How clean the under carriage

this worked for me, take a tube such as an alumiun broom handle or a length of pvc pipe ,drill a series of small holes and attach to hose with screw on connect or hose repair kit. cap the other end .you can adjust the pressure with the water valve. experimnt with size and spacing of holes. this obviously will not detail the area but works for a good wash . might try adapting one of those plant food spray deals in line to add some soap , i have not done that part yet.

 

I just take my car to the spray-it-yourself carwash, and get down on my hands and knees...

 

Jack the car up one side at a time, and get under the car with small brushes and a bucket of Simple Green. Great product. Then hose it off.

 

Griots Undercarriage Spray works great for dressing up those areas too (including the fender wells).

 

I put my Boxer on my lift and clean away. Also, Rub & Buff silver is great for touching up the silver painted engine and the various silver cad undercarriage parts and the Rub & Buff gold does a great job for touching up the gold cad suspension parts.

 

I do this, using something similar. The only trouble is, once its done, you will never want to use it in anything other than the dryest conditions. Which would mean that you used it, er, about 3 times a year here in the UK anyway...

Robert.

 

Please use jackstands when doing so!!

BRian

 

Um - why? Unless you have been off roading or mixing it up on salted roads, something that I doubt a single owner in the US has ever done -BG

 

Not true, I have done it plenty of times to take off wheels and througly clean wheel wells. And frankly alot of detailers will do under carriage details but its usally wheel wells. You want everything looking new it has to be cleaned and dressed. Espacially the wheel wells ever see a clean car paint wise and brown/white wheel wells espacially when taking a picture and the flash exposing that area.? It obviously shows that the person didnt take the time to clean it or missed it all tougather thus resulting in a cheap detail job.

 

I had to remove all the wheel well inserts and spend literally hours cleaning all the brown protective gunky stuff off. This is overspray from the stuff they used to protect the subframe on my car. The only stuff that would remove it I found was Petrol! Can't understand why they covered the wheel arch liners, they are not about to corrode sometime soon being as they are fibreglass or some other sort of layup.

 

I dont doubt that bunches of people have the time to clean their wheel wells. I just cannot figutre out why exactly hence my postulation that no one goes off road or in the (say) Cleveland salt in these cars. As opposed to say Audis, Mercs or say Fords whh I presume are assumed to be expendable. No my real question is why clean something that is designed to be dirty, that's why its there. Few of us have cars that re too old to drive, and funnily enough it also seems that those that have the older ones, as a rule drive them more than the garage queens that came of the line in the last 5 years. Not everyone does this of course, but either its a useum piece to be hung on the wall, or its fun transport/competitive outlet/or something. Does the same person who cleans the wheel wells also take a bottle brush to the inside of the tail pipes? anyway I just dont get it - that's all!

 

Question:

Is it bad to hose off the undercarriage of the car with water from a gardenhose?

I'm talking about getting down on the ground and spraying underneath the car using a typical nozzle.