My Z4 G29 needs to be washed.

[max_12]

I recently purchased a Z4, but now it's time to wash it, and I've never had a decent car before. I want to do everything correctly and avoid scratching the paint.

I've done some reading and it appears that I'll have to hand wash this rather than using the dishwasher.

Do Raggtopp cleanser and protectant for the top most likely (fabric version)

Then rinse with a hose and apply soap to the car's body with a microfiber mitt.

Rims and tyres should be clean.

+/- wax, and you're good to go?

If you have any recommendations or techniques for keeping things neat and tidy, that would be fantastic. Should I just hire a professional to do the job?

 

[Deepseaskateboard]

I recently purchased a Z4, but now it's time to wash it, and I've never had a decent car before. I want to do everything correctly and avoid scratching the paint.

I've done some reading and it appears that I'll have to hand wash this rather than using the dishwasher.

Do Raggtopp cleanser and protectant for the top most likely (fabric version)

Then rinse with a hose and apply soap to the car's body with a microfiber mitt.

Rims and tyres should be clean.

+/- wax, and you're good to go?

If you have any recommendations or techniques for keeping things neat and tidy, that would be fantastic. Should I just hire a professional to do the job?

Plenty of beginner car washing videos on youtube. I would start there.

If you pay a professional each time, it will add up. Best to get some basic stuff instead.

Microfibre mitts are good, any car wash shampoo is ok and wax will protect the paint. I use a different mitt for wheels.

 

[Phoenixboy]

Get it ceramic coated by the pros, then its relatively easy to keep it clean.....

 

[Argyll Andy]

Hello and welcome

My G29 is also my first mew car too and I put a fair bit of thought into its care an maintenance too. As already been said a proper/professional ceramic coating will make thing a whole lot easier. Especially when it comes to bird sh!t!!! I came out the other morning to find 3 or 4 large ones on the bonnet. A watering can of clean water and they were gone.

Also got my wheels coated too at the same time. So now I sometimes use a ph neutral snow foam as a pre wash, ph neutral shampoo and 3 buckets. One for washing the car containing shampoo, one for wheels, again, with shampoo and one with clean water for rinsing the microfibres mitts and brushes used in the other two. Search YouTube etc for 2 or 3 bucket car wash. I also use grit guards/traps in each bucket.

After that a wipe down while wet with a liquid was or a similar product and then a quick buff and looks like new every time. The wheels get a dry and buff with an old microfibre cloth too.

I don’t treat the roof at all and there’s many say you shouldn’t put a sealant on it as the roof is designed to let water go through it. I personally haven’t done anything about this as the roof is brand new and shouldn’t need anything done to it, as for cleaning it gets a quick blast with the snow foam and a rinse but no specific cleaning unless there’s something on it, like the dreaded bird sh!t and if that happens I clean the specific area with a small detailing brush and a shampoo mix and then rinse with clean water. I carry a couple of spray bottles with shampoo and clean water to deal with these it I’m out in the car

 

[q96169we]

Different people has different thought on this and I think it's mainly down to how much time and money you want to spend on cleaning/detailing/maintaining, or whatever you call it, your car. Many people simply think it's too much of work so just pay someone to do it.

For me, I collected the car brand new and I specifically told the dealer not to wash or treat the paint work at all before delivery so the car on the day of delivery was very dirty but I start my procedure after taking delivery.

Below is my thought only:

1. equipment you will need:
pressure washer
a lot of high quality microfiber cloth

2. About the roof
Throughly clean and protect which takes place annually or bi-annually depending on how often the roof get wet. My procedure is to vacuum clean the roof when dry. Then wet the roof using pressure washer but set to low pressure (basically, it blows to your hand and you won't feel pain) follow by gentle APC or any fabric roof cleaner to clean the roof with a soft brush. After that, pressure wash (again, low pressure) the roof to get rid all cleaner and dirt. I then use wet vacuum to suck out the water and dry the roof. Depending on how dirty the roof is, repeat above steps if the suck out water is still dirty. After the roof is dry, I then apply two coats of impregnation agent (I used fabsil gold) and let it fully dry. There are some misunderstandings about this. Some says we shouldn't do this as the outer fabric is not for waterproof purpose. I partially agree on this. The outer fabric is not for waterproof purpose but the impregnation agent can stop the fabric itself becoming wet. The wet fabric will encourge the growth of fungus and speed up the degradation of the fabric. After applying the impregnation agent and let it fully dry, the water will either stay on top of the fabric or goes through the fabric to the waterproof layer in the roof and drain away. It will not wet the fabric itself. After treating my roof, the car stayed in heavy rain for three days and after the rain stopped, I simply blow the roof using garden blower for 1 minute to get rid of surface water then the roof fabric is dried. Anyway, just personal thought.

Then, after the annual or bi-annual clean and protect, I just vacume the roof occasionally to get rid of dust or dirt. No need to wash at all unless bird poo is on the roof, in which case, spot treating the affected area using the clean and protect procedure.

3. About the paintwork, again, I divide the work into annual treatment (new car treatment is same to this category) and regular maintenance wash.
For annual treatment, below is what I do:
wheel off and clean and wax or coat the alloy
while the wheels are off, clean wheel arch, brake caliper etc.
Wash procedure:
snow foam -> pressure wash -> contact wash -> pressure wash -> fallout, tar, glue remove -> pressure wash -> contact wash again -> pressure wash -> clay -> microfiber dry
As it's annual treatment, I then single stage machine polish the paint using finishing stage polish. But both my cars are quite new and maintained from new, so single stage is enough. Depending on paintwork status, if it's bad (e.g a lot of swirl) more stages maybe needed. After this, I then wipe the paint with BH cleanser fluid to prep the surface then wax.

For regular maintenance wash (e.g once per week or once every two weeks etc.):
clean wheel&tyre -> snow foam -> pressure wash -> contact wash -> pressure wash ->blow away surface water -> microfiber dry with QD
During winter or when the water beading ability is low, I add a step of spraying Hybrid Ceramic Wax so the procedure looks like below
clean wheel&tyre -> snow foam -> pressure wash -> contact wash -> pressure wash -> spray HCW -> pressure wash -> blow away surface water -> microfiber dry

As you can see, there are so many works to do if you follow my procedure. But I personally quite happy with the outcome. The G29 is still very new so I won't use it as example. My G31 is about 2 years old now and it's been daily driven to all sort of terrain that it can go through. So far, I never let anyone (specifically, dealer) wash the car and always follow above procedures. After 2 years, there is still no swirl at all.

If you think this is too much work to do, then as others have said, let someone do the detailing and apply ceramic coating may make the cleaning much easier. However, I'm not too interested in the ceramic coating. I prefer either to follow my above procedure, or apply full PPF to the car. To me, and this is only my opinion, the ceramic coating is not fully swirl-proof or paint damage proof. Therefore, if you have it applied but not wash the surface carefully, damage can still be introduced. Now, with the damaged but good quality ceramic coated paint, it's almost impossible to machine polish out the damages unless you use extremely aggressive compound and pad, or wet sanding the paint, which is not what I want to do. If you apply the less good quality ceramic coating, which can be machine polished out, it offers much less benefits than the good quality one, which makes me wonder why applying the less good product at the first place?

Anyway, sorry for a long post. All above contents are just my own opinion. :rofl:

 

[Scubaregs]

Ceramic coating if you want effortless, contactless washing. Below is a pic of my then 2 1/2 year old ceramic coated 718 after a rinse/snow foam/rinse. The number plate is dirty as it was changed after the ceramic coating was done. In three years it saw a wash mitt twice.


This is my G29 shortly after ceramic coating.

 

[q96169we]

[ref]Scubaregs[/ref], which coating you went for for both cars? Any further maintenance (e.g reapply top coat after 24months etc.) required by the coating after the initial application?

 

[Scubaregs]

Can’t remember name of coating, but both were five year.
The 718 was halfway to five years at that point.
Done by a local guy, one man band. Took 3/4 days each time with paint correction.
Paid £600 both times.

 

[q96169we]

Do you then need to use the snow foam or shampoo that specified by the coating or do you still using anything from Halfords?

 

[Scubaregs]

I don’t use anything from Halfords. Check with whoever is doing the coating but as long as ph neutral should be fine.

 

[q96169we]

Ah, okay. That’s the same as what I learnt. Many coating have their own requirements when it comes to regular wash the coated car and we need to check with the detailer or manufacturer of the coating. It’s kind of locking the user to the specific coating system after the initial application.

Anyway, both your cars look great. As I said in the long post, if don’t want to spend too much time on cleaning the car or trying different products, applying ceramic coating is indeed an easier way.