Many of us live in HDB and Condo and our car washing ritual is normally in a shared washing bay. Those staying in landed, lucky bast**ds, you get all the space and water you need.
I drive a Kia. For some unspeakable reason, I’ve decided to wrap it in Satin Black. Always wanted to feel how easy or bad it is to take care of matte or satin wrapped cars. More thoughts on that later.
me KIA, trying the ‘murdered-out’ look, Yeh or Nay?
When its that time of the week to wash car, or find an excuse to get out of the house, my wife will always complain about the amount of gear I bring along. Dunno why she complain, I’m the one carrying it leh. Got a big bag filled with microfiber towels, sponges, a battery operated vacuum cleaner and blower. Also another 2 wash buckets filled with all the Sonax goodies, proudly sponsored by Sonax Singapore!
my run-road car wash bag
I’ll drive to the wash bay, praying that no one else is using. I’m lucky cause the mscp have installed the coin operated pressure washer system. Thank you QE Elemech! Write to them and pester them if you want 1 in your mscp or condo wash bay.
Thank you QE Elemech
First advise before you wash, try to wear a pair of nitrile gloves. Keeps your hands clean for digging nose, un-smelly and makes you look like a pro! Its affordable and going for like $20 for a box of 100 in Lazada or Shopee.
If the wheels are not hot to the touch, I always start with them first. You would always want to wash the dirtiest part of the car first. I’ll fill 1 bucket with shampoo and pop in 20 cents to fill up with water. This is my current favourite shampoo, Sonax Profiline Active-Foam Shampoo. Strong cleaning strength, high foaming, suitable for wrapped cars and nice smell as well. I’ll always start with the rear passenger side wheel first. I’ll spray it with the Wheel BEAST to remove brake dusts and then start to give it a thorough scrub with my SpeedMaster Brush and Sonax Microfiber Hand Glove. Sonax calls it the beast cos we reckon no dirt can stop this wheel cleaner! The Wheel Beast is the fastest acting wheel cleaner Sonax has for now. Works fast to removes stubborn brake dust and not as smelly as the regular version. Then I’ll clean the rear driver side, front passenger side and finally the front driver side. I always leave the front wheels the last to clean to allow more time for them to cool down. This takes me only about 10-15 mins in total. Guys, if you plan to change rims, please hor, do yourself a big favor and get something easy to wash. I see people washing Rotiforms’ or BBS LMs’, I also headache. Advan RG3 ftw!
Once I finish the wheels, pop in $1 for the pressure jet and proceed to give the wheels and car body a good rinse. Always try to rinse down the car body thoroughly to remove heavy grit that might cause scratches when washing.
Next, it's shampoo washing the car body. I always encourage peeps to use a 2 bucket car wash method but hor, sometimes I’m also embarrassed to say that I don’t do that all the time. But the minimum standard is 1 bucket with a grit guard. Those that do not know what is a grit guard, it is sort of like a plastic mesh that helps to separate and trap sediments in the bottom of the bucket, so that you don’t pick it up again when you wash. This will help to reduce the risk you have of scratching or marring the paintwork.
My Car Wash Essentials
I’ll fill up the bucket with a grit guard inserted and fill with 2 caps of Sonax Profiline ActivFoam Shampoo. Pop in 20 cents and fill up with water. Using the Sonax Microfiber Wash Glove, I’ll start from the top. Dip in the bucket to pick up the shampoo and start washing. After 1 section, I’ll dip the glove back into the bucket, rub it against the grit guard at the bottom to remove coarse debris that I might have picked up and then wash again. Using the same process, I’ll finish washing the whole car apart from the bottom half. For the bottom half, I’ll use a separate Sonax Multi Sponge to wash. This way, it helps to keep my microfiber glove lasts longer. The multi sponge is much more effective against stubborn dirt normally found at the lower panels.
Finally when all is done, pop in another $1 and jet wash clean. Now when you think all is done, there is one crucial last step.
Pop in 20 cents and fill the bucket with clean water. I’ll use a water scoop, and start to rinse the car from top down. You can use an open running hose if you have access to one. This is what detailers call drying the car with water. If your car is ceramic coated or even just have wax on it, the hydrophobic properties aka water-beading effect allows the water to help you dry the car faster, if that makes any sense to you. When finished rinsing from top down, you end up with a car that is almost 70-80% dry, thus making drying the car even easier! All in $2.60 well spent! On average, it takes me 45 mins to wash the car but that’s not including drying.
*side note: Please when you finish using the jet wash, coil up the hoses nicely and loop it back into the holder. Also clear your rubbish to prevent clogging the drainage area. If everyone plays their part, these machines can lasts longer and everyone can get to use it.
That is it for this part of the HDB MSCP washing ritual. Stay tune for the next blog on how I normally dry my car.