Dumb question, why use buckets?

[Bill D]

Of course, many guys are washing reasonably clean cars that has good protection on it .

Yep,that would be me.

 

[Accumulator]

Of course, many guys are washing reasonably clean cars...

And that would *NOT* be me :grinno:

...that has good protection on it...

And that *WOULD* be me Stuff like FK1000P (let alone something like OptiCoat) makes it a lot easier to wash marring-free.



I still have to use the foamgun approach though. Trying to wash conventionally (and with ONR) has resulted in marring even when I was washing basically clean cars with just a light layer of garage-dust on them, the kind of washes where I thought nothing could go wrong as long as I was very careful

 

[David Fermani]

I rinse with an electric power washer first, do the wheels and tires and then take a soft brush around the rocker panels,wheel wells, lower bumper area, - then rinse again. I used a grout sponge, 5 gallon bucket (1) with a gritt guard and never had an issue.

Me too. My bucket water after a wash is pretty clean because pretty much all the topical dirt is gone after the pre-rinse.



The only time I use 2 buckets is when I'm doing a low water wash to rinse off my dirty wash media.

 

[David Fermani]

Rinsing methodology is also important ... never use high pressure to rinse the car .. flood everything off with a flow of water, High pressure just blows things around or dislodges other particulate and leaves it on the surface to be rubbed in by the drying towel.

Not sure if I agree with that......?



What "other particulates" are you referring to?



If you rinse from top to bottom and go around the car washing/pushing/rinsing things forward anything that is on top of the car (loosened during the wash process) all gets rinsed away. High pressure does it better because there's more force involved.



The only time I flood is at the very end after the final rinse. I disconnect my power wash wand and also go from top to bottom>>side to side.

 

[Lexi65]

99% of the time I just "clean the tar off my LSP" with Sonus SFX clay. Yeah, it trashes the clay but I don't have to reLSP. I just keep a blob of clay and a spraybottle of lube on the wash bucket and spot-clay stuff like that as needed while doing the wash.

Hey Accumulator ... Haven't been on the site for a while. Always enjoy your thoughtful insight.

Question... Using Clay on the tar/bugs doesn't mar?



Thanks.

 

[Accumulator]

... Using Clay on the tar/bugs doesn't mar?

Not the way I do it As with the washing in general, I'm...uhm...*extremely* cautious. I might knead/replace the clay after a single brief contact with the paint if I'm worried that whatever it picks up might cause marring.



Note that, used properly with plenty of lube, mild clays like the Sonus SFX won't, in-and-of themselves, mar the paint (at least not my paint).



I can't remember the last time I got nasty-bad contamination from tar (I'll tie up traffic to avoid such stuff if I have to and I guess my wife's just lucky :chuckle: ). It's generally just relatively isolated spots of the stuff that I can treat individually. If I *did* have a really bad mess, then yeah, I'd just solvent it off and reLSP. But I truly *can't* remember the last time I had to do that, been well over a decade.



But yeah, those "isolated, individual spots" can add up and I sometimes feel like I'm keeping the lights on at Sonus the way I go through clay!