How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

[The Guz]

Re: How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

I use this method as well. I follow up with a QD while drying the remaining water.

[ShinyMopar]

I'm already wet when I wash so I don't bother turning the water off. Gets a little fussy but no biggie.

[Cleantacoma]

Re: How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

Gets a little fussy but no biggie.

Then the wind blows the night that you washed and it ever so lightly rains the next morning and leaves "dirt spots" talk about fussy.....

[SpoolMe]

Re: How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

Mid-cali here.... not rich enough to own a fancy blower. Cheap blower not strong enough to dry car but i use it for cracks etc. Flood method + towels for the rest

[Joseph D]

Re: How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

This nails it about as well as anyone possibly could nail it.......


Well, OK, maybe the last point about it being due to the M16 is your modesty showing....... as good as M16 is, it's your technique here that really does the job. For the record, when I bucket wash this is exactly how I do it, too.

With our water here in SoCal if I were to use a leaf blower to dry the whole car I'd be leaving little trails of water spots all over the place. Sure, they clean up really easy with some QD but if I have to follow a blower with a towel anyway, I'd rather save the time and just use the towel to blot up the small amount of water that remains following the sheeting rinse. And, yes, I know this for a fact with our water because I just had to try the blower method for myself. Didn't like it for the body of the car, but it is great for the wheels.

But at the end of the day, we all have little variations in all the different processes and, as long as your variation isn't doing any harm to the paint (or whatever surface you're working on) who's to say it's "wrong"? If the sheeting method works for Cleantacoma and the blower method works for Top Gear, guess what? You're both right!

Sorry for reviving an old thread but I just searched the forum because I tried the leaf blower method today ... and came in here to figure out how to do it right. San Diego, around evening time.

I had the blower literally 2 inches from the panels and I'm thinking, this isn't working as well as I thought it would. It made the big water droplets into mini water droplets but a lot remain and then it dries out some of the small ones so now there are a lot of tiny little water marks. I'm thinking flood plus water magnet is what I'm going to do.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

I'm thinking flood plus water magnet is what I'm going to do.

Good idea. Get two Water Magnets, wash and dry them before first use and then fold both into quarters before you start drying. Then after flooding the vehicle spray Ultimate Quik Wax onto a panel and wipe the panel with the first Water Magnet, following with the second just to ensure it's totally dry. Repeat this going around the vehicle, folding that first towel as needed to expose some dryer sections. After drying the car I'll then go back with the blower feature of my shop vac for all the water than lingers in trim, blowing it into a Water Magnet as I work around the vehicle. I'll then blow dry the wheels and tires to finish everything off.

[Top Gear]

Re: How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

Again, guys, this entry-level $30 electric blower is all I'm using:
Home Depot Homelite


A shop vac is probably not strong enough, and you may not easily reach to the top of the car with a limited vacuum hose. A gas blower is too much noise/trouble and potentially oily residue to deal with or your paint or person, and battery blowers are a total waste of time for this task. Get the right tool for the job.

I just put this baby on "high" and move rather slowly across the surface. I don't wave it around and try to be done in 20 seconds (maybe I need to shoot a video). I take my time and patiently blow all the beads off like a sculptor, working from the sunlit areas and top surfaces to the shaded areas and bottom panels and spoiler. As the beads get smaller in an area, I just slow down a bit more, slowly blowing across the "wave line", and the beads get smaller and evaporate leaving no spots. I hold on just a few seconds more to ensure the area is dry. I thoroughly dry the glass, wheels, tires and wheel wells, and all the door jam and mirror areas. It takes patience, because this entire blow dry can take a whopping 5 - 10 minutes per car depending on humidity and sunlight

After I'm done, the car is dry and spot-free. If this was only a quick rinse and not a full suds wash, I might still have a bug splat or sap drop to clean off with Quik Detailer. Either way, the wax may need touching up with Quik Wax. Otherwise, the only thing I hate is the noise, which is similar to a vacuum noise. Small price to pay.

So, if your blower or shop vac is not impressing you the way I've been impressed , then try a different blower at least as powerful as this one. It's rated at 150MPH and 7amps. At $30, you can easily replace it if it stops working, but I've been using it for months with no issues. Lowes and other stores have similar offerings.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

Top Gear, water hardness is going to play a huge role in all this. Personally, I've used compressed air from a very large air compressor, the blower on my shop vac, and at least three different dedicated leaf blowers. With the hard water we have here and the often very low humidity, blowing the water around tends to create very small droplets that dry quickly on their own, leaving behind trails of water spots that have to be cleaned up later with QD and a towel. On days when the humidity is down to single digits, I've seen water dry so fast on one side of the car while washing the other than the glass and B pillars are immediately spotted. Since those spots are so fresh they clean up easily enough, but it's still a pain. Thankfully those days are not all that common.

Bottom line: try a few different processes and go with whatever works best for you. If a leaf blower or other similar process works, then great. Heck, on one of my cars the rear window on the hatch can trap so much water under the weather stripping that I've discovered the best way to remove it is with the suction setting on my wet/dry shop vac. Trying to blow it out doesn't work as well since you can't get the air behind the weather stripping, but the vac suction setting works great. That darn window will drip (well, almost stream rather than drip) water for 15 minutes if I don't do anything. It's crazy how much water it will hold! I'm sure I must look really silly to some of my neighbors when it looks like I'm vacuuming the glass on my car, but hey, it works!!

[Top Gear]

Re: How to rinse using the flood method (with pics)

Hi Michael, it sounds like your water needs filtering, if not already? I've discussed that in other threads, and it helped a LOT, but didn't eliminate spotting completely, if say I just leave the beads to dry on their own. I use a 2 micron filter on the hose itself. If those spot trails are formed just by blowing the beads, that's a sign the water is still very hard regardless of what you might already be using, so yes, I agree, if the water cannot be softened enough, flooding and wiping is the only way out.

I've just looked at the weather where you are and it's not wildly different from where I am (at least not today), but yes, the only time I've felt a complete (and wonderful) loss of humidity (and allergies) was in the deserts out West. Where I am in the Southeast, "low" humidity is like 30%-50%, as the dew points rarely get significantly lower than the air temp due to being surrounded by dissiduous forests all fed with Gulf and Atlantic moisture.

Anyway, yes, I'm fascinated by all the different things we've all figured out to cope with weather where we are. For example, every time I go to the beach, particularly on the Gulf Coast but also on the Atlantic, everything "quik" goes out the window if the car is not perfectly clean. Otherwise, QD and QW just make a total mess due to the highly humid salt residue which forms within hours. So, detailing there for me would take take rinsing and washing much more often to keep the car as clean as I'd like.