Did you wash your car? Here is where you are sure to still find some dirt and washing water
Water beads on the paintwork of a car. Clean droplets of water shine on freshly washed mirrors and windows. The car looks clean whether you went to a car wash or used a pressure washer and other equipment to clean your ride yourself. But is the car really clean? Yes and no – there are still a couple of things you should do!
Not all water is clean
Rarely do you end up rinsing your car so well after washing that some detergent and even dirt would not remain on the surface of the car. You should actively remove the water used for rinsing rather just allowing it to dry.
Start by drying large amounts of water with a rubber wiper and you are well on your way. The Aqua-away wiper is a good tool for this task. But you aren’t quite finished yet. Next, take an absorbent car drying towel.
Start wiping from the top down, meaning you should first dry the roof, followed by the windows and side mirrors. Next, dry the bonnet and then go on to dry the sides from the top down. Never use a towel that you have first used to wipe the rocker panels, wheels or doors. A grain of dirt remaining between the towel and the paintwork could scratch the paintwork.
The car has now been dried from the outside with a rubber wiper and a towel. However, you are still not finished because this the start of the fun part that most people never think about. From the outside of the car you can never reach inside surfaces of the doors and the boot.
Some more towelling
Open the doors and the boot and look at the paint. Does it look clean? Not likely. There will be a healthy dose of dirty water, detergent foam and tightly adhering dirt on the body, vertical columns, doors and the boot.
Keep working with the car drying towel. Start wiping the insides of doors starting from the draft excluders at the top of the door. The draft excluders are usually only wet, but the further down you wipe the more likely you are to find puddles of water mixed with detergent, tar, dirt and even pebbles.
Once you have started to wipe the doors, do not use the same towel for wiping the roof, bonnet or sides. This way you can make sure that no tar or dirt ends up on the clean paint surface. As long as you keep the work order clear, you can usually get the job done with the one and the same car drying towel that you used for drying the outside of the car.
As in all cleaning, be merciful on yourself when doing this. If this is the first time you are drying and cleaning the insides of doors, the amount of dirt might feel overwhelming. However, the most important things is to make wiping them a habit you do whenever you wash the car. If you keep doing it regularly, a single towel will be quite sufficient for drying the entire car in the future.
For this story, we used the drying tools of the Kungs car maintenance product line. You should start with the Aqua-away wiper and then go on to use the super-absorbent Super Dry car drying towel that can be machine washed, meaning a single towel will serve you for a long time! Also see our handy Quick-wiper rubber wiper that is small enough to fit in a door pocket or the glove compartment.