series8217
New member
This is one of my first posts. Hope this is the right section. If not feel free to move it. This is basically a tutorial of my basic wash routine with ONR, but I think it's a great example of what ONR can do to even to a dirty car, and I'm not worried about using it on black paint.
Let's get the before pictures out of the way first:
More dirt.
Yep, a dirty black car. That's how they look.
The above dirt is from a few hours of driving off road in the desert. No mud, but plenty of dust and rocks.
Optimum No Rinse. It comes in magic blue because it's made of magic. Did I mention it smells like blue raspberry bubblegum?
First, add one ounce of ONR to the bucket.
On the other side of the bucket (bottom right of pic) you can see my noodly microfiber wash mit. It looks really dirty because when you use ONR it gets that way. When you wash it with normal detergent the dirt will come off. Just stick it in the washing machine with your microfiber towels when you're done. I use mine for a few car washes before running it through the machine.
Fill both sides of the bucket with two gallons of water. One side will have your ONR wash solution, and the other side will just be water. You use the water to pre-rinse your wash mit when it comes back to the bucket, so you can remove any chunks that get picked up off the car, without getting too much junk in the ONR solution.
I like this bucket. I think I got it for something like $16 from Home Depot. It was probably on sale. Each side holds 2 gallons. Perfect.
Microfiber towels from Costco. Never ever ever wash these with anything except for other microfiber stuff... and NEVER use softener or bleach. It will ruin them. I wash mine with Woolite and some Simple Green (to remove any greasy residue).
Dunk your mit in the ONR solution and let it soak up the goodness. Then starting at the top of the panel, move side to side and work your way down. Do this one panel at a time, but overlap onto adjacent panels a bit so you don't pick up dirt from them when you dry. There is NO rinsing step. Do NOT rinse your car beforehand. It's not necessary.
Door panel and window soaked. Notice the overlap. Also, I normally wash the roof first, but I did the door because the sun was going down and I wanted to get before and after pics in the same lighting.
If there's any dirt left, go over the panel again before you dry. If you run out of wash solution you can easily fill up again. Use a lot! I can usually do my Outback in the full 2 gallons unless it's super filthy (like today, when I used 3). My Fiero takes only a gallon.
Time to dry the panel. You do NOT rinse the panel with clean water at any point! Just ONR solution. No pre-rinse, no post-rinse. Just wash and dry.
Be aware of what your drying towel touches. Don't let it dangle so it touches the ground, and don't let it touch part of a panel you haven't washed yet. You don't want to rub dirt into your paint while you're drying. If you drop a microfiber on the ground, just throw it away. It's not worth trying to clean. If you put it in the washing machine you'll get little gritty pieces on ALL of your microfibers.
When the towel gets too saturated to dry well, wring it out and/or switch to the other one.
The lower regions of the body, as well as the front and rear fascias, tend to be the dirtiest, so I use one towel for upper body panels and one towel for bumpers and rockers.
Dried. Very shiny.
Over the winter I gave this car a two-step polish with M105 on an Orange Uber Pad followed by M205 on a Blue Uber Pad. After many washes like this I still have very few swirl marks. However, the paint is in terrible shape otherwise. Crappy Subaru paint... it's starting to crack all over. The hood is covered in check marks. Lots of scratches too, many of them poorly filled in by the previous owner. You may also spot some damage left by bird bombs the PO wasn't kind enough to remove quickly.
This car is a 2001 with over 165,000 miles on it though. I guess it could be worse.
By the way the color is actually Black Granite Metallic, hence the speckles. It's actually a super dark red metal flake. It's like the red equivalent to midnight blue.
Shiny besides the paint defects:
Windows come out very clean. There usually some streak marks, but you can just buff them out with a microfiber. No additional glass cleaner required.
More filth.
After:
Closeup:
When you're done, put away your good microfiber mit and towels, and go find the nastiest one around. Time to do your wheels with the leftover ONR solution.
Notice how even the tires look pretty nice after cleaning them with ONR?
Do NOT use the same towels and mit that you use for the body. You don't want to contaminate it with brake dust.
Keep them separate and if you want to be really careful, wash them separately too.
All done:
That concludes my evening washing routine. It's the basic one. You'll notice I didn't apply tire dressing (that's once a month or less often), didn't do the interior or roof basket, and didn't even wash the door jams.
When I clean my car on a weekend I do the door jams, interior, tire dressing, and wax, and sometimes scrub down and rinse the engine bay. I'll leave all that for another writeup.
Let's get the before pictures out of the way first:
More dirt.
Yep, a dirty black car. That's how they look.
The above dirt is from a few hours of driving off road in the desert. No mud, but plenty of dust and rocks.
Optimum No Rinse. It comes in magic blue because it's made of magic. Did I mention it smells like blue raspberry bubblegum?
First, add one ounce of ONR to the bucket.
On the other side of the bucket (bottom right of pic) you can see my noodly microfiber wash mit. It looks really dirty because when you use ONR it gets that way. When you wash it with normal detergent the dirt will come off. Just stick it in the washing machine with your microfiber towels when you're done. I use mine for a few car washes before running it through the machine.
Fill both sides of the bucket with two gallons of water. One side will have your ONR wash solution, and the other side will just be water. You use the water to pre-rinse your wash mit when it comes back to the bucket, so you can remove any chunks that get picked up off the car, without getting too much junk in the ONR solution.
I like this bucket. I think I got it for something like $16 from Home Depot. It was probably on sale. Each side holds 2 gallons. Perfect.
Microfiber towels from Costco. Never ever ever wash these with anything except for other microfiber stuff... and NEVER use softener or bleach. It will ruin them. I wash mine with Woolite and some Simple Green (to remove any greasy residue).
Dunk your mit in the ONR solution and let it soak up the goodness. Then starting at the top of the panel, move side to side and work your way down. Do this one panel at a time, but overlap onto adjacent panels a bit so you don't pick up dirt from them when you dry. There is NO rinsing step. Do NOT rinse your car beforehand. It's not necessary.
Door panel and window soaked. Notice the overlap. Also, I normally wash the roof first, but I did the door because the sun was going down and I wanted to get before and after pics in the same lighting.
If there's any dirt left, go over the panel again before you dry. If you run out of wash solution you can easily fill up again. Use a lot! I can usually do my Outback in the full 2 gallons unless it's super filthy (like today, when I used 3). My Fiero takes only a gallon.
Time to dry the panel. You do NOT rinse the panel with clean water at any point! Just ONR solution. No pre-rinse, no post-rinse. Just wash and dry.
Be aware of what your drying towel touches. Don't let it dangle so it touches the ground, and don't let it touch part of a panel you haven't washed yet. You don't want to rub dirt into your paint while you're drying. If you drop a microfiber on the ground, just throw it away. It's not worth trying to clean. If you put it in the washing machine you'll get little gritty pieces on ALL of your microfibers.
When the towel gets too saturated to dry well, wring it out and/or switch to the other one.
The lower regions of the body, as well as the front and rear fascias, tend to be the dirtiest, so I use one towel for upper body panels and one towel for bumpers and rockers.
Dried. Very shiny.
Over the winter I gave this car a two-step polish with M105 on an Orange Uber Pad followed by M205 on a Blue Uber Pad. After many washes like this I still have very few swirl marks. However, the paint is in terrible shape otherwise. Crappy Subaru paint... it's starting to crack all over. The hood is covered in check marks. Lots of scratches too, many of them poorly filled in by the previous owner. You may also spot some damage left by bird bombs the PO wasn't kind enough to remove quickly.
This car is a 2001 with over 165,000 miles on it though. I guess it could be worse.
By the way the color is actually Black Granite Metallic, hence the speckles. It's actually a super dark red metal flake. It's like the red equivalent to midnight blue.
Shiny besides the paint defects:
Windows come out very clean. There usually some streak marks, but you can just buff them out with a microfiber. No additional glass cleaner required.
More filth.
After:
Closeup:
When you're done, put away your good microfiber mit and towels, and go find the nastiest one around. Time to do your wheels with the leftover ONR solution.
Notice how even the tires look pretty nice after cleaning them with ONR?
Do NOT use the same towels and mit that you use for the body. You don't want to contaminate it with brake dust.
Keep them separate and if you want to be really careful, wash them separately too.
All done:
That concludes my evening washing routine. It's the basic one. You'll notice I didn't apply tire dressing (that's once a month or less often), didn't do the interior or roof basket, and didn't even wash the door jams.
When I clean my car on a weekend I do the door jams, interior, tire dressing, and wax, and sometimes scrub down and rinse the engine bay. I'll leave all that for another writeup.
