Advice needed, cleaning a few years of dust off a car.

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nothingbutdarts

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I have a car that has been sitting quite a few years with a build up of dust & some dirt maybe, what would be the best way to clean the outside without scratching the paint? Obviously, a good strong rinsing with a garden hose first. Thanks!
 
nothingbutdarts said:
I have a car that has been sitting quite a few years with a build up of dust & some dirt maybe, what would be the best way to clean the outside without scratching the paint? Obviously, a good strong rinsing with a garden hose first. Thanks!
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Ignore what everybody is saying about washing that stuff off. Scrape it off and bottle it and sell it on ebay so someone can turn their daily beater into a "Barn Find!"
 
Soap and water but personally wouldn't use a pressure washer.

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A good wash (no pressure washer) followed up with a clay bar and then polish and wax of your choice.
 
Nothing is better than a big bucket of the soapiest water you can make with Dawn dish washing liquid.

Hire a couple of young women wearing only T-shirts and give them a leaking hose. Make sure you film them and post it so we can see the before and after.

Use the Zoom on the camera to give us a good picture of what you're working with. We could then give each other "Pointers"
 
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No pressure washer, and not a strong rinse, just flood the panels with water so the runoff will take some dirt with it.

Car wash soap is much better than dishwashing soap. It is designed to clean dirt from cars, not food From ceramic dishes.

For a nice paint job you don’t want to scuff or scratch. After a water rinse I like to use a hose end sprayer with the car wash soap inside. Now rinse it off and let the soap sit on it a few minutes, then rinse. Do this twice. This will get off more dirt and grit before you start rubbing the dirt into the paint with the wash mitt. Don’t press hard just move the soap around and rinse.

Now wash it normally. You should never press very hard, let the soap clean the car not scrubbing.

If it’s not good paint then you can’t hurt it, scrub the hell out of it!

dish soap,will strip wax and polish from the paint which can be good start if you are going to wax it again.
 
Dawn dishwashing detergent is used to clean up just about anything covered with oil -- from birds to sea turtles to human skin, not just ceramic dishes.
 
Take whatever advice you want.
One thing is.. you might want to use compressed air to blow out the 'seams' to avoid mud in the crevises .

Things to consider anything you rub it with residual dirt might scratch. If you hit it with too hard of water you could damage something. Of course all this ****'s obvious right so let's move on to the next. However if you do use some pressurized water and I mean you know like the thumb over the hose or a little more but not full on pressure washer turned up to high, consider that aside from the initial blast Point all of that sideways deflecting water will actually blow the dirt off in a sideways fashion and is better than rubbing anything at all on it with the dirt still there.... so
Everyone saying not to use anything to rub on it and use a stream of water or bucket of water and soap ..or whatever, are correct.
What I like about the cheap Harbor Freight pressure washer is that it comes with the soap dispenser to put on the end made for washing cars so it will not push too much pressure and comes off like a thumb over the hose kind of a deal and then you can adjust it at the head once you remove that to rinse so that you're only putting a fan of water across it.
I took more time than needed for this.
It's dirt on a car, use your head... it's easy.
 
The reason to use compressed air first, some materials are like sawdust. They will absorb water and never come out from under moldings . etc...
 
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