How Our Wash Kit Really Works: For Faster, Safer Washing

The Goal: Avoid Scratches and Swirl Marks and Keep Your Paint Perfect While Washing and Detailing Faster

The obvious concern for most people who wash their own high end cars, and by far the biggest concern our customers have before trying our products is...

"Will this scratch my paint?"

And this is a legitimate concern.

It goes without saying that when your paint looks like shit, so does your car. Unfortunately while some people think that their car just looks bad because it's aging, and they would need to get a new one if they wanted to bring sexy back...

That's not true, at all.

Even if it's a beautifully designed model, a new Ferrari 812, an older Porsche 997 GT3, or a legendary Mk4 Toyota Supra.. it's dirt, fading, rust, and swirl marks that ruin everything. Not time itself. 

Have you ever seen a 90's JDM or German sports car that was in cherry/mint condition?

To us at Drive Lab, this is the most satisfying thing to see in all of car culture. As it means somebody took excellent care of this machine to the point that, even when its 30 years old, it looks like it just rolled off the lot and into a time machine.

I've personally seen original 1993 Toyota Celicas that out show modern sports cars because they are absolutely MINT. (compare below to the absolute POS above... seeeee!)

To The Point..

First it goes without saying but let's say it anyways since the question is "will this scratch my paint?"... DETAILING FORMULAS DON'T SCRATCH YOUR PAINT.

I'm only being cheeky, we know this. It's the dirt you are rubbing into your paint, or the material used to touch your paint, like a towel, mitt, or brush, that scratch it further.

So what's the "perfect" way to maintain your paint to avoid scratching and swirling?

→  A professional standard detail process, with proper tools.

You have to understand this process to understand how we have innovated beyond it.

A professional detail often entails a pre-rinse and wheel cleaning, a contact wash, and a detailer or spray coating applied after drying (with many steps in between, but this is the gist). And as standard, this requires a foam cannon for soap application, a pressure washer for said cannon and for proper rinsing, wheel and tire brushes that aren't overly stiff or aggressive, and microfiber mitts and towels that don't have materials, seams, etc. that can accidentally scratch your clear coat.

First, the pre-rinse and wheel cleaning usually involves a degreaser or detergent to break down oils from the road that cause dirt and brake dust etc to stick to paint. This "degreasing" helps release that trapped dirt, and then larger debris is generally pulled off along with the soap during a pressure wash. Or even just from water itself.

What is left behind is what we'll call "road film", and it's made up of mostly inorganic sediment and minerals, iron deposits, and remaining oils in some cases if the soap used is too weak. The oils keep the road film clinging to the paint instead of feeling like a "dust" when you touch it. Either way, it needs to be removed and most soaps won't do it without contact.

This is why a contact wash is performed, because one way to remove the remaining film (minerals and sediment) is to move it off with a towel or mitt with lots of lubrication. This is where things become "touchy" for people, pun intended.

HOW SCRATCHES HAPPEN:

In today’s detailing world, most professionals use a “rinseless wash” as a contact wash because it makes it so you don’t have to rinse again once you’re done wiping, to speed up the process.

The rinseless solution used, or foam soap from a cannon for contact washing generally doesn't have the acids or chemicals to work very well on sediment or road film, it's simply a game of lubrication and careful movement of a mitt or towel (or sponge).

AND TO BE VERY CLEAR... no formula or technique like the above exempts you from scratching your paint. Rubbing undissolved, gritty debris (dirt) or film into your paint, regardless of how lubricated it is, can scratch your paint. And to be clear on swirl marks, that's just from using circular motion while wiping, avoid that.

We can even argue that not being able to see where you wipe because there's an abundance of foam and suds on your paint, is also a hazard. Crazy right? You thought you could trust the old standardized bucket wash (you can't). Rinseless washes help with this because they aren't hiding dirt though!

Now here's how we minimize scratching, speed up the process, and improve the end result, with our 3 Step Formulas (well, only Step 1 and 2 apply here):

Our Step 1 Soap, HotLap is the strongest soap around that is safe on all surfaces. Yes, you can get stronger chemicals, no they won't be safe on all metals and finishes. To be fair though, any cleaning solution would be bad for any surface if left to dry un-rinsed.

HotLap does it's job so well with wheel cleaning and the initial foam bath and pressure wash, that the remaining "road film" is soft and "dusty" to the touch, because it's dried out and all oils and heavy soil is removed. This is not the same as what happens when you pre-rinse with a pH neutral soap! the road film left over is much more attached in that case and won't feel light and dusty to the touch.

Real quick though, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOUCHLESS. For all the reasons we have explained so far, there is no one chemical alone that can break down everything on your car. That's not how chemistry works, and water alone at any pressure can't provide enough force to replace physical contact (that part is complicated, but for another time).

BUT... Since HotLap does as good of a job as a soap can possibly do (so far), what remains can be taken care of by a "rinseless" solution with the least amount of road film possible.

AND THIS IS WHERE STEP 2 COMES IN!

That left over road film doesn't stand a chance.

Not only is our Step 2 spray OneWiper similar to a rinseless solution cleaning and lubrication wise, but the efficacy is taken a step further because it has what degreasing soaps and rinseless washes don’t have that can dissolve inorganic minerals and sediment. So when you spray down your car with it, it’s also softening any left over road film and hard water stains so they don’t cause build up that scratches paint when you wipe. It's not overly lubricated because that would made it VERY STREAKY, but we make up for that by softening these solids, and you do treat it the same as a contact wash, and you rotate the towel side if you see dirt.

That last part is crucial, technique is always key.

Now here's how we took it all a step further, and why we're miles ahead when it comes to efficiently detailing and taking care of your car efficiently.

The end result is that your car is now shined and coated with OneWiper, not just cleaned. And if you've ever used a ceramic spray or quick wax alike, you've probably noticed that you need to be careful not to let it dry on the surface, and it can be quite fussy. Wasteful over-concentration of resins causes a lot of these sprays to be very streaky and slow to buff out. This doesn't mean they are wrong or poor quality, just slow. It adds up to 10+ minutes to the end of your process if you want your car looking it's best.

OneWiper, along with it's cleaning power, is as close to streak free as a coating spray can get. If it was perfectly streak free it would be pointless. That would mean it has no protective resins in the solution that are left behind. You should see this when a product is drying on the surface, or be very suspicious.

As you can see Step 1 and 2 are balanced together to replace multiple steps and products in a professional detail.

Technique and tools matter a lot, and that's why we advocate for starting slow and getting into good habits, and using our carefully selected accessories and towels. And at the end of the day, the absolute safest way to maintain your paint is to do everything as carefully as possible, and our formulas do not prevent you from being able to take it slow and be thorough, or even do things traditionally.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER

Drive Lab is not for the people who drive supercars just to look cool or get attention. Or people who want to spend more time washing than they do driving or enjoying their cars outside of the driveway.

Cars, for us at least, are about so many things beyond how they look.

We love wrenching. We love driving. We love sharing the experience with friends.

And all of these things are more important than washing and maintaining perfect paint.

If it's really perfect, after all, did you really drive and enjoy it?

PS. Shout out to detailing professional doing Gods work, which is... paint correction! lol. Turns out even if you go against our advice and don't care about maintaining your paint, there's always someone who can fix it (limited to degree and frequency of correction though. There's only so much clear coat...)