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Thanks Rudra (Cleaning and car care guru :-), man you have really great tips i must say ) .

I did a thorough reading once again and i have a few more questions ....

1. Where can we get the blue cloth ?
2. How much max time we should give to cleaning every day (suppose there is less time, can we just wipe with a dry cloth or thats a strict NO NO , since i have a black car)

Today morning i followed each and everything specified for normal day cleaning here is what i did
1. Took a (small) bucket of water and a 2 yellow (useless) cloth and a set of B&W newspapers.
2. Removed the car cover and stacked it (pushed it) inside the dicky.
3. Pulled the windscreen wipers up and splashed some water on windscreen , and used hand to spread it evenly. once the water was sufficient, i used a newspaper to wipe it... one wasnt enough, i had to use one more to dry it completely. (task done with satisfaction)
4. Dipped the yellow cloth in water (water turns almost yellow instantly ... useless cloth) , anyways, pushed it completely in water and picked it up without squeezing, and started with bonet, let the water drip and cleaned the whole surface with a light pressure. I dipped in the bucket 5 times. Bucket is now half full.
5. Soon i could see water marks all on the car.
6. Washed the cleaning cloth completely, and suqeezed the hell out of it and then started wiping the car dry with that damp cloth, squeezing it regulary, but somehow, i couldnt see it drying , and i could see water marks, just that these are straight lines, but initially it was big patches.
7. So took a dry yellow cloth, and started to wipe, found lots of lint sticking to the car (i have to delint the cloth but couldnt do it yesterday)
8. Used hand to remove the lint.
9. Its already 40 mins over, since i came to clean the car. Dont know how time flew by it just seemed as though i had come.
10. Got a call on mobile from my wife, she says its time ! we need to start to office.
11. Unfortunately only one part was clean, and the roof was still not clean. So just left it to dry on its own and ran back.
12. Came back with wife who had a grin on her face (possibly thinking how mad i am) , she could see lots of water marks, but yes the car was shining somehow (dont know) , unless observed carefully.
13. Started the car, it died, started again , died .. did 4-5 times, then it came to life, seems 2 days of raining made the engine too cold.

Thats my story, i really feel 1 hour is needed to clean, but who will have 1 hour to clean daily ?? I have decided to wake up and 5:30 and do the cleaning job. I have a tough time squeezing in cleaning between by getting dressed up and leaving to office.

Have i followed the process correctly or do i need some more refinement. Is there anything like quick non destructive cleaning ?


ps: wish there was a BE or MBA in car cleaning, i would certainly join it :-p

Sorry to revive an old thread, but can someone from chennai help where I can find turtle wax and armor all and other car cleaning kits here in Chennai??

Appreciate any help... Tx

Because of all the newly laid out patches of road in Pune, I find that there are minute black dots (asphalt/diesel/oil) that mar the lower area of the door surface. Can I use turpentine to remove this?

Please advise.

Almost any good autmobile accesory shop worth its salt should be stocking this.

DONT USE TURPENTINE.. get some diesel, wipe using a cloth over the lower surface (u might be surprised to see more n more of these tar stains visible also), leave for couple of minutes and wash with regular car shampoo, if the tar is sticky generous use of hand scrubbing might be required :)

Thank you. When I was polishing the car last Sunday, I resisted using turpentine thinking it might damage the paint. I'll try diesel.

I have some paint marks (from another object) thats on my car, how do i remove them ? Diesel ?

Or is turpentine a total NO NO.

Regarding tar marks, thank god here is where a black car scores ... "god only can help" categoried black , would hide it since black + black = black :-)

Fabulous tips to make your car look spanking new.
But I doubt it would work in Mumbai.
Our friendly society 's car cleaners Union would declare a hadtaal.
Some observations on their unique approach to car washing.
1. They use exactly 1 bucket of water. Good because it' entirely in keeping with our recommendation.
But be warned it ends here. After this it's mayhem.
2. The same water is used for cleaning windows, body, tyres and floormats.
3. The same cloth is used for all the above.
4. Infact the same cloth is used for all the cars washed by one cleaner.
5. Given him a toothbrush, detergent and the son of a gun looks like a hindi movie star with teeth gleaming and shirt spotless. Your car looks the same
6. Under the bonnet. In light of the above you wouldn't want him to get there would you?
Want further proof have a look at my car.

That's why this thread Nachu. Rest depends on the individual.
This is something taking to the extreme. Why don't you give a set for your car only.

Paint from what? Use very light rubbing compound for this.
Caution: Don't do it yourself if you don't know the right pressure. Get it done from proper garage.

it is always better to start with cleaning the roof,as if you do the roof in the end there are chances that water from the roof could drip into the other already cleaned part.

Bought 2 products yesterday.

1) Stanley leather cleaning solution for taking care of stains on leather seats. (I finally managed to put on Stanley leather seat covers for my car). I haven't tried it out yet. (approx. Rs.300/-)
2) Turtle wax dashboard cleaning solution (I don't recollect exact name) : I tried this on my dashboard and it works quite nice. It brings out natural color of the dashboard and plastic parts. With grainy plastics all around, dust easily settles in there and is difficult to clean otherwise. (Rs. 190/-)

I am having ugly white marks on side moulding strips. They are due to teflon coating and are not going away by anything. Any tips on removing that? I called up Fiat dealer and asked him to figure it out with the guy, who does teflon coating.

P.S.: Satya, I know you were lurking around all the time, but good to see back on forum. Hope, you had good Mumbai-Bangalore drive.

hey rx,
for some reason i wasnt able to post ...
about that white mark on ur side moulding strips try using the turtle wax formula2001 super protectant vinyl polish from TPC...will cost abt 650rs for about 500ml... this can be used on ur dashboard as well...but dont use on the steering ...


about my mumbai bangalore drive ...it was a mumbai-mangalore-bangalore drive and it was superbb.my previous fastest was 14 hours ...but this time the G3's made the difference.

as u had told teh roads after pune are really bad for about 20-30 kms and then one has to be careful to watch out for diversions which come up suddenly when you are doing 100+ speeds.

the ankola road ghat is also in a bad shape...but the fun lost on this road was compensated by driving on the superbb Nh48....except the ghat section this road rokks....you can easily do fast in and faster out ...like the GQ ,on this road also my top speed of 160 kph was not enough .

did mumbai -mangalore 997 kms in 12.5 hours with all pit and pee stops with 13kpl ,and did mangalore -bangalore 380 kms in 5.5 hours ...but took about 2.45 hours to do 30 kms inside bangalore from peenya to indiranagar...driving here is a pain...dunno how rudra and other manage to drive their bigger cars ,when its so diffcult to even walk..

Hi Ajay, Check out the radio warehouse (near K4 police station in annanagar), they have lots of car care stuff...from car shampoo to wax...

Inspite of taking so much care, today under flood lights, i was able to see swirl marks all over the car (they are not visible in sunlight) , but floodlight brings them out well.

I was just wondering since the only way in which swirls are cleared are the polishing compound etc, which are somewhat abrasive and they remove a thin layer of paint.

My questions
1. How many layers of paint does a car have.
2. If the layers are less, then should i worry about removing the swirls after a year isnt it , instead or trying to remove whenever i see them.

No matter how much you take care, how do these swirl marks come and that too uniformly as though somebody has designed them... Is it the problem with maruti paints ? When my refrigerator paint can stay on without swirls for so long , why do car paints pose such a challenge ? Is it to keep people like us busy and get paranoid and buy those products and keep them also alive. (i mean Turtle etal).

I saw in a car cleaning forum (US), they treat Turtle wax as waste and the worst possible thing ! I was surprised .. for them its mcguires, prestone, zymol etc are great ! I mean somehow they didnt give any respect to TW, why :-( ?

for those who are very crazy about cleaning they even have an e-book (http://autopia-carcare.com/freeguide.html) , though i am sure it will not make sense for us (i will download it this night), since they will be using a whole lot of products which we dont have access to. And also their climatic conditions are different from ours.. we need an indian specific troubleshooting guide , hope our cleaning gurus author one for the benefit of crazy people like me....

A good link with reviews on some car waxes

http://forums.roadfly.com/forums/det...5256389&page=1