dishing washing liquid to wash cars

And will that same friend be waxing yer car that coupla times a year for you ... what's that ... no? :-)

Anyway, Meguiar's ... excellent for the boat too ... is imo the way to go.

Dawn is particularly recommended ----- for effectively removing all wax residue prior to using a clay bar and applying polymeric sealing products.

Dawn is very good at preping a surface for paint. If you use dishwash detergent, the car should be waxed after every wash job. I have never seen a car or paint manufacturer recommend dishwash detergent. Just think about what a dishwash deterdent is formulated to do. If you have ever done much dish washing, the light will come on.

Lugnut

You might find that the soap used to remove road dirt, tar and all the other stuff a car is exposed to is more similar to than different from dish soap used to remove old food and grease from dishes. Think about what both cleaners are being asked to do...more similarities than differences. The car soaps (oops I mean automotive cleansers) are far more expensive than Palmolive, Dawn, etc., and for some of us it is important to be seen using the properly labeled and priced cleaning product.

Dish washing fluid is high in phosphate which is slightly corrosive but more importantly is a nutrient that encourages moss, lichen and general greenery to grow

Huw

Apart from anything else, I would think it is far too expensive compared to car shampoo unless you have a company that buys the stuff in 25litre drums. The car will smell nice though. Rose is my favourite.

Huw

Maybe you would like to expound on the corrosivity of phosphate, HUW.

The difference is, that the car wash soaps are supposed to not strip wax from the paint, while dish soap GUARANTEES that you will strip the wax from your paint. I always have dish soap around when I am working on cars, it is a great first step in paint prep (usually wash with hot water and dish soap, then lacquer thinner, and finally aerosol window cleaner. Haven't had a part fisheye on me yet, using that regimen.)

nate

You've got that right. Just try two to three years using dish soap and just watch the paint haze right out before your eyes.

Obviously there's not enough WD-40 in your air lines. :)

"Slightly", much less so than road salt for instance.

Huw

I think you will have a hard time defending even the 'slightly'.

So let me get this straight. Car soaps will disolve and remove all the built up grime, dried motor oil, tree sap, road tar and other stuff that gets thrown at our cars, but it is highly selective and magically ignores only car waxes. Riiiight.....

Don't use Pine-Sol. Just don't do it. Don't ask me how I know. I was young and stupid then.

--scott

car wash soaps don't have magic molecules. They're the same kinds of soap formulations as dish soap. The only real difference between most formulations (ie: dish soap vs. laundary detergent) is the use of bleach. For obvious reason, bleach would be a bad thing (tm) for car cleaning.

BTW: if you wax your car, why the hell wouldn't you want to remove it on the next wash? If you wax your car, you'll be waxing it nearly every time and removing old wax is a good thing.

No you seem to be missing something important. One of the advantages of putting wax on the surface is that when you go to wash it all that stuff you mentioned is sitting on top of the wax so it doesn't take very strong soap to remove it. So the soap doesn't rally need to dissolve all that gunk it just needs to soften and remove a little of the top of the wax surface and all that other stuff just falls off. If the soap also has a little fresh wax mixed in it that gets deposited on the surface than the process can (hopefully) be repeated over and over again.

-jim