Written as a compendium from searches I made while looking for advice on how to use it; I decided to put it all in one place, for easy reference for those searching.

If you are an Autopian, you are fanatic about not introducing swirls and scratches and tracers into your paint. This...

I have learned quickly how to use QEW. I would say I've used it perhaps 8 or 9 times now and I absolutely love it.

However, something I noticed Mosca is that you have an awful lot of water on the floor of your garage. I think you might be leaving uneccessary amounts of water/qew solution in the rag before you go to wash a dirty panel. Of course, having too much won't HURT, but it does make for a messier job of cleaning up.

I have a black car, and I squeeze most of the moisture out of the rag before applying it (except in areas that are especially filthy), and I don't have any detectable swirls or scratches anywhere in my paint.

In fact, I like QEW so much I'm not going to do "normal washing" again. I washed my car with the good-old bucket and soap method a few weeks ago and it took me longer to wash my car plus I have to mess around with hoses and nozzles, which are just a hassle. The quarter-wash places are great for getting most of the garbage/salt off from the car and getting at the wheel wells. Those combined with QEW are a winning combo, IMHO.

One thing I would recommend is to use a smaller microfiber towel instead of one of those giant towels for this process. Use smaller towels to both wash and dry the car. Also do section by section. For example, half of your door would be a "section". And of course, work from the top down!

Yeah, for the first side I was really paranoid about putting tracers and marks in the paint. On the passenger side, it was almost dry. Also, if you notice in the first picture of the bucket, a line of water? My first rinse bucket had a crack in the bottom, contributing to the total amount of water. But, yeah, I used a lot on the first side until I felt confident in the product's action.

For drying, I used a waffle weave drying towel folded into eighths, and re-folded as I went around the car, following with the 16" square mf. That worked really well; the waffle towel gets the panel almost dry, the mf gets it dry. I used only one of each, but I was doing a Miata; Escalade owners, YMMV.


Tom

I moved from a townhouse into a 2-car garage with an attached house in late October and have really come to appreciate QEW. With the low temperatures on the East Coast I've used it exclusively to wash the cars.

I don't have large windows of time to do all I want in one session (remove scratches and swirls, polish, and protect), so I QEW a couple panels at a time and just focus my work on those areas for a couple hours. After I wash, I place foil over the bucket and use my solution the next day to wash a couple more panels. It took me 4 sessions last week to complete the exterior work, but it only took one bucket of QEW solution.

I don't understand why anyone would have any hesitations about using this product after all the good write ups it has received. Especially since it is ideal for winter use (if you have a garage).

I often qew in the garage, and since there's no sun to evaporate the product, I've found it much quicker to wash the entire car first before starting to dry. I then do short-stroked, blotting wipes with a cotton towel to dry the car, leaving some residual qew, and then do a final pass with a waffleweave to dry. I then go around the car qd'ing and buffing with a soft microfiber to get rid of any possible qew haze. This cuts down my wash time from a little over 20 minutes to just under 15 minutes, including wheels, which are done last after drying the body.

BEAUTIFUL! Great job! Pat on the back!

We're talkin' Hall of Fame post!

Too bad about the pics.

Mosca - this is a great post. If you don't have another host I can try hosting them for you so you can imbed them into the thread. Or is it the forum software that is causing the limitation?

I agree! ...nice job Mosca!

Thanks, guys! So many times I go into the garage to do a process, and forget to document it; this time I wasn't going to let that happen!

I'll keep trying with the pics. It might be a bandwidth limitation from cardomain; I've been linking a lot to there. I don't have all THAT many pictures linked to here. But, tomorrow. It's 9:40 and I just got home from a 13 hour work day from hell... a 2.5 hour staff meeting in the middle of the day, and of course I'm stuck doing 5 o'clock's work at... 7:30.

Tom

Starting using QEW last winter, also works great in the middle of nowhere

http://www.autopia.org/gallery/showp...papass=&sort=1

Hey Pat, how do you "bookmark" a post on this style of forums? (its so easy on tt.net). Or were you just referring to bookmarking the http: link to that post via your browser? Thx.

Pix fixed. I don't know how, though, I re-entered them and they worked this time.


Tom