Exterior care for your Mercedes

Any good sudsing car wash is enough... do not get the one that is combined with teflon, wax, etc... they are just garbage.

You also need a good washing mitt... lambswool mitt are great...

Lastly, get yourself a synthetic chamois-like towel... this will save you tons of time to wipe down the car and laundry associated with terry cloth towel. As for genuine chamois... It takes alot of care to keep the real stuff good for long time... save yourself the hassle and get the synthetic one.

Don't go overboard on what you pay for those stuff... warehouse clubs got great deals on car wash... mitts... and sometime wax (Meguiar Gold Class).

You also need good wheel cleaner... Espree Magic Wheel (green) is excellent.

There are many opinions on this. I have been using Mr. Clean just because of the spot-free rinse (I have very hard water which tends to leave some nasty spots on the finish). I use mostly Meguiar's products. Clay and polishing compound will be your friends. Last weekend, I spent about four hours doing the "full job" on my black ML320 as follows:

Washed with Mr. Clean, using a lamb's wool mitt. Dried with microfiber towels. Clayed with a slightly abrasive clay and Meguiar's NXT Spray Wax as the lubricant. Removed excess clay and wax with microfiber cloths. Polished with Meguiar's ScratchX to remove more contaminates and swirls marks. Removed excess polishing compound with microfiber cloths. Waxed with Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax Removed excess wax and polished with microfiber cloths.

When washing, make sure you often rinse the dirt from your wash mitt or brush to reduce the possibility of scratching with contaminates. Don't wash the car with the same mitt you used to clean the wheels and tires. I end up using between 15 and 20 microfiber cloths during the entire process. As soon as I start seeing dirt or chemical build-up on one, I switch to a fresh one. I do this at least once a year, sometimes twice. Otherwise, I just do a regular wash and wax job at least monthly.

There's nothing better looking than a clean, shiny black car!

FWIW: As a kid, one of my summer jobs was with a car wash. I was tasked with doing the inside windows, jumping inside to wipe the just-sprayed ammonia from the glass... choke, choke... stationed at a humongous blower. It was noisy as hell but did make it much easier for the "outside" drying crew (the lucky bast*rds! :o)

Fast forward to a time when Paulie has a little more money in his pockets: Gleaning from that past experience, I've taken to using a back-pack style leaf blower to remove excess water from the surface as well as the nooks and crannies on my vehicles. It works like a charm, and a quick wipe with a drying cloth/chamois leaves them spotless. Naturally, properly a polished and waxed surface makes the task easier still. Neighbors thought I was crazy (well, I may be, but that's not the point!), but several now use the same method!

Cheers,

Paul

---

For about ten seconds...

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Ahh... but if Paulie's leaf blower pick up sand... he literally sandblasted his car... at 200MPH+... that's sandblasting.

But... there is little worry of air-borne sand in most areas, even so, it wouldn't get past the intake filter most (decent quality) blowers employ. If the wash pad area (the driveway) is paved, there should not be a debris problem, as the car... and thus the wash pad have just been soaked with water... n'est pas?

I tend to keep my vehicles for a v-e-r-y long time (15 years on the most recent one to leave the stable), have used a blower for twice that amount of time and the only paint problems ever encountered were from road debris (New England winters, and the towns throw *%$#! sand and gravel on the highways!)

Give it a try and you may just be impressed. Not too early in the morning though, please... or your neighbors will definitely NOT be impressed! (Oops! :o)

Cheers,

Paul

---

LOL! Ain't that the truth! Actually, I just got back from about 400 miles of Interstate driving and some rain, and the black still looks pretty good. I think I'll do a quick rinse and dry and maybe some spot treatment with spray wax, though.