What type of car wash solution do you guys prefer to use on your Lexus if it is still fairly new? What have you found that will remove bug residue the most effectively without harming the paint in any way on the non-metal front bumper of your vehicle? Also, what are those small, gooey, yellow bits of crap that get on cars in the hot weather months in the Southeastern United States? Is it pollen? They can be difficult to clean off without leaving a bit of a film or discontinuity in the paint. :-( Even when I can get them washed off, they do seem to damage the paint.
I use plain Dawn dishwashing liquid & water. Dawn is basically just mild detergent, and that's all you need.
Bug & tar removal: I've always had good results with a plastic mesh scrubber, the kind sold for hand washing dishes, & using the same car wash solution (Dawn & water) as for the rest of the wash. Doesn't scratch paint, nor painted plastic parts usually - but you might want to try it on an inconspicuous area first.
Tar can sometimes be difficult to remove even with the scrubber, so in that case, I use mineral spirits. It's the same thing that's sold as "Bug and Tar Remover", only much cheaper by the gallon as "mineral spirits". :)
The key to avoiding scratches is to make sure no particulate (dirt) gets rubbed against the paint. Even micro-fine particulate will scratch unless copious amounts of car wash solution and/or water are involved.
I think the yellow gooey bits of crap (sic) are from, variously, bug guts, pollen something-or-others, & etc.
Great... Then you should try using it to remove the foreskin from your collar MCBRUE! Wait a minute, the people that make Drano couldn't produce enough of that product to remove the foreskin from YOUR collar. Even if they were working three shifts plus weekends.
dishwashing liquid is the worst crap to wash your car with....... i`m a detailer, i`m not going in to the details but it is rubbish unless you polish your car afterwards.... normally , dishwashing detergent is for dishes and car detergent is for paintwork... there is a difference.... i use Meguiars car wash, it`s the softest cleaner with a 0 ph level that is fine for washing and not stripping polish/waxes off the duco.....
Depends on how much you like your car i suppose..... you buy body wash for yourself in the shower......why not use dishwashing liquid ???
I ended up using ArmorAll Car Wash concentrate and it worked great! ALL of the bug residue came right off of the front bumper, hood and windshield. This formula also easily removed a thin string of chewing gum from the lower portion of the rear fender on the driver's side that had hardened on the paint. Hacks me off that people dispose of their gum in parking lots and on the highways. People that do this sort of thing obviously don't drive nice cars that they care about keeping clean. Or maybe they do and just don't care about other drivers' vehicles. :-)
I wash my own cars so that I know they get cleaned up to my satisfaction. Besides, at the Lexus dealership where I purchased my IS300 all they do is run them through one of those laser washes next door. I'm interested a full hand wash. That's the only way to get a car washed properly. Then dry it down, put on tire dressing, etc.
Go ahead and spend more money on the boutique car wash products that claim to be better for your paint, if you believe that nonsense.
I've been using plain Dawn and water for over 20 years, and all my vehicles have maintained an excellent condition paint finish throughout.
In fact, the newer vehicles also don't need wax at all, due to improved clearcoat/topcoat formulations and application. I also don't ever wax my vehicles, and guess what? People stop me and ask how I keep my vehicles looking so shiny and new!
Now, if you buy used vehicles, then you may indeed benefit from expensive wash and wax products, because by the time you get the car, the paint may have been abused by previous owner(s), with worn off topcoat and micro scratches from overly enthusiastic buffing, waxing, etc. Har har, a paradox, isn't it? The more you polish the paint, the more worn and scratched it gets...:)
Ouch ! Dawn ? I used that for my old Chevy all the time (well not too old, it was a 91). And after 6 months of washing it the shine was fading away. After doing some homework, Dishwashing liquid eats the wax off a car. It's not good if you don't wax too often.
If your looking to clean off a few layers of wax off your car, wash it about
10 times with dishwashing liquid and then wax. You'll get a un-real shine and get rid of the old wax.
Hmmm, it may be true that Dawn + water (or any other simple aqueous detergent solution) will clean off the wax, with repeated washings.
However, as I noted, I don't use wax anyway. You don't need it, for a newer vehicle factory paint finish in good condition, and in fact, the mechanical process of applying wax can easily cause micro-scratches in the paint, with resulting visible swirls. If you buy a new vehicle, you can (and should) avoid wax entirely.
But, if you do use wax, glaze etc. to remedy poor shine, scratches/swirls, etc. of a paint finish that is either (a) swirled/scratched/worn from being polished/waxed too much, (b) an aftermarket paint job, or (c) some combination thereof, then perhaps you should indeed avoid simple aqueous detergent wash solutions. A good detergent solution is, after all, for CLEANING, to remove foreign matter from something - foreign matter including wax buildup. :)
I disagree a little here. Yes, I wash my 96 LS400 at least once a week (hey, you got a nice looking car, show it off), but, only would use a better car wash stuff. After about a year (I have not waxed it yet), it still looks good but, that Mirror shine is fading away. It could be the part of country you live in but, it is noticable after time but, it fades slowly.
As for dishwashing stuff to wash your car, do some homework on it, see what people out there say. Maybe it was dawn, I am not sure of the brand I used 2 cars ago. I do remember it having an awsome shine when I got it. After about
6 months of washing it with dishwashing stuff, it was dulled out. It looked good but, the great shine was gone. I spent about 4 hours giving it a wax and it looked brand new. Never used dishwashing stuff again. Never will. Maybe a better paint job would handle better but, over time, I could see the same thing happening Lexus or Chevy.
I am going to bring it down and have it detailed because I don't have the time to wax.
Waxing a car, with a good wax will keep the shine.
GET A LIFE GUYS !!!!! When you take the car in for service they wash it. If you don't take it to Lexus for service they don't wash it and it stays dirty. So who cares? Leave it out in the rain or drive it in the rain and it will look clean enough. Of course if you live in a desert ... but there is no mud there either so it stays cleaner.
Take your car to the dealer, they wash it, but oops - they leave a few dirty places. (What the do you expect from the Dealer Wash Crew anyway, paid $6 an hour?) Then, they put the drying cloths to it, and the cloths pick up that dirt they carelessly left. Drying cloths become scratching cloths with the addition of dirt in cloth. Yum, yum
More worthless drivel from the sub-moron that calls himself MCBRUE! I'll bet MCBRUE also thinks that mowing our lawns is a waste of time too.
Obviously there are MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of people in this world that cherish their automobiles and seek out every way imaginable to keep their rides looking nice.
Well, for that matter, why waste your time cleaning anything, Mcbrue?
Why clean your house? Your yard? Yourself?
Everything degrades over time, everything gets dirty, dusty, funky, or moldy over time, if not cleaned. You clean it, then it gets dirty again and needs to be cleaned again. Why bother - it's just futile, swimming upstream against inevitable entropy, right?
Maybe it's one of the things setting us apart from lower forms of life
- we DO fight against entropy, try to push things toward cleaner & more ordered condition, rather than just lamely accepting increasing filth and degradation over time. (That is - SOME of us do...grin.)
The main reason I wash my cars occasionally is that I just don't like getting dirt on myself or my packages if I happen to brush up against the car by accident during entry/egress.
Also, dirty cars attract kid fingers that want to draw. Things like "wash me" drawn on the canvas of dirt haze on the car. You might find yourself a rolling statement of "kilroy wuz here" - or worse. In fact, if you park in gang territories, you could become a target by virtue of things scrawled in the dirt on your car. Hehe.
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