You bought your lovely new car or van and you want to make it look as good as humanly possible and to keep it that way for many years easily?  Good!  That's something I happen to be very good at! 

Part 1  |  Part 2

People kept mistaking my 9 year old VW van for a brand new one. It actually looked newer and better in the flesh than a brand new showroom one.  It requires a little knowledge and a few rules! But its actually easy.   You will need one or two things you may not have considered though.

Click image for a larger view!  Or click here for an even bigger image!
 

Washing

• Don't just dive in because there is much more to it than a bucket of soapy water (washing up liquid?) a sponge and a hose pipe!  One bad wash and your perfect paint is dull and full of scratches and swirl marks. To recover it after this may mean power polishing in a body shop or your car will look like your neighbours...  
  
  If you think otherwise you may as well stop reading here because that's a sure way to make a new vehicle look old very fast.  Paint - even modern lacquered paint is both rough and looks like the surface of the moon when seen through a microscope and is also porous to a degree. It absorbs all the salt and surfactants in common household detergents, (salt used to thicken it and make housewives think its better value!) which also strip all the oils and waxes out of your paint,  NEVER ever use household detergents!
   

• It NEEDS to have a coat of wax and not be scratched to maintain that as new gloss and shine without any swirl marks in it.  I am presuming that it already has one of at least low quality if its new -  (If not then you need to wash, tee-cut/compound and then wax! to get a shine) so the first essential item you really need is a water butt. 
   

• A barrel or even three or more if you don't get much rain.  Reason - Because tap water has everything from chlorine to lime scale in it.  Don't wreck your new paint with tap water if you don't have to!  Hardware store for a water butt to catch the rain is not expensive and you will save your paint, lots of extra work & time, and the planet! (Like I care!) Try this if you don't believe me.  Get a black tile or something. clean and polish it. Drip some tap water on it. Then get another and drip some rain water on it.  Leave both somewhere to dry.  You will see! The tap water leaves hard to remove white marks (lime and other salts) whereas the rain water leaves almost nothing behind!
   

• As tap water dries on your perfect (if new) paint it leaves a layer of very abrasive salts and limescale.  As you polish or wipe this off you scratch the paint - limescale is a good abrasive!
   

• NEVER wash a car unless its cool. It has to be cool enough so that about 99 percent of the water runs off naturally. Best time is just at dusk on a cool day. Or very early morning.  You don't want the water drying on the car!  The more that runs off due to the waxed smooth cold paint the better it will dry.  If done properly using little to no detergent, rainwater, on a waxed polished car then it should dry so well that the next day you will barely need a towel to wipe away any marks and will look as if you spent hours waxing it all over again.
   

• Also use only quality purpose bought Car wash & Wax product.  (I use Autoglym car wash detergent but any half decent wash and wax car shampoo is fine)  Remember its only required to use as much detergent as needed to remove any road film or oily dirt. The simple rule is that the less detergent you use the less you damage the paint as well as the rubber door seals etc. And as it strips off the wax off the car will look better and be easier to polish off and dry better!   If you can get away with plain water from the water butt (rain water) better still!  Rain water dries much cleaner and leaves hardly a mark on your car. See picture of the water butts I use.
   

• Always use good sponges. Buy half a dozen. If you drop one on the floor throw it away now! You can never get all the fine sharp particles out of it and it will cause the dreaded swirl marks all over your paint.  Use a different one for the places where abrasive muck and grease and break dust accumulate. Keep one only for that job and don't mix them up!  When washing start at the top, roof and bonnet (hood?) and work around the vehicle. Do ONE panel thoroughly at a time. Do all the cracks and crevices and the bits where the doors open etc as fast as you can. The aim is to get all of it done (washed) as soon as you can so that the first bits you washed don't get chance to start to dry!   Now starting with the top, and then the other body panels as fast as poss. Get it rinsed with a clean bucket and your rainwater. Its possible to buy rinse aid.  I use it mixed into the rainwater but its not essential.

Now provided you washed a waxed vehicle, didn't use much of your "wash and wax" (very few bubbles) used a clean sponge, and rinsed it fast and chose a cool day it will be almost spotless. However Any water still standing or trapped in bumpers or grills, or window rubbers, behind number plates etc will still dry a little streaky or keep running down the vehicle. 

DO NOT use a wash-leather.  No matter how careful you are they are by their very nature both abrasive and trap particles.  Another bad idea! If you want perfect paint and not have to re-wax or anything do what I did! 

Buy yourself  a cheap 4 stroke leaf blower!  (don't get a two stroke one because they spit out oily particles!) It blows the water out of all the cracks, grills and door shuts, etc very easily! And after about 4 minutes your car or van will be dry! Far more effective than any scratchy old wash-leather!  And faster as well as more fun! Clears the drive and garden too!

Next just to finish off use the next thing you needed to go and buy. Towels. I bought 6 large hand towels on eBay for about 10 UK pounds. They are great for finishing off and giving the vehicle a finish off "wipe". Don't buy anything else because nothing else - not even microfible cloths - work as well.  Buy ones the same colour as your car. The dust that comes off them cannot be seen when using for polishing!  If you drop one, THROW IT AWAY... Or at the very least don't use until its been washed.  Dirty drying, polishing cloths are the main reason for all the fine scratches everybody else's cars seem to have!  Even on a ten year old car I have none at all and because I keep all the rubber and plastic parts clean without using lots of detergent they too all look as new. Detergent is the enemy of most of your car! Use as little as possible.

Waxing your vehicle properly is in part 2 below
Part 1  |  Part 2