jst wrote:

well i have just learnt that using the pressure washer too close on a 26yr old fuel tank can cause problems! just gutted i had filled it. At least it was only a 90 one!

oops

i'll make sure i keep my distance until i am used to it. i think the Nilfisk has a higher pressure than the Karcher. BM52

bm52 wrote:

jst wrote:

well i have just learnt that using the pressure washer too close on a 26yr old fuel tank can cause problems! just gutted i had filled it. At least it was only a 90 one!

oops

i'll make sure i keep my distance until i am used to it. i think the Nilfisk has a higher pressure than the Karcher.

Make sure you use the static head, the semi rotary job will take paint off at close range .....it does a cracking job on paving slabs though

DefenderOfTheEarth wrote:

I blasted a load of paint off the rear bumper of our old Jimny with our last PW. Oops!
Snow foam lance and fluid finally arrived after yet another delivery cock up by DPD. Just used it on both cars. Very impressed with both. Minimum effort, maximum shine. Even got the awkward BM wheels super clean with no need for extra scrubbing. Ideal!

bm52 wrote:

i have never used a snow foam before. my new Nilfisk will come with the bottle/foamer, so a new thing to learn .

any recommendation on which snow foam or how to get the right mix to foam properly?

You won't get much of a result with the includes bottle (my advice would be to not bother using it). If you want to play with snow foam, get a decent aftermarket snow foam lance and some ph neutral foam. Monza car care are a good place to start.

The main benefit of snow foam is that it will start to lift off ground in dirt with less physical scrubbing....this means less swirling and scratching, dirt is afterall abrasive. If your paintwork is swirled, scratched, hazed
and watermarked already you aren't going to see great benefit.

Get the car proffesionaly detailed, from then on, snow foam, high quality shampoo (washing in the direction of airflow, never in circles) towel dry (microfibre, not leather as leathers hold and retain dirt) and a yearly polish and wax. When you have a routine, the right kit and are practiced, it should take no longer than the neighbours wash and rinse with fairy.

Many people take the out of all of the above effort but bottom line; you just spent £25K on a car, why treat the paint like crap? Yes a defender will pick up battle scars but that doesn't mean it can't look the dogs bits........battle scars tell a story, swirls, water stains and the like just show neglect (IMHO at least!)

DefenderOfTheEarth wrote:

TC - when you hand wash the car (after foaming) do you just wipe over the foam already on there with wash mitt to remove surface grime on the bodywork and rinse the mitt occasionally or do you add an additional soap/water mix in a bucket after rinsing off the snow foam?

Will get some Megs for the wheels but I did get the BM ones spotless with just foam and the PW (although they were only lightly mucky).

Must say, the combo is VERY impressive but of course bodywork grime will only come off with a mitt.

Once the foam has fallen off or re condensed, jet wash the car again; you will see crap on the floor that the foam has pulled off simply with gravity and jet washing will remove the remaining loose stuff.

When you wash the car, make sure you have a rinse bucket with a dirt trap at the bottom. Put a small amount of cold water into the rinse bucket, then wax on, wax off! Wash with the warm soapy water and rinse off into the rinse bucket getting as much of the off as you can before going back to the soap bucket, so on and so forth.....you will be amazed at what you empty out of the rinse bucket - whatever is in there would have been rubbed along the side of the car.

Some years back I had a 535d in Carbon Black from new - I put 30K on it, when it went back there wasn't a single swirl in the finish and I spent no more than an hour a week cleaning it including the inside (it was waxed a few times though).

A good point to note though, no amount of DIY will sort a poor finish, spend £250 / £300 and get a pro to detail the car properly. If the paint is really poor, you may need some sort of paint correction which is labour intensive and costly; my M3 set me back £600 and took 2.5 days but the car was in a state when I picked it up - would hate to think what a landy would cost

As I have droned on this much, let's talk about polish Polishing a car is an art form, don't do it unless you know what you are doing. That isn't as patronising as it sounds; you can make a finish look far worse than when you started with poorly applied and removed polish - polish is an abrasive and is often confused with wax. Polishing is a latter stage of paint correction with waxing being amongst the final stage. If your car is swirl, spot and stain free you should need to do little more than wash and wax. If your shampoo and foams aren't PH neutral, every wash will remove a layer of wax which in turn leaves the paint more exposed to swirling and scratching.

All of the above sounds majorly laborious however, if you strip away to the basic points, they are just corrections to practices that people already do on a regular basis - I know I have said this already, but it really is the difference of having a car with a clean paint finish and one that looks like its been treated to a wire wool party.

My truck is in average condition but I am though content with it, it is after all 7 years old!....I can though see me having it detailed before the end of the summer.....I like getting it dirty and I like getting it clean....just gives me more of an excuse to play with it when I'm not driving it