Waterless cleaners, revisited

Most of you know that I was a great advocate of Showroom Shine as a waterless cleaner. It certainly does a superb job and seems to do no damage, as predicted by the sceptics. However, I did find that from the day after the car was cleaned with SS, a film of very fine dust appeared. This meant that I was cleaning the car every other day. I switched back to old fashioned Zip Wax from Turtle Wax as a wash, and Mer polish for the bodywork. I am now back to washing the car once a week in general, and polishing every fortnight or so. Anyone else had this experience?

As an aside - I have also been washing the hood with Turtle Wax. It cleans up great and it beads beautifully once dry...

Cleaning cars is a chore I don't relish. I washed, polished and then waxed mine when I first got it a couple of months ago. It was such a mission that I haven't done it since. :dry:

It was great coming out of work, during the rainy spell, seeing the lovely 'beading' I must say. A couple of my colleagues noticed too and asked me if I waxed it. That went some way in making all the effort worthwhile.

I've not touched it since then but knowing there's a nice layer of wax under all those summer bugs, grime and dust makes me hopeful that it'll shine once again.. When I eventually dig deep and find the motivation. :lol:

Although, I have heard that there's a young Polish guy who frequents a local pub carpark and does a great job, tyre shine, wash and polish (boom boom) and all for a fiver. I'm tempted to have a shandy and give him a try while it's hot out there. :yesnod:

Now that's a bargain! :yesnod:

After reading your recommendations for showroom shine, I thought I'd give it a try and found a link to some free samples:

http://www.greasedlightning.co.uk/t-samplepack.aspx

Filled in my detail and still not received anything yet.

I use Greased Lightning with no problems & its handy to take on continental jaunts for a quick spruce up, every now & then I give the car an old fashioned hose & bucket job if very dirty.

One of the best washes i have used is by JML its called Mantis and is £9.99 from Asda. It is absolutely fantastic.

Hmmmmm: I've noticed the dust issue on our cars: I used the JML stuff like Paul, which gives a good shine.
I'd put the dust down to Farrrrrmer Giles and his pals doing dusty stuff in't fields around us.
The dust seems quite aggressive: it doesn't easily wipe off with a microfibres cloth from a clean car as you'd expect: now I'm thinking it may be a static effect caused by the JML, or some chemical effect.

Hmmmmmm: may try a conventional wash and see.

Washed the semi-old fashioned way earlier: car was blatted with dust. Squirted Simoniz wash solution on via pressure wash bottle, left a while then pressure washed off.

After drying in the sun a quick buff with a microfibre. Nice shine. Waiting to see if dust appears. No JML used. No dust as yet.

Engineer Conspiracy Theory: water is atomically balanced normally and of neutral charge. H2O. Chemical effect can cause disassociation to + charge H and - charge OH (hydroxyl) ions. If the net charge following waterless wash is -ve then +ve particles would be attracted and vice versa.

Any thoughts DA and others?

John and Sue wrote: Any thoughts DA and others?

Not really John, but I found your conspiracy theory interesting and probably quite plausible.


I like this tip too:-

Dave Baird wrote: As an aside - I have also been washing the hood with Turtle Wax. It cleans up great and it beads beautifully once dry...

I hadn't got quite so scientific about it, John. I just figured that there was a static charge effect left behind which attracted the very fine dust. It is almost as fine as chalk dust.

Speaking of which, the car needs a wash...


Ain't it funny, how time slips away...

John and Sue wrote: Washed the semi-old fashioned way earlier: car was blatted with dust. Squirted Simoniz wash solution on via pressure wash bottle, left a while then pressure washed off.

After drying in the sun a quick buff with a microfibre. Nice shine. Waiting to see if dust appears. No JML used. No dust as yet.

Engineer Conspiracy Theory: water is atomically balanced normally and of neutral charge. H2O. Chemical effect can cause disassociation to + charge H and - charge OH (hydroxyl) ions. If the net charge following waterless wash is -ve then +ve particles would be attracted and vice versa.

Any thoughts DA and others?

Interesting theory.

Here's another one. Using a no water product means you are rubbing the metal body. This causes a static build up on the car. Because you don't then rinse the car with water to 'soak up' the charge, the static charge remains. This attracts particulate matter in the air and causes it to stick.:shrug:

This doesn't explain why birds are attracted to crap on freshly shined cars. :nonod: