You might think that the typical car enthusiast always wants to take the time to make sure his pride and joy is always looking its best. But with everyone’s increasingly busy schedules balancing personal time, work, and the simple task of hand washing a car is more of a challenge.
While arguably the best approach if you have the space, is to simply hand wash the vehicle, and pay special attention to the details. Of course the process of wetting the car down, soaping it up and rising it off takes some time and lots of water. So what are the alternatives when you don’t have 45 minutes to spare?
In the old days you simply drive down to the local coin operated car wash drop in a dollars worth of coins and call it done. But if you take a look at your paint after a few of these brush scrubbing episodes you will soon wish you never have. Now with the latest technological advancements the automated automotive car wash may seem to be the alternative. But a simple observation of the operations may lead you to believe a ton of water goes straight down the drain. Not to good for the environment.
But what about these waterless options? Yes I said waterless. Ok now I have seen some of these products of the store shelves for quite sometime, but they always seemed a bit pricey and I was frankly a bit skeptical. So when the opportunity came to try one out, I decided why not, and while I was in the process, why not compare it to some of the other options out there as well.
Now first of all of my cars are typically hand washed and stored in an enclosed garage. If they get slightly dusty a quick shot of detail spray is all it takes to bring them back into pristine shape. However I am in the process of sinking a swimming pool into the backyard right now, so the patio furniture and grill are now occupying the place where the daily beater normally resides. So without much fanfare out front in the elements it ended up. Constantly pounded by rain, sun, and lots of road film this car is now filthy. So it now became the perfect test bed so see how a waterless option could stack up.
Let me be the first to say if your car has a lot of dirt and grime, you will be better off just breaking out a bucket to rinse away the grime. A waterless option will simply grind the dirt into the paint and leave you with about another 3 hours of scratch removal. In my case the car was mainly suffering from dust and water sprinkler fallout. So the surface dirt really wasn’t an issue. This 10 year old car also had sound paint and a good coat of wax on it to begin with, so we have a sound base to start with.
I decided to test out the Detail Magic Waterless on one side of the vehicle and then compare against my tried and trued Meguiar’s Quick Detailer spray on the other to see how they stack up . Since this car is pretty dirty I also utilized high quality Detail Dude microfiber towels instead of the Detail Magic’s smaller microfiber mitt. The Detail Dude Microfiber towels simply will hold more gunk than the mitt which would get dirty very quickly.
The Detail Magic instructions specify applying the product directly to the towel and then wipe, however with the amount of water spots on the paint I decided to shoot directly to the fender and let you see the differences.
First of all as you can see this product is fairly viscous, it readily clings to the surface and soaks into the dirt. This actually helps it to lift dirt off of the surface, after one wipe everything came right off except for one or two hard water marks. Another quick shot on the affected areas removed that in an instant.
After giving the surface a rest for a few seconds I buffed the fender with another microfiber towel and the paint looked good as new. This product contains some wax so the surface was very smooth. Pretty simple and effortless.
Over to the other side I gave the Quick Detailer a try. This product is far thinner and simply rolls off of the fender getting little chance to soak into the dirt.
This required multiple applications of the product to remove the same amount of dirt. With a car this dirty I could see detail spray would easily consume the entire bottle even on such a small car. In the end the application was buffed and the paint looked excellent.
So back to the other side of the car I went and directly to the front wheels, and these babies were pretty bad. The ceramic pads on the Porsche brakes (yes those are Cayenne brakes on an Audi) tend to dirty the rims up pretty good and makes cleaning them something of a chore.
I soaked down the rims with Detail Magic and let it sit for 10 seconds and I was pretty amazed that the brake dust simply wiped off, and with very little effort the rim came clean.
The other side with the Quick Detailer didn’t fare quite was well, with it taking 4 or 5 shots on the rims to clean them up to the same level.
Ok so now let’s see what a side by side comparison looks like.
Off to the trunk we go with the quick Detail spray on the left and the Detail Magic on the right. After all was said and done both sides were identical and had the same smooth well polished finish. However the Quick Detailer was again at a disadvantage requiring several applications to gain the same result even with a flat surface this time to soak into.
Since this car did not have any sandy grime on it the surfaces both products worked well with no scratches in the clear coat. On each of the panels the Detail Magic Waterless system consistently beat out the Quick Detailer in ease of use and reapplication to gain the same results. Not surprising since the Quicker Detailer wasn’t really meant for such heavy use. The thicker formula of Detail Magic also allowed greater control of the spray keeping it off of glass surfaces. Something you need to consider when cleaning the car outside.
Now with all of that said, one of Detail Magic main claims is the fact that it saves water. Actually to the tune of 50 gallons on the average car wash. Now in Minnesota where water is quite abundant that may not be an issue, but in Texas we do have water rationing on occasion and car washing in the driveway is prohibited during these times. If you are an apartment dweller without access to a water source then this product can be a lifesaver. So how much water did I use? Actually zero, however you do have to wash the same towels that you would using the bucket method.
Now a modern brushless car wash in another story all together, they simply use reclaimed water during most of the wash process, using only fresh filtered water during the spotless rinse cycles. However even with the large amount of runoff back into the reclaim system, the typical gallon usage is around 22 gallons per car this is according to the International Car Wash Association. This is still a factor in some areas of the country where water is a concern.
But what about the price?
The Detail Magic System runs about $19 with tax at a local Home Depot store and judging by my usage I can get maybe 5 washes out of it on a mid sized car. The net cost is just under $5 a wash. The total time to do the car including the wheels would be about 15 minutes.
Using a quick detailing product I estimate it would run about $8 a wash with a total time investment of about 20 minutes due to reapplication on tough areas.
Now comes the quandary.
The local drive through brushless car wash down the street is only $3.99 for the wash which is pretty cheap even for around here, and the total time invested is about 5 minutes. So it seems like a no brainer doesn’t it. That is until you figure in the water usage of the drive through, and the fact that even though is it brushless you will still get small hairline scratches in the clear coat. Factor this in with the fact that this process actually wears out the wax faster this leaves you another tedious job at a later date. The waterless system in this case actually helps keep that protective coat intact longer by incorporating wax into the product hopefully increasing the amount of protection on the car. It is all in the trade offs.
So the end result is the Detail Magic’s system primary appeal for you may be your part in conserving water resources, or if you simply don’t have access to a place to wash your car like a drive way. I have no doubt you actually save water on each wash, and depending on how you value your time, this can be a cost effective alternative to the drive though brushless systems out there.