So lately I haven't been detailing as much as I'd like. I've been living in Lexington in an apartment with my boyfriend to be near my college and to keep from ever having to live in a dorm again. I can't stand dorms. Anyway, even though I really wanted to bring my business here to Lexington with me, it never really worked out. There's a bunch of mass-volume "detailing" centers here and I guess they take away all my potential business. I was living in a house-turned duplex with a couple friends and my boyfriend...but long story short the house ended up being a dump which the landlord refused to fix. The mold in the house and the guys downstairs who smoked in the house made us sick and we ended up ending our lease early and moving out. The advantage to that house though was that it did have a yard and a water spigot for my detailing. Now I'm in this apartment, which is nice but unfortunately has no water hookup outdoors. I can still use my vacuum outside--we live on the first floor right by the door to the central hallway of the apartment and I've got a 100 foot extension cord so using my vacuum and extractor is no problem. Since we moved here I plan on doing most of my details (if I ever get any) at client's houses. But for our own cars, I'm going to have a bit of difficulty washing. I can use ONR but for things like wheels, I'm not sure what to do. I've never really been able to get wheels as clean as I'd like with ONR. I also don't have a ton of money to buy detailing stuff, so I'd like to keep my process as simple as possible. Anyone got tips for cleaning wheels and anything else that's difficult to clean with waterless wash techniques when you don't have access to running water outdoors? Thanks!
Actually ONR is very versatile. You can use it to clean wheels, glass, interior... Just about anything. For wheels and tires, keep a cheap towel On hand and clean them. You CAN use MF towels to clean tires and sometimes works better than scrubbing. Just spray the tire with APC, scrub, wipe clean with a towel. On well maintained cars, you don't need a dedicated wheel cleaner and chan clean them up with just the towel. For interiors, soak a towel in a bucket with maybe 2 gallons of water/ONR. Wring out as much as you can and wipe all the dust off. Same with windows, but follow up with a dry towel to buff off streaks.
I would use apc or power clean on wheel/tire, then use a unwanted MF towel with onr solution to wipe and rinse off the dirt.
I feel your pain. How I clean wheels: http://youtu.be/Eq9ynhKIrBQ I was supposed to add commentary on how I clean them/use the Sidekick blower instead of towels, etc. But, I never got around to it and I got a new camera, so I'm going to reshoot it . Nomad is great for rinsing wheels and other parts when you don't have a hose hookup.
Just go to your local Big Box hardware store or Amazon and look at the pressurized lawn and garden sprayers.
i am mobile and use ONR and/or duragloss rinseless with aquawax for all my washes. For wheels and tires I use OPC and sonax. To rinse I use the nomad sprayer, its pretty durable for what it is (not really intended for this amount of use the company would probably say). I do go though hoses and sprayers pretty regularly but this is understandable and acceptable to me. Probably washes about +/- 40 cars a week depending on how many details vs maintenance washes i have scheduled. I also use it for rinsing wheel wells, door jams, engines, and even put some onr in it to pretreat cars during the winter months. I was going to link you to a website i got mine at for 129 but they no longer carry it! sorry!
Oh wow onr for everything? Interesting. I need to order some of this stuff as soon as I use up my Poor boy's World Spay and wipe. Tapped from my Galaxy Nexus.
3D's Green APC might be a good option, according to 3D, you don't have to rinse it off wheels. You simply spray, agitate and then wipe off. You could probably follow up with an ONR with too.
ONR and the GD method is great for paint, but does nothing for wheels. I've tried and tried, but if you do german silver wheels, you need to use a cleaner. I use APC for maintenance or Sonax for bad ones. I did a comparison and it was undeniable. ONR does well on chrome and paint, but cannot clean well enough on silver OEM wheels. The GD method also doesn't touch the barrels. I tried every method and nothing beats the traditional method. The Nomad is worth it. Cheap hand sparayers take too long to rinse and dont do a good job. Even the Nomad isnt as powerful as I'd like, but its better than carrying around pressure washers and tanks of water.
Are there any quality products that are generic over the counter degreasers that I could use on the wheels? Something I could buy at home depot would be perfect. I have gloss white wheels.
when i'm not doing a 'conventional' hose and bucket wash, I'll either use ONR on the wheels as mentioned earlier OR Sprayway foaming glass cleaner with an old mf. used to do that all the time when I lived in an apartment with no water access.
