DIY/homemade quick detailing spray?

P

phatrs

New member
Hi all,

Following on from my Products For Cheapskates post recently (thanks for all the replies) I have a new crazy idea.

Was wondering if anyone has made any quick detailing spray at home...

I`ve seen Pan The Organiser and some other people suggest you can make it from waterless wash heavily diluted, and some recommend adding a bit of isopropyl to help with evaporation. Do you have a recipe you swear by?

Also, is quick detailing spray the best thing to use as a drying aid? Or should I drive with an air blower first then use quick detailer?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Ben
Melbourne/Australia

2015 VW Polo GTI & 2019 Golf R
 
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I`ve never used a drying aid, a good waterless wash with distilled water is all I ever use on my car. You made a thread about being a cheapskate, imho a drying aid or using a QD as a drying aid would be overkill. I`m the opposite of a cheapskate and wouldn`t buy anything to use as a drying aid. But, that`s just my opinion. Some people swear by them, and there are dedicated drying aid products out there. So there`s definitely a market.

I did almost buy some AMMONYC Hydrate, but that`s definitely not something a cheapskate would ever consider. Look up Automagic they have a product called HydroShine, on their web site they show a distributor in Australia. That would be cost effective. Any WW could be diluted and used as a QD so should be usable as a drying agent too. I`ve just never seen the need for one *shrug* Of course, having never used one maybe if I was to, I would recommend it lol. Maybe I will order Hydrate so I can see what all the fuss is about.
 
I think something like UWW+ is about as economic as you can get. DG931 also works really well. Both leave something behind that may interfere with other products.
 
IMO if you have a great mf drying towel a drying aid is not necessary. I have tested it out and just find the drying to be more work. Since I only swipe over with the drying towel 1 time and it`s dry paint. With a drying aid I needed more swipes and with some products a final buff with a mf towel to wipe it off clear. EcH2O and BSD and Angelwax QED and Angelwax Enigma QED is the products I have used. AW QED is what worked the best for me between these products as of easiest to use. Enigma QED was what gave me best results looks wise. But I thought that my drying towels loosed the ability to hold up the water and also at last didn`t was as effective to soak up the water after some time. Took a few washes until the mf drying towels came back as how they where. A drying aid is mostly for lubrication and it also breaks the water tension and the capillary holding ability. And the last part is how a mf towel is build to use those abilities in them. Maybe my drying aid where no good so there can be better products if you want to use drying aid. I like to dry the car and then apply the QD/Spray Wax of choice. This way they don`t get diluted and last longer. It`s a personal preference and to this day I have not seen anything that would get from the drying towels. As in marring and scratches from it. And have some soft paint on my Kia cee`d SW with a silver metallic paint I have.

EcH2O diluted 1:20 gets you a good value I think. Some like to put in some SiO2 sealant in it for more protection.
 
SWETM said:
IMO if you have a great mf drying towel a drying aid is not necessary. I have tested it out and just find the drying to be more work.
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Does a drying aid actually help you dry a car faster? In most cases, probably not. But for me, it gets off any water spots that my have formed, any dirt or bug splats that I missed, plus it adds a layer of protection after a wash.
 
(Regulars here know I use a Drying Aid of some kind at almost every wash.)

phatrs- I`m no dummy, but there`s zero chance I can cook up a QD that`s as good as I can buy. And I question whether trying to do so would result in any kind of $ savings.

And I`m not a fan of indiscriminately using IPA on things, nor adding it to products that weren`t intended to contain it.

"Improving evaporation" would not factor into my consideration of a Drying Aid anyhow. I prefer to focus on *displacing* the water (via blowing it off the car or soakingit up with a towel) rather than evaporating it. If you have hard water, that could be really important.

*IMO*, the (functional) diffs between "QD"/"RW"/etc. are kinda vague. I`ve used both as Drying Aids with no real issues or preferences between them. SprayWaxes work fine as Drying Aids too, as long as I did the wash thoroughly and really got all the dirt off, and a little residual water never had any negative effect on them for me.

FWIW, and noting that I work indoors, I always blow most of the water off before I star to do what I consider the "real drying". And then I go back and blow it out of any nooks and crannies after I`ve finished with the towel(s) and my Drying Aid. So it`s not either/or for me.
 
I always dry the car then apply detail spray/waterless wash or spray wax. I don`t like getting products in my drying towels. It will affect them over time.
 
The idea of a drying aid that I’ve found on the interwebs is to add some lubricity to the drying process or to leave a little protection behind or best yet a little of both.

I like Ech20 with a little sio2 sealant for this. I do 2.5oz of each in a 32oz bottle topping bottle off (kwazar) with distilled.

For cheap sake I would use McKee’s n-914 .5 oz with a nice priced spray wax (2oz). I’d use griots best of show spray wax my self.

You can do same with an economical rinseless wash concentrate and spray wax from down under. Works great as a QD and drying aid


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Thanks for the fantastic replies everyone. So much food for thought!

Some have mention detailing sprays that have “wax” in the name. If I was planning to polish the car after drying it, correct my I’m wrong, but it sounds like I should avoid using a detailing spray until *after* I’ve polished and coated/waxed the paint? But once I have my paint coated, the detailing spray should be used after every wash?


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DBAILEY said:
.. I don`t like getting products in my drying towels. It will affect them over time.
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-AND-

..yes... and over time, being a very short time..
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OTOH, my Dry Me Crazy towels (plush MF Drying Towels) haven`t developed that issue yet, and I`ve been using either a SprayWax or a leaves-stuff-behind QD/RW pretty much every time I`ve used them (that being "for years" now). Sooner or later, *ALL* of my MF Drying Towels become less effective, but it hasn`t happened faster since I`ve started using them with those products. OK, lucky me! and otherwis...so what?/lots of variables/YMMV.. But I`m just saying it`s not necessarily inevitable.

phatrs said:
Some have mention detailing sprays that have “wax” in the name. If I was planning to polish the car after drying it, correct my I’m wrong, but it sounds like I should avoid using a detailing spray until *after* I’ve polished and coated/waxed the paint? But once I have my paint coated, the detailing spray should be used after every wash?
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Another mealy-mouthed response from Yours Truly :o

It just depends (again :o ). If polishing/correcting anyhow, I wouldn`t use a Drying Aid, just more stuff on the paint that`s gonna (hopefully) get polished away, and thus more stuff getting on the pad and needing cleaned off/out of it.

Different products of this type leave different stuff behind. Some varieties of that "stuff" are compatible with some LSPs, and some aren`t. If coating, you`ll want a bare surface so I wouldn`t use the sprays until the coating is done (again, just more stuff to clean off the paint).

Opinions/experiences seem to vary on using sprays once the coating is on there. I myself always think that part of a coating`s appeal is that you shouldn`t need to do such stuff, but there seems to be a whole industry aimed at "stuff to use on your coating". If I were to do that kind of thing, I`d just see what others here have been happy with on the specific coating in question.
 
Dan said:
Does a drying aid actually help you dry a car faster? In most cases, probably not. But for me, it gets off any water spots that my have formed, any dirt or bug splats that I missed, plus it adds a layer of protection after a wash.
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Absolutely it works for some and is to a benefit to do so. I have a plusher style of mf drying towel that holds a lot of water. And noticed right away that I didn`t reach as far when drying until it where leaving water streaks behind. Useally I could be doing most of the car with it and then just a smaller one to soak up the rest of the water. Now it started to streak when reaching the vertical panels when I needed to be putting the pressure on so I didn`t drop it. The next wash was even worse. Tried with a few other mf drying towels than my favorite one it`s a Liquid Elements Silverback XL drying towel this. It was the winner in the hughe testing of drying towels Forensic Detailing Channel on Youtube did almost 2 years ago IIRC. With the technique of laying it out and drag it towards me holding them on the widest corners. I feel is the second safest way to dry the car with mf drying towels. The safest is the padding drying technique. And with a drying aid this where just not possible to do. Now I use a PFM style drying towel on the horisontall panels and then paddling the vertical panels with the Silverback towel. The PFM style drying towels is awesome and are very quick to soak up water and hold up the water good too. But use a drying aid with a PFM style drying towels I don`t see the benefit with such of a drying towel. Or it maybe soak up the drying aid in 1 go too idk. And feel like I get a less of a mess with a dry application of a QD/Spray wax/waterless wash. That I notice if needed while I`m drying. Maybe every 3-5 wash I ad something extra afterwards. Otherwise just a car soap that leaves nothing behind. And sometimes if I before the wash feels like getting something extra I use Angelwax Enigma Ceramic Infused car soap which I like the looks from it. Sometimes I just leave the paint wet after the final rinse and start to apply a spray on rinse off product and dry afterwards.

In the longrun for me I don`t see a benefit of useing a drying aid. Could pay a big role that the 2 cars I maintain is silver metallic paint and white. If I had a darker paint where I would see water spots more easier. It could be an option to use a drying aid. But water spots comes from when water dries on the paint and with a longer drying time that I got with drying aid is almost like I create the problem. And if I where washing in sunlight would have been a difference too. Otherwise it goes fast to dry the car for me without stressing it. As mentioned before I can see a benefit to drying aid in some situations. But generally if you have great mf drying towels you can dry much faster and still very safe in most situations.
 
SWETM said:
Absolutely it works for some and is to a benefit to do so...[but]...In the longrun for me I don`t see a benefit of useing a drying aid. .
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This topic is another great example of !YMMV! with innumerable variables that can factor in.

And while you know how it works for *me* (and, conversely, for SWETM!), if everything`s fine now I sure don`t see any reason to try using a Drying Aid. Could be another case of looking for (perhaps nonexistent) problems that you don`t know you have.
 
I use 5 different drying aids, usually selected at random: Beadmaker, DG Aquawax, DG AW/FCS mix, Meguiars D156 and finally diluted DG Rinseless. They all work well IMO, but on a cost per use basis, the DG Rinseless is far and away the cheapest, since it`s diluted. All of the above are in the $30-$40 per gallon range, but other than the DG Rinseless they`re all used undiluted.

Bill
 
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