How to wash your car at home – Tips & Tricks

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Intro

One of the best things about a car is that it’s fun to drive. What may not be fun about a car? Washing it! This article is designed to help you understand what you need to help you wash your car at home. We’ll share some helpful tips & tricks to help you through the process.

Not everyone needs to take their car to a carwash. Some gas stations also tend to have a mini quick carwash available. Although they do the job, they often do not properly clean your car.

What you need to wash your car at home

Before you plan to wash your car at home, you want to make sure you have the right materials on hand.

Here’s a list of what you need to wash your car:

1. Bucket (you can get a car wash bucket here, or at a local store such as Walmart or Target).
2. Water, preferable from your home spigot
3. Water hose with water head (here’s a 50 ft. lightweight water hose with nozzle for around $20!)
4. Car wash soap (here’s an Amazon best seller car wash soap)
5. Microfiber washing mitt (here’s a microfiber car washing mitt)
6. Towels (here’s a pack of large microfiber drying towels)

Tips & tricks with the materials you need to wash your car at home

Tip # 1: Instead of manually applying soap to the car, you can use a foam cannon. With a foam canon:

• You put your car wash soap inside the foam cannon bottle
• Connect the foam cannon to your water house
• Spray on your car

In case you are interested, here’s a video on how a foam cannon works:

Tip # 2: It might be helpful for you to use two microfiber washing mitts throughout your wash car. As one gets dirty, you want to be able to swap it out. This is important to avoid scratching your car.

Tip # 3: In addition to two mitts, you might want to use two water buckets. Here’s why? As you wash your car, the mitt will get dirty. You should use one bucket to clean the mitt (as best as you can), so all of the dust and dirt are rinsed off. Once rinsed off, you will then dip the clean washing mitt into the bucket of clean water to then scrub on your car. You wouldn’t want to put dirty water on your car, especially since you are trying to clean it!

Tip # 4: Instead of using a microfiber drying towel, you may want to try using using a chamois car drying towel. The reason for this is because chamois car drying towels are very water absorbent. This allows the towel to absorb a significant amount of water. You will also have to squeeze the water out, to allow it to absorb more water. In addition to the towel being absorbent, the texture of a chamois drying towel allows you to quickly spot and remove dirt that gets trapped on the towel.

Bonus Material: Tire shine

If you want to shine your tires, so they have that “constant wet” appearance, you would want to get a tire shine spray to spray on your tires at the end.

Wash your car at home guide

Guide to washing your car at home

Using some of the materials discussed in this article (above), here is a guide on how to go about washing your car at home.

• Use your garden hose and nozzle to wet your car. Before you place any soap on your car, you want to make sure your car is pretty wet. Getting your car wet first will help with the removal of any dirt. This all helps with avoiding scratching your car. Once your car is nice and wet, move to the next step.
• Fill your car washing bucket(s) with water along with your car wash soap. If you are using a foam cannon, then all you need to do is fill the bottle with soap and connect the foam canon to your water hose.
• Wear your microfiber car washing mitt, dip it into your car washing bucket(s) and begin soaping down your car to remove all of the dirt. Pick one pattern on how you use the mitt on your car so as to avoid scratching your car. Rinse your washing mitts often, so you remove any dirt that may get stuck to the mitts.
• If you are using a foam cannon, no need to use the washing mitt yet. Make sure the foam cannon is connected to your garden hose, and begin spraying soap on your car. Once your car is fully foamed and sprayed, then you can use your washing mitts to begin scrubbing and removing dirt. Be sure to rinse your washing mitts often.
• Repeat the above process until you feel you have properly cleaned your car from dirt.
• Here’s a great article on how to properly clean your car windows.
• Once complete, use the hose nozzle to rinse down your car and wash away the dirt.
• Your car should be nice and clean now!

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips for when washing your car

Tip # 1: Try to wash in shaded area. This will help from the soap from drying out on you while you are scrubbing away.

Tip # 2: Be sure to follow our car window cleaning guide to make sure your car windows are properly cleaned (without leaving water marks).

Tip # 3: When drying your car, you might find it helpful to let it airdrop and then use a damp chamois drying towel or a damp microfiber drying towel to dry what hasn’t dried or avoid water marks on your car

Bonus Tip: Don’t forget to use a tire shine spray to give your tire that “wet tire” appearance.

The 411

With the proper materials, you can definitely properly wash your car at home. It’ll also be fun! Once you do it a few times, you’ll have a process that works best for you. Depending on how dirty your car is, how often you wash your car, you might be able to complete the exterior wash within one hour’s time.

Happy cleaning 😊!