QEW winter use and road salt

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imported_flatstick

New member
Just wanted to pick everyboy's brain about using QEW when your car has road salt on it. I love QEW and used it two days ago when the temp was 28/ with a wind chill of 19. I thought the whole was went well as usual. I did notice some very slight marring on a door panel that was not there before. the marring was noticed about 1/4 way through the truck. the only thing that was changed is the fact that there was some road salt on my truck. the method used was 1.5oz of QEW to 1.5 gallons of water( large SUV) 3.5 gallons of rinse water, 3 or 4 deep pile MF'S to dry and two wash mitts. I also used some QEW in a quart sprayer to pretreat the panels before washing. the only thing I can figure is that maybe I need to leave more product in the mitt when washing off road salt ? the roalt salt was a light film that only covered the lower half of each front door. after finding the marring I made sure to load up the mitt a little more and did not seem to have this issue.the marring can only be seen in direct sunlight and the sun was only shining on one side so I am not sure how the other side really looks in the sun. I will be using this method for the winter and wonered if it is safe to say I need to use more product or is it always better to use the rinse mode at the car wash before using QEW when you have road salt on your car? sorry for the long post but I love QEW and was taken back a bit with the marring. ( maybe user error ? lol ) thanks for any advise you guys can throw my way
 
I've only used QEW once but I had good luck by just soaking the lower half of the chenille sponge in the bucket and leaving a soaked panel for the drying pass. If you don't use enough solution I'd think micromarring would be a real possibility.
 
wannafbody said:
I've only used QEW once but I had good luck by just soaking the lower half of the chenille sponge in the bucket and leaving a soaked panel for the drying pass. If you don't use enough solution I'd think micromarring would be a real possibility.
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That would make sense, have been using it the same way every time for the last couple of months. this is the first time I have seen a problem. just wondering if road salt is tougher to remove or more abrasive than just plain dirt or dust ? will have to check the other part of the truck up close to see how my technique faired. I always use the two mitt method leaving one soak while making one pass with the other one. I always mist the QEW from the sprayer on parts that seem to have a little more crud on them. was hoping one of our resident QEW or wash experts would shed some light on this for me.
 
wannafbody said:
I would think that road salt is more abrasive than dirt and that it needs more solution to disolve it
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That is what I was thinking. after doing 1/4 of the truck, I looked at the finish very close to check and see the progress. after every swipe of the mitt with more QEW I would dry and inspect. I made sure the mitt had more product loaded up in it. it seemed to be business as usual but now I feel I will have to recheck the truck in direct sunlight to see how it came out. the marring was only noticable in full direct sunlight at on angle. I usually have a little QEW left but this time I had the correct amount with just a little left. guess the 1.5 gallons will work. should I add a touch more QEW in the wash or maybe adding QD like some people do will help out ? so far looks like we have our own topic here lol ! thanks for your responses so far.
 
For road salt and heavy road grime, mix up some QEW and QD in a spray bottle, and saturate those areas and let them pre-soak. The really load your MF towel with QEW water (dripping wet) to provide lots of lubrication.



I have a black car which is driven all winter long through salt and crud, and I've never had a marring problem. On lower body panels, be sure to really saturate the areas and ONLY MAKE ONE PASS WITH THE MF, BEFORE TURNING THE TOWEL.
 
Luster said:
For road salt and heavy road grime, mix up some QEW and QD in a spray bottle, and saturate those areas and let them pre-soak. The really load your MF towel with QEW water (dripping wet) to provide lots of lubrication.



I have a black car which is driven all winter long through salt and crud, and I've never had a marring problem. On lower body panels, be sure to really saturate the areas and ONLY MAKE ONE PASS WITH THE MF, BEFORE TURNING THE TOWEL.
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You may be on to something as far as the amount of QEW needed when their is rock salt present. after noticing the marring I went to more product for the rest of the wash and feel that may be what is needed. I will also retire the wash mitt that I was using . I switched between a new one and one that is a couple of months old but after noticing the defect just stuck with the new one, just in case the other one was the culprit. will have to try the QD idea and see what happens.
 
I have washed salt off of my car several times now with QEW/QD. When I've got salt on the car, I use more than 1oz/gal of QEW per gallon of water. I use between 1.5 - 2.0 oz per gallon. Then I spray 5 sprays of S&G in the wash bucket. I have a spray bottle with QEW/water ~ 1:25 that I use for presoaking.



I wash with MFs, and dry with MFs too. My rinse bucket is a 5gal bucket with 3.5gal of water, and a GritGuard on the bottom.



I haven't had any problems with marring as of yet.
 
White95Max said:
I have washed salt off of my car several times now with QEW/QD. When I've got salt on the car, I use more than 1oz/gal of QEW per gallon of water. I use between 1.5 - 2.0 oz per gallon. Then I spray 5 sprays of S&G in the wash bucket. I have a spray bottle with QEW/water ~ 1:25 that I use for presoaking.



I wash with MFs, and dry with MFs too. My rinse bucket is a 5gal bucket with 3.5gal of water, and a GritGuard on the bottom.



I haven't had any problems with marring as of yet.
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White95Max, thanks for the tip on using a more potent mix, I will have to try that. do you think there is an advantage to using MF'S over a chenille wash mitt ? one post somebody suggested that the chenille wash mitt does not release dirt as well as MF. I do have a brand new deep pile chenille sponge I have not used yet. wonder if that would work better than the mitt ? isn't that what SCOTTWAX uses ? thanks for your reply
 
I like using MFs because I have a ton of them. If one of them starts retaining dirt/salt, then I'll just grab a new one. The majority of the time, all the crap rinses right out of the towel.

I have not tried a mitt of any kind. MFs have always worked well enough for me that I've had no reason to try something else.

I do think there is an advantage to using QD in the wash solution though. The paint is slicker afterward, and that is always helpful for the next time you have to wash salt off.
 
White95Max said:
I like using MFs because I have a ton of them. If one of them starts retaining dirt/salt, then I'll just grab a new one. The majority of the time, all the crap rinses right out of the towel.

I have not tried a mitt of any kind. MFs have always worked well enough for me that I've had no reason to try something else.

I do think there is an advantage to using QD in the wash solution though. The paint is slicker afterward, and that is always helpful for the next time you have to wash salt off.
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Sounds like the MF may be the way one go. one more question what type of MF'S do you use ? do they have a deeper pile ? I hate to use my good ones for QEW. will have to look into a QD for sure. I only have Z6 and Z8.
 
I used QEW for the first time this weekend and it looks like I will be changing my winter washing technique! I was surprised how easy it was to use and how little water was required. We are under water restrictions here in NC and we only to use "professional" car washes. Not for my vehicles! So, I gave QEW a try (with the garage door closed) and it was nice to be able to use warm water when washing in November! It had been more than a month since I washed any of the cars...severe withdraw symptoms were getting too much to handle!



I think QEW will get me through the winter...with warm hands! LOL!
 
flatstick said:
Sounds like the MF may be the way one go. one more question what type of MF'S do you use ? do they have a deeper pile ? I hate to use my good ones for QEW. will have to look into a QD for sure. I only have Z6 and Z8.
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I have some green WCD MFs and some economy MFs from Er*e C*tton that I use for QEW washing. I won't let my nice ExcelDetail supreme MFs touch all that dirt. I use the mediocre towels for that.
 
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