I am getting pollen here, too. My guess is it's not abrasive, but you might want to try scratching a new CD with it before you QD a lot of it. The pollen might not be abrasive, but there is likely some dust mixed in with it and it would be. I am resisting the temptation to QD and just waiting until I have time to wash.

 

Pollen can actually be very abrasive. First, it is not necessarily neutral. Some pollens are very alkaline - others are acidic. Spores can range from microscopic to microns in size. Most have divots and points so that they can hook on to migratory substances so that they can do their job.

That said - I would think that a light layer of pollen can be dusted or QD'd off. I wouldn't try that with a heavy layer.

 

First, I strongly believe that as long as you know the facts about risks and techniques, etc, you are free to make choices. In other words, if it's important to you to keep your car looking shiny all winter long and you want to do more than just occasionally spray off the road grime/salt and you don't have the time/place to handwash when you technically should, then you can QD knowing that you may cause some fine scratches... as Blimey pointed out fine scratches can be removed later on fairly easily anyway (if you or a friend has a PC).

**There really aren't as many true "rules" here as it may seem. It's more about educating yourself and then making choices you can live with (or fix later) or not live with.

So, did mini_dreams scratch his paint when he QD'd after a wand wash (aka non handwash)? It's hard to say for sure (too many unknown/hard to know factors) but probably at least a little. Is it the end of the world? I'd say no! You did your best under the circumstances and you can always polish out the fine scratches some day later anyway.

Also, keep in mind that everyone's paint will eventually accummulate some fine scratches/swirls over time and will need to be machine polished anyway! Again, you can determine your own tolerance level for how many of them you put in knowingly and how many of them were going to happen anyway.

So, know the risks and make your choice. There are really only a very few choices that are irreversible. Most of all, have fun and don't stress about it too much!

-Heather

 

^ agreed.

i'm not stressing too much about it.

also, i should have mentioned that i'm not dealing with road salt and build up of muck from snow and ice. not that that means i'm off the hook but i don't think i'd ever would have done that knowing salt was on the car.

but this begs the question... is car wash soap able to lift dirt off better than a QD? or is it the combo of water and car wash soap and lambswool mitt... because i actually sometimes feel weird moving my mitt across a dirty car.

again, there's probably no "exact" way to remove dirt without scratching the paint a "little" bit so eventually i'll need a polish.

 

Yes, mini_dreams, you need a garage! But since you don't, and many people don't, here's an idea:

The main problem, it sounds, is that in the AM you have accummulated a combination of dirt and moisture. The combination of dirt and moisture is typically one that you want to avoid in terms of touching the paint... with either a QD or a duster.

It's likely that most of the dirt came from your commute home and before the moisture, right?
What we used to do in a very similar situation with great success is this: every night when you get home, dust the car gently with a California Car Duster or a wool duster. Then in the AM, do a quick QD. Assuming the car hasn't been rained on and/or it isn't grimey/dirty (like when there's slop on the roads), this is fairly safe. It's not 100% risk-free, but fairly safe and worth a go in your situation.

Again, it depends what your tolerance level is and how much you want it to look great on a daily basis when you can't handwash often. It's really tough to be a perfectionist in the winter!

Last, try Hydro as your QD. It'll help fill some of the fine scratches that may accummulate. It'll tie you over until you can polish the paint with a PC (now you need to find someone in your local club with a garage and a PC! )

Just an idea!

-Heather

 

Yes and yes. Car wash soap is all cleaners (surfectants) and lubricants. QD is part cleaners and lubricants and part polymers and gloss-enhancing chemicals. So, car wash soap is better at lifting dirt because it's dedicated to doing so. QD is more of a multi-tasker.

But that's not the whole story, as you've guessed by your other question.

Water is also a big part of safe cleaning. This is why I always recommend that you dip your mitt into your bucket and tossle after every panel (or twice on the larger panels or on really dirty areas). It's not just for the purpose of tossling to release dirt into the bucket. It's also to get more water in your mitt. Each time you bring the mitt to the car's surface, it should be sopping wet. As a rule, you should be using so much soapy water for each wash, that there should be very little left in your bucket by the time you're done (although make sure there's always enough left throughout the process to allow the dirt to tossle out of the mitt of course).

Sometimes it feels particulary wierd to rub the mitt across the paint because it is so incredibly dirty. In cases of washing after off-roading with your MINI , most prefer to blast off as much of the big chunks of dirt as possible with your hose. Yeah, if there are big stones or rocks embedded in chunks of dirt stuck on your paint, you probably shouldn't be rubbing on it even with all the soapy water in the world!

-Heather

 

I agree that it really depends on the particular pollen and how heavy it is layered on the paint.

In most cases though, I'd suggest dusting if you have a duster. If you don't, then QD gently. In most cases, this should be fine. I'd just reach for the duster first because it's lighter-handed (if that's a word!).

Personally, we dust pollen with a wool duster all the time (more than we'd like... annoying pollen!).

-Heather

 

When I had metallic Indi Blue paint, I QD'd every day, and the paint looked great day in and day out. I went through lots of QD. Then I got a Jet Black MCS, and it's completely different. The paint is scratch sensitive, so frequent QDing has more of a negative impact. In fact, I now try to touch my paint as little as possible between washing.

I now prefer to use compressed air--air from my little 2.5 gallon compressor to blow off any dust on the paint. Then I can Slick it--but this is accumulated dust, not dirt.

I have plans in my head to do various studies on this.

I'd like to know definitively:

1.) If you have a dusty surface, will applying a QD provide enough lubrication to help remove the dirt, or does it make more of a mud that scours the finish? For most paint types this isn't noticeable, so this question doesn't apply to everyone. But since I have the worst paint type imaginable, I'd like to know for certain. Compare that to wiping the surface down dry only using a Monster Fluffy. Theoretically, wetting the surface should be safer, but is it really?

2.) While we know that washing is safe when done properly, I know that I feel pretty good about takng a sopping dripping wet lambswool mitt and letting it glide over the dirty paint. But take a Monster Fluffy and QD a panel. The first wipe will make the leading edge of the towel dirty. If you keep wiping in that stroke, some of that dirt is going to continue to scratch the surface (others will get pulled into the towel). Ideally, you'd want a towel that does the first wipe---then immediately follows it with a clean towel to then QD the now clean surface. Each time, you would use one MF towel for clearing the way of dirt, then following with a cleaning pass. You could do this with many clean towels---maybe allocate 5 or 6 towels to wiping down the MINI. Then you'd have to wash those before the next use.

But now I'm imagining a continuous system like a roller of some sort that continually feeds new clean towel as you wipe the paint so that you have no chance to drag any surface dust back onto the paint. Kind of like those continuous hand towel systems in the bathroom. Of course it doesn't need to cover as large of an area so it doesn't need to be so bulky.

Maybe the best solution is a Monster Fluffy Max!

What's the point of my post??? I always ask myself that. As much as I know about the process of keeping our paint clean, and as much as I try the systems that are commonly accepted, I too am looking for the best answers, and these are just some of the things I'd like to find out for myself.

Sorry I'm rambling here...had a long day--need to go for a MINI drive. Yesterday I got stuck in a sig alert for 2 hours on my way home--wasn't fun at all.

 

What did OG just say???
I dunno...

But somewhere in there he made a very good point - metallic paints can be pretty forgiving - I'm loving this aspect of my Cool Blue. The black A pillars and roof strip are showing swirls much worse than the paint - though when the sun hits it JUST right, you can see the paint swirls, too - especially on the boot...

 

im guessing that if it is fresh, a cali duster on only a pollen coated car would probably be fine. I dont think paint is that delicate that it can take that.

I find it fun to wash and I have it down to 45 mins for wash, spray wax booster, drying, wheels and windows. Drying takes the longest as it always stuck in the annoying places. I wonder when Mercedes is going to make that ceramic paint coating.... then you could get away with a lot more.

 

Depends on the paint---some paints are so scratch sensitive that just touching it will scratch it.

As for Mercedes, I worked on two of them with the new super hard "diamond??" paint. It took a LOT of work to fix. I started off with using a rotary with an aggressive chemical with a soft foam pad---one of the methods that sometimes works for troublesome paint--all it did was scour the finish.

We tried 3 different chemicals, and even our old standbys--like M86 were useless. In the end we used M83 and M80 with lots of passes and finished with M66.

Having a hard paint does mean that it can take more abuse, but it also means even more work trying to restore it!

 

do you think a washing boar's hair brush would be less prone to
creating swirls vs washmitts when washing a dirty car?

(i mean dirty as in not washed for 2months. )