Winter Car & Truck Care

[Too Stroked]

OK, so it?s winter. It?s probably not the best time for detailing anything but Christmas trees and snowmobiles. (Of course JP can apply Hyperdressing to his extension cords year round.) But the winter months can be a really tough time for your vehicle?s finish. Sure, you could just do whatever it is you?ve always done ? then correct the damage in the spring. (Or you could call one of us to do it for you!) Then there?s the other choice; not creating too many problems in the first place!

So I thought I?d start a thread with some issues unique to winter and how to avoid them. I?ll start the thread, but I?ll call on all of the rest of our members to either comment on and / or add to it. Hopefully we?ll end up with a pretty good dissertation on what to do and maybe more importantly, what not to do.

First, let?s set the stage. I?m going to address my comments to what I consider to be ?normal winter environments? ? like right here in Rochester, New York. We average 100? of snow each year and temperatures in December, January and February can dip into the teens on a pretty regular basis. Given those conditions, we dump a pretty decent amount of salt and gravel on our roads so our notoriously poor drivers have half a chance of staying on the road.

I thought I?d start with washing since it?s pretty much taken for granted, but done incorrectly, can lead to more damage than most folks can imagine. One of the first things that happens here is that one can no longer just pull out a hose, buckets, wash mitts, etc. because they all froze solid a month ago. (If you have a heated garage, I hope your legs grow together.)

Given that we can?t use our own regular process, most of us are forced to use a neighborhood car wash ? either the fully automatic kind or the ?quarter / spray it yourself? variety. If you use the automatic variety, a ?touchless? system that has no rotating brushes is the preferred way to go. I remember seeing one car (my dad?s) that went through a rotating brush wash system after it had sat motionless (due to lack of business) for some time in below freezing weather. Ice formed on the brush bristles and when they wound that bad boy up, you can imagine what it did to the paint. But even the gentlest car washes generally rely on somebody (usually good looking college girls) to do the final drying of your vehicle. I?ve been known to tip the girls not to touch my vehicle just because some of those towels are so abrasive.

If you use the quarter / spray it yourself variety ? DO NOT USE THE FOAMING BRUSH. Those brushes can do more damage in less time than an army of coeds with gravel filled towels. I once watched a guy two vehicles in front of me wash his caked with mud backhoe with one of those brushes. The next guy in line (with a shiny new black Dodge pickup) then used that same brush to wash (scrape?) his truck clean. Get my drift here? The only place I use that foaming brush is on my wheels & tires ? and gently at that.

What I usually do is punch up the ?Rinse? setting and just use that (with no detergent) to blast all of the major crud off of my vehicles. I then go back home and use warm water and Optimum No Rinse to do the final wash before drying with microfiber towels. (Coeds optional.)

And one last hint for the quarter car wash. As I said, I only use the Rinse and Spot Free Rinse settings on the dial. But I always start out aimed at a tire or wheel well. Why? Because one never knows if the person in front of you was using the Engine Cleaner setting and left some of that stuff in the lines. So I make sure I see clear water before I move on to the rest of the vehicle.

So why is it so important to use some sort of pressurized water first ? especially in the winter? Because only in the winter do we see relatively large particles of snow, ice, salt, gravel, etc. stuck to the surface of your paint. If you wade right in there with even a soapy wash mitt and the two bucket method of washing, you?re still going to end up dragging that stuff all over your paint ? and damaging it.

That brings up another hazard of washing your vehicle in the winter months ? ice. If I bring one of my vehicles back from the quarter car wash and park it in my garage to follow up with several buckets of warm water and Optimum No Rinse, I always check for ice first. It?s way too easy to miss frozen droplets of water on the surface and end up dragging them across the paint. Resist the urge!

OK, enough from me. How about the rest of you? Any hints for all of our new and existing members on what to do ? and what not to do - in the winter months?

Tom

[Robby32]

Can't argue with anything Tom said good stuff.

  An addition - don't forget that lip around the wheel well. The underside of that lip collects lots of salt, sand, and other winter gunk. Clean it to avoid that rust through from the back side.

[Too Stroked]

So nobody's going to chime in with any advice on how to safely remove snow from your vehicle? Hint: Don't use a shovel.

[Blown F-150]

I was pretty lucky with this last snow far. It was wet and heavy, so I only needed to "chop" halfway into it and pull. This allowed the snow to slide right off the paint.

In an ideal world and with a light snow, you could use a leaf blower. I see the dealerships do it all the time and it actually seems like a good idea.

[Kitzy]

I use my arm to take most off.  I leave a thin layer to melt or blow off on its own.  That is if it doesn't slide right off like already mentioned. 

[Rollingrock]

well we have less problems with snow, I also garage keep so that solves most of that...my biggest issues isn't snow or ice is F'ing mud. 

But Tom I wash like you in the cold...go to my coin op at my rv storage for 5 bucks you 18 min or if you use QTR's you get 2 min per qtr.    I only need 4-8 to get it where I can ONR once back home.

[sscully]

Wanted to wait until I did it, to try to write it down.

I would say using ONR on a film is not exactly what Dr G had in mind.
- I have not seen a waterless wash that said film was OK, most of the time it is suggested that film be properly washed off.

That said....

I use a 2 bucket method for ONR washes just like standard washes.
 
I have a 3.5 gal bucket with a grit guard in it for the ONR solution and a 5 gal bucket with the pail pal wash board / bottom grit setup.


This is what I rinse the wash media with before I put it back in the bucket.
- Works nice to be able to wash board the snot out of it 1st.

The paint itself, I use a QD ratio of ONR in a double mist spray bottle.
- I hose down the panel / section I am working on to kick start the encapsulation with ONR before putting the wash media to it.

Wash media
I use the LC grout sponge for the upper paint, and an aqua sponge for the lower line.  I go all the way around with the higher paint, and once I am done I switch to the aqua sponge for the lower paint cleaning.

Technique for the lower part [EDIT]
I spray down the section I am working on with the QD ratio spray, wipe down with the aqua sponge and do the rinse bucket then back into the ONR bucket.  I spray down the section again with the QD ratio spray and wipe again with the Aqua sponge then dry.
- I forgot to include this in the 1st write up and ONr'ing the cars again today I realized that I left this off the write up.

I use at least 2 towels for the G6.
When one gets wet I use that to take a rough pass at the paint before using the next dry one.
- Might be obvious but I'll say it anyway.  The towel should not get filthy.  If it does, that is a case of the vehicle should be washed as normal.

When I am done, I use the Torx wipes ( pictured in the "over the top OCD post" in the other thread ) to wipe down the bottom of the doors. 
- The G6, GM installed the rust flaps on there ( GM has never figured out how to do weather strips, so they do stupid muck collectors ).

When I am done doing the wipe down, every wash in the winter I use S100 Rust corrosion protectorant on the bottom of the doors ( other times of the year it is only once per month or so ) and apply Sil glyde ( napa ) to the door seals. 
http://www.s100.com/s100_cp.htm
- Sil glyde is to make sure the doors do not freeze shut, which can happen with the temp swings from 33 to 0 like they normally do. ( tonight is 0 ( yes Zero ) F @ 10:30 PM. ).

I do not bother with the wheels most of the time.

That is it, just finished the G6 tonight.
Nice to have a heated garage at home. 
- Tom your legs can grow together, you have a shop that you use for production work, as well as your own, with more room than mine, and you don't have to pay the electric bill to get the area up to 60+ 

[Too Stroked]

- Tom your legs can grow together, you have a shop that you use for production work, as well as your own, with more room than mine, and you don't have to pay the electric bill to get the area up to 60+ 

Yea, but the plowing & landscape shop is 20 minutes from my house and the marina is 45 minutes from my house. And I'm getting better and better (as I get older) at forgetting at least one critical item ever time I use either shop. (Now that takes a special talent!) I'd kill for my garage to be like some of yours. Maybe you can come over to install the heating and JP can come over to Mop & Glow the floor in his fish net stockings?

Scratch that. Let's just do the heat.

[sscully]

Yea, but the plowing & landscape shop is 20 minutes from my house and the marina is 45 minutes from my house. And I'm getting better and better (as I get older) at forgetting at least one critical item ever time I use either shop. (Now that takes a special talent!) I'd kill for my garage to be like some of yours. Maybe you can come over to install the heating ...<snip>..

Maybe it is time for you to sneak in a metal storage cabinet into both shops.
You can put in some pads, product and some MF towels.   
That way you only need to drag along the equipment which you can keep in one of the HD plastic tubs.
- Got to be cheaper than spray foam insulating the garage walls and installing a ceiling and insulating the attic area then going at running the 240VAC line out there and hanging the heater.

I know the feeling, when I did the RV I emptied the cabinets into the back of my truck ( so I would not forget anything )
The floor of the bed and the back seat were full.

...<snip>..and JP can come over to Mop & Glow the floor in his fish net stockings?

Scratch that. Let's just do the heat.

This is a don't ask, don't want to know site...

[Too Stroked]

I think the biggest difference in winter vehicle care ? if you live where it snows ? is the fact that your vehicle has an abrasive layer (snow, salt, sand, gravel, etc.) on all surfaces in the winter. (In the summer, some of us might experience an abrasive layer of dirt which can be just as harmful.) It?s how you deal with this layer that makes all the difference in the world in how much damage you do to the painted surfaces.

For instance, some folks try to just wipe away the abrasive layer to get to the clean surface below. You?ll see this all the time when folks wipe / scrape / shove snow off of their vehicle. (And yes, I do realize that sometimes you need to remove snow just to make it safe to drive.) You?ll also see it when somebody wipes / runs a dry towel across a painted surface to ?clean it.? In both cases, what you?re really doing is attempting to roll or slide small bits of abrasive across the paint surface. The only difference between this and using a piece of sand paper is that the abrasive chunks don?t have the ability to roll on the sand paper.

The other place you?ll see this is folks using the ?foaming brush? at the quarter car wash. Now I?m not saying that a soft, clean brush with plenty of car wash soap to clean and lubricate the surface is always a bad thing. The problem at the quarter car wash is what happened to that brush before you get to use it. As I mentioned in my original post, I?ve seen way too many people use those brushes to clean something truly awful. All that leads to is a brush head full of somebody else?s abrasives for you to use on your paint. Get my drift here?

So quite possibly the biggest thing you can do to prevent damage from these abrasive particles is to try to rinse / blow them off with water before you use anything that actually touches your paint ? like a wash mitt.

The next thing you can do is use lots of car wash soap to lubricate the paint surface so that any remaining particles will do minimal damage when the wash mitt drags them across the surface. Obviously, too much car wash soap can be dangerous too in that it can remove any wax or sealant that you so lovingly put down to protect your vehicle?s finish. So be careful there too.

[Rollingrock]

- Tom your legs can grow together, you have a shop that you use for production work, as well as your own, with more room than mine, and you don't have to pay the electric bill to get the area up to 60+ 

Yea, but the plowing & landscape shop is 20 minutes from my house and the marina is 45 minutes from my house. And I'm getting better and better (as I get older) at forgetting at least one critical item ever time I use either shop. (Now that takes a special talent!) I'd kill for my garage to be like some of yours. Maybe you can come over to install the heating and JP can come over to Mop & Glow the floor in his fish net stockings?

Scratch that. Let's just do the heat.

Oh really?   Glad I just now caught this post....Tom=minus 500 posts.   

[Too Stroked]

- Tom your legs can grow together, you have a shop that you use for production work, as well as your own, with more room than mine, and you don't have to pay the electric bill to get the area up to 60+ 

Yea, but the plowing & landscape shop is 20 minutes from my house and the marina is 45 minutes from my house. And I'm getting better and better (as I get older) at forgetting at least one critical item ever time I use either shop. (Now that takes a special talent!) I'd kill for my garage to be like some of yours. Maybe you can come over to install the heating and JP can come over to Mop & Glow the floor in his fish net stockings?

Scratch that. Let's just do the heat.

Oh really?   Glad I just now caught this post....Tom=minus 500 posts.   

Curses. Foiled again!