Decided to do a full cleaning session on the car yesterday, got up early and have done a bit of guide below.
Heres some before shots, got to love the combination of sand and heat in Dubai, it literally seems to bake to the surface of the car (and this is winter)
To give an idea of how the sand looks on the paint, the above is roughly 5 days without being washed and roughly 250km's worth of driving. Regardless of how you wash the car and then polish it either by hand or machine the paint retains a rough texture to it from the sand. Its very annoying and didn't ever have any sort of similar issue in the UK, would get some contaminants attaching to the paint but nothing on the scale of the sand here as it gets everywhere!
Onto the cleaning routine for the car, got up early to avoid as much of the sun as could however when I got to the cleaning bay which is normally in shade from 11am I found out its perfectly in the sun at 9am. Not ideal to wash a car but the sun was cool and shade was on its way!
To start the wheels needed a serious going over which was best to do first, I started off with a concentrated citrus de-grease shampoo:
Before starting to clean the wheels gave them a good blast off with the pressure hose, gets rid of as much brake dust and sand as possible:
Next up is soak the wheels 1 by 1 in a non acidic wheel cleaner, normally id use an Iron X style de contaminant liquid but I didn't have any with me so the wheel cleaner will have to do today, always keep this in a pump spray for ease of use:
Once this has soaked in for a minute or two then onto the washing itself, I use a microfibre sponge for the front surface of the wheels with them being a painted finish:
When the fronts have been done I then clean the inner wheel rim, backs of the spokes and the calipers using a normal sponge:
After doing this the water in the bucket is not a good colour!
Whilst the water is like this using a clean section of the sponge I used for inside the wheels I rub the tyres down and after wife over the inner arches:
Once finished the tyres off the wheels are given a good blast off along with the inner arches to clear any remnants:
By time finished all 4 wheels off the shade was starting to get near:
Onto washing the car bodywork itself, fortunately the shade was almost covering half of the car:
Id also left the bonnet up whilst doing the wheels as this obviously stays the hottest for longest after driving. Similar to the wheels I was using a citrus based wash for the paint but in a higher concentration, as im wanting to clay the car after the wash and its a while since its been washed properly the more can strip the paint of any contaminants the better:
For washing at the moment im using a microfibre wash mit which isn't my favourite option, prefer the lambswool wash mits but not come across one in the UAE yet:
Before starting to wash the car with the mit I hosed it down repeatedly from top to bottom to clean as much of the loose dirt off as possible:
Before washing the body I wiped down the door shuts with the same citrus wash and around the boot area, I do this before washing the rest of the car as when hosing it down these areas clear out as your washing:
Fortunately the water was still beading a little from the last time the car was waxed/sealed which is at least 2 months ago. Onto the washing itself, the more on the wash mit the better and the usual top to bottom method was used however I could only do half the car at the time due to the shade:
After id finished rinsing off I always use a drying towel on the cars now, used to use a wash leather but they take many more passes and don't leave the paint as clear as a drying towel:
The above was one pass using a decent drying towel and it almost completely cleared the roof of water on the half it was used on. After the car was dried off it looked half decent sat in the sun:
However the paint still had the trademark rough texture from the sand, so onto the next stage......................