terry cloth excess

J

JHowell1976

New member
Before looking at this site and becoming enlightened to the proper way of car cleaning I used to use the terry cloth towels that you can buy in packs of 10-12 at Auto-Zone. They usually only cost about 6$ for 12. Which as far as I'm concerned is cheap. So rather than wash them, I would usually go and buy another pack prior to cleaning my car. One time I was in Sam's club and saw a pack of fifty for about 15$ (which I bought.) In the past, before I spent any money on this I would reuse old towels but they never came out clean from the washer. So I just got into the habit of buying them whenever I needed to clean the car. I now have literally somewhere between 400-500 slightly used white cotton terry cloth towels in the garage. Before I moved here 18 months ago I threw out 400-500 that I had collected in the place I was living. I have now found a product that will clean them, no residue at all leftover. Should I try to clean them and use them for dirtier jobs (i.e. door jambs) or should I just devote my energy to establishing an equally impressive collection of microfiber?
 
I am doing exactly what your thinking about doing right now :) Yesterday I ordered more MFs and another BBDT from pakshak.com, they are awesome, as for the terry, use it to wipe the jambs, wheels and etc. or sew them together and make a big white flag!
 
Over the years I had a pretty big collection of terry towels and cotton diapers. Since I've started using MF's, I only use the cotton stuff for dirty work. Slowly but surely my inventory of cotton towels is dwindling as I "kill" one almost every time I detail a car.



Its a good idea to keep some of those towels as they are handy. 400 is a little excessive but maybe 50-100 would be fine. I don't think you'll have the same problem with microfiber - they're a little more expensive than the 2 for $1 you paid for cotton towels.
 
I don't get the logic here... You spend probably well over 20 grand for the car but you find the cheapest towels you can get? Also keep in mind that accumulating all those cheap towels is probably more expensive than guying a good quality towel and using it over again.



A good washing in hot water will clean just about anything, don't worry about stains, you're not wearing the towels.
 
If you wash them real well and rinse all the detergent out, you can use them again. The stains mean nothing.



I exclusively use cotton towels on the interior, engine (which I throw out) and to coat exterior black trim. I use them to wash dirty door jambs to clean them up before I use my old MF's to dry, buff wax and/or use a QD.
 
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