post-drive routine

What do you guys recommend for an after drive routine when you park your cars?

Currently I use a California car duster and put on the car cover on. I realize this creates swirl marks. Leaving the cover off would be better but there's not a lot of space in my garage so people are always walking right next to the car and keeping the cover on protects it.

I use the car every weekend. Right now the paint is in fair condition (car is a '95 F355) so I'm not too worried about it but once I detail it properly I want to take better care of the paint.

 

Routine is usually a change of underwear for the passenger....
In all seriousness...dusters are evil... they will damage paint sometimes badly. I let the car cool off some inside in the dark garage and then go around with a detail spray and a waterless car wash spray and lots of microfiber towels... that gets most of bug, rubber, bird issues taken care of. I also use waterless car wash to cleans wheels from brake dust. When done I plug into trickle charger and once completely cool cover. I too currently have a small garage with tons of kids stuff around so I get wanting to put a cover on quickly but i would never cover a warm car.

 

If you are careful with the duster it shouldn't make swirl marks but you need to do it right! It is only for dust so imagine ow light of a touch it will take to remove the dust if any. Sometimes you can also get powdered pollen but right when you get back there should be very little dust. Don't use it to make a shine and only move it across the surface of the car in the same way the air flows across it! This is for all the surfaces that are parallel to the ground. For perpendicular surfaces the contact motion is from top down toward the ground! There is much to add but this is the way to use a duster. IMHO

 

My post drive routine? grab a cold beer and then plug in the trickle charger.


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Open the engine cover to let the heat out, proclaim "What a Machine!", and go have lunch.

sjd

 

park the car and go inside.

keep in mind every time you touch the car with a duster or towel you are harming the paint. i believe its much better to only touch the car when you are washing it and only wash it when it really needs it. i do a two bucket system and blow it off with a leaf blower. then i barley have to use the microfiber towel to dry.

 

You should put the cloth cover on your car before you put he final cover on. This will keep the the top cover from scratching.

I give the car a good eyeballing to see if there is any sap or bird dung or bugs. I want to remove them when there are fresh and juicy. When they dry they can damage the paint.

If it is the last drive of the day l plug in the battery maintainer. It prolongs the battery life.

If l am not putting the covers on, l wait to clean the body with Quick Detailer right before l drive as dust settles on the car overnight. I really don’t put the covers on until l put in storage.

Best

 

I plug in the CTEK and pop the hood to cool the engine. Address any bug splats or bird crap right away. Blow off the paint with an air blower. Let it sit to cool off maybe doing other things. Then come back and lay a few good cotton sheets over it to protect against dust or someones jeans. I've never used the cover and the other contents of the bag. I prefer the sheets as they are large and super soft and glide without scratching. Wife asked one day what happened to the king bed sheets. "How would I know?"

 

I head to the nearest Shell station. Fuel up.
Go home and park the car in the garage with hood up to cool down. My garage has A/C so it cools down pretty fast
I roll out the detailing cart and foam cannon and give it a quick bath and rinse with my de ionizer water system. Close the garage door and go relax. The next time I want to take the car back out its spotless and fueled up.

 

I open the hoods/engine covers on all of my cars when I'm done driving them. Well at least when I'm at my house. Not so much out in public.

 

Summer- cold beer.

Winter- nice glass of red!

Might get out in a day or two to clean it; more likely the following weekend if I’m not driving it somewhere!

 

what is the advantage of openning the hood to let out heat ?

 

The hood holds the heat in. Opening the hood lets the heat out faster. Thus, the engine cools off faster.

 

yes phill, but what is the advantage of faster cooling ?

 

Heat is hard on engine parts such as rubber and plastic. Heat causes them to harden, get brittle and fail.

 

There is a phenomenon called heat soak that steadily increases machine heat as soon as the engine is turned off. There will be a steady rise in the engine and drive gear with no fans or pumps running. Releasing some of that heat to the air quickly helps to limit the peak and duration of the heat soak. Just put a leaf blower over your motor after a good run and the heat coming off is enough for a multi-car garage. Also, letting it air out allows you to put the paint covers on sooner as to avoid clogging the many heat vents these cars have on their surfaces.

 

This^

If you keep your car for just a few years probably not really needed. But if you keep them for a long time it will help everything last longer.

 

I've done some multi-physics modeling and predictions of electronics on diesel engines and found heat soak minimization added years to the usable life. Agreed its a long term influence. My current Ferrari is a keeper and at the seven year mark.

 

The heat soak got really bad when they started putting the precats way up by the exhaust manifolds. I don't have any turbo cars but would imagine them to be even worse.