I've been surprised to see the use of nozzles which seem to put out a fairly high pressure stream of water.

When I first studied detailing, in 1992, when I bought my last new car, the current wisdom was to never use a stream stronger than what comes out of your hose with no nozzle. Any pressure higher than that risks pushing dirt and grit into the finish of the car. Even though this won't cause a swirl mark, it will make tiny dimples or scrapes in the paint.

Comments?

 

Well, I really doubt that the pressure from just about any hose nozzle is going to be enough to embed dirt into your paint, but there's really no need for high pressure anyway. You just need to get the car wet, then hand-wash it, then rinse it off. None of these steps require high pressure.

In fact, if you use a gentle stream of water from the hose to rinse the car, most of the water will sheet off, leaving that much less water on the car that you actually have to wipe off.

 

i only use household water pressure and a fireman's nozzle myself.

for the final rinse i turn the nozzle to default setting and just use that.
i dont remove the nozzle from the hose because the default works just
as good as without the nozzle, if not better.

it's nice to have the quick release though just in case you want to
remove the nozzle.