Though it’s a rather foreign detailing product to most of us, regions of our country are unable to use traditional soap and water to clean their cars because of water restrictions. Reasons for this vary from drought restrictions, to run off protection where brake dust, soap etc. are not to be put down the drain. Yet another ideal application for Spray-On Car Wash are areas prone to extreme cold where washing your car exposes you to frozen door jams and windows – been there done that!
Step one. Get your car dirty. No problem here. I just ordered a light snow storm for my drive home from work. It was less than an inch but still enough to get my 2005 BMW 330i ZHP dirty from its wash the day before. For about five years now Griot’s Garage has offered Spray-On Car Wash whose bottle conveniently has directions on the back.
I was really unsure of this whole wash-your-car-without-water thing, but I pressed on in the name of science. Following the directions, I worked from the top-down while keeping my BMW in the shade. Griot’s Garage shows cars being cleaned with this Spray-On Car Wash and with some thicker green “high loft” cloths, but not having these I used three detailing microfiber cloths from Costco. I used a liberal amount of these stuff since I wanted to make sure to lift dirt up off the paint and not scratch it. I worked in small sections, as recommended, so as to not let the product dry. The result after three detailing cloths was a clean car in about 20 minutes of work time.
I suspect there must be a slight wax component to Spray-On Car Wash since after cleaning it off, you really do need to buff it with a clean microfiber. This gets rid of a slight haze while giving the surface a very nice shine. When I stepped back and looked at my car I was amazed at how well it looked. The exception being my filthy windows, so I hit them with some Invisible Glass cleaner. The week when it rained, I noticed that the my car beaded water far better than it did before the Spray-On Car Wash experience.
Griots’s Garage Spray-On Car Wash 22oz sells for $14.99 at places like Advanced Autoparts or 35 ounces for $16.99. A $42.99 gallon is sold directly from Griot’s.
After washing our BMW X3 3.0si from top-down, I did decide to try Griot’s Spray-On Wax. The directions recommend to spray it on right after washing the car while the surface is still wet. It took a bit of buffing action to get the water dried out and the wax distributed, but it was a quick process. The wax does give a nice shine and is supposed to extend times between traditional waxing.
We all know how our beloved BMWs love to throw brake dust everywhere. In fact, I find cleaning the wheels to be the most time consuming portion of washing my BMW 330i ZHP.
Griot’s Garage Heavy-Duty Wheel Cleaner is definitely up to the challenge since I quickly managed to clean two set of wheels. One set on my ZHP and my wife’s X3 18” wheels that needed to be mounted back on. Griot’s Garage recommends hosing off your wheels first with water. I liberally sprayed Griot’s Heavy-Duty Wheel Cleaner on them and attempted to wait the recommended 3-4 minutes.
After about a minute or so, I began using a detailing wheel brush. Hosing the wheel off revealed a very clean wheel. After drying off some parts of the wheel with a cloth, I ended up with perfectly cleaned wheels.
There are a ton of good detailing products out there but having used Griot’s Garage’s stuff for years I found them to work very well. Their full line of products help you keep your BMW looking great.
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