Author Topic: How did we clean cars in the old days?  (Read 10612 times)

peteo48

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2689
  • Country: gb
  • I have entered the Jazz Age
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: 2021 Honda Jazz Mk4 1.5 i-MMD EX
How did we clean cars in the old days?
« on: November 11, 2018, 08:02:53 PM »
I like a clean car - I wash mine about every 2 or 3 weeks (it doesn't get that dirty in that time) and I am one of that rare breed that will polish and wax on occasions.

Partly inspired by a comment Culzean made on another thread about "esoteric" and "arcane" cleaning rituals, I find myself wondering if the whole car care thing hasn't got a bit out of hand. In days of yore you still had immaculate looking cars and these were, typically, washed with a dash of Fairy Liquid in a bucket using a sponge. The car was then rinsed off and dried with a chamois leather. About once or twice a year the car was "simonized" which meant applying a hard wax to the car and buffing it off. This gave protection. If the paint got dull you would use simonize cleaner, an abrasive polish that actually removed a bit of paint - you could tell by the colour coming out on your rag. Incidentally they were rags - old vests cut into squares or worn out terry towels.

Move forward and we have a situation where cars have clear coats - a hard laquer that protects the paint. They are more durable than ever. However new rituals have emerged and new warnings about deviating from them.

1) You must use 2 buckets - one for car shampoo and one for rinsing each with a grit guard. If you use Fairy Liquid your paint will peel off immediately. If you only use one bucket you may as well sandpaper your car with coarse grade emery paper.

2) You must also "pre-wash" the car with foam and allow this to loosen the dirt before actually washing it with a sheepskin mitt and drying it with a soft microfibre towel.

3) Every so often you must decontaminate your car using a piece of clay. This is seen as essential but what did we do before this was invented?

4) You should avoid cheap products like Simonize and Turtle Wax. If you really care about your car you'll spend at least 50 quid on a jar of wax.

It's confession time - I've succumbed to some of these "esoteric" and "arcane" rituals but I wonder if the whole detailing scene isn't a device to separate me from my money.

Any views?
« Last Edit: November 11, 2018, 08:05:43 PM by peteo48 »

madasafish

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1953
  • Country: gb
  • My Honda: 1.4 ES CVT -2012
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #1 on: November 12, 2018, 11:21:03 AM »
I am old enough to recall the old days:

I recall the routine went:
Bucket cold water with Fairey liquid. Wash roof with sponge. Dry roof with chamois.. and work down.
And after 4 years the car was a mass of rust - see Austin A35, BMC 1100, Ford Cortinas, Escorts, Rovers etc, Every 2-3 weeks depending in how dirty .. and how enthusiastic I felt

My current routine:

Hose under wheelarches to remove  mud#, hose rest of car to remove mud, Bucket with vinegar and washnwax, wash rood with microfibre mitt. Dry roof with chamois.. and work down.
After 12 years minimal rust.
Every 2-3 weeks depending in how dirty .. and how enthusiastic I feel.

# Local country roads (beekeeping) have tractors and lots of mud.

Don't wax car more than once every 2-3 years..For nerds only  :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(

Anything more is a waste of time.(Due to mud!)

culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2018, 01:11:06 PM »
I am old enough to recall the old days:

I recall the routine went:
Bucket cold water with Fairey liquid. Wash roof with sponge. Dry roof with chamois.. and work down.
And after 4 years the car was a mass of rust - see Austin A35, BMC 1100, Ford Cortinas, Escorts, Rovers etc, Every 2-3 weeks depending in how dirty .. and how enthusiastic I felt

Those cars would rust away in a few years whatever TLC you gave them - they did not have zinc coated body panels and seam sealer... modern cars are so much better,  many do not show any corrosion till at least 15 to 20 years old. 

Remember the feminist book a few decades ago 'life is too short to stuff a mushroom'  -  well the mans version was 'life is too short to keep detailing your car'
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

sparky Paul

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 3436
  • Country: gb
  • My Honda: 2015 GG6 Jazz EX 1.4 I-VTEC / 2008 GE3 Jazz SE 1.4 i-DSI
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2018, 02:49:49 PM »
My usual routine is still the same as it was in the old days, when I can be bothered...

1. Blast lumps off with hosepipe, blast under wheelarches with same
2. Bucket of warm water with cheap wash'n'wax, wash roof then rinse with hosepipe. Repeat for all panels until car washed.
3. Ignore streaks.
4. Wash wheels with what's left in bucket.
5. Final rinse down.
6. Put everything away and retire.

When it goes rusty, mend it. If it's beyond help, scrap it and get another.

VicW

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1441
  • Country: england
  • My Honda: 07 Plate Civic 1.8 i-Shift.
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #4 on: November 12, 2018, 03:22:13 PM »
I no longer clean my car myself. I take it to a local East European car cleaning emporium where they do an excellent job including round the door frames. In the winter for a small consideration they will wash the wheel arches and under the car.
I still clean the inside regularly, vacuum the floor and upholstery and, of course, clean the windows inside.
I stopped polishing cars years ago, I consider it a waste of money and energy.
My car looks fine.

Vic.

culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #5 on: November 12, 2018, 04:00:07 PM »
I no longer clean my car myself. I take it to a local East European car cleaning emporium where they do an excellent job including round the door frames. In the winter for a small consideration they will wash the wheel arches and under the car.
I still clean the inside regularly, vacuum the floor and upholstery and, of course, clean the windows inside.
I stopped polishing cars years ago, I consider it a waste of money and energy.
My car looks fine.

Vic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/uk-to-investigate-use-of-modern-day-slaves-hand-washing-cars.html

Also car cleaning products contaminate waterways - they cannot be removed from waste water.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2018, 04:05:16 PM by culzean »
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

peteo48

  • Topic Starter
  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2689
  • Country: gb
  • I have entered the Jazz Age
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: 2021 Honda Jazz Mk4 1.5 i-MMD EX
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #6 on: November 12, 2018, 05:19:46 PM »
I no longer clean my car myself. I take it to a local East European car cleaning emporium where they do an excellent job including round the door frames. In the winter for a small consideration they will wash the wheel arches and under the car.
I still clean the inside regularly, vacuum the floor and upholstery and, of course, clean the windows inside.
I stopped polishing cars years ago, I consider it a waste of money and energy.
My car looks fine.

Vic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/uk-to-investigate-use-of-modern-day-slaves-hand-washing-cars.html

Also car cleaning products contaminate waterways - they cannot be removed from waste water.

I think it can be a dodgy business. I have a friend who works as a consultant to companies about the use of modern day slavery in their supply chains and the pop up car washes are notorious. They are not all bad though but how do you find out?

I gather the Tesco ones do actually have themselves plumbed into the foul sewers as opposed to storm drains. Storm drains seem to be the real problem as the water isn't treated on it's way to rivers etc.

VicW

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1441
  • Country: england
  • My Honda: 07 Plate Civic 1.8 i-Shift.
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #7 on: November 12, 2018, 07:23:18 PM »
When you wash your car in the road or on your drive where does the waste water go?
Our local authorities appear to be doing nothing about the possible contamination of water courses by these car washing places, neither do the police appear to be investigating the use of slave labour or at least not finding any.
Quite sophisticated washing plants are springing up on large shopping complexes apparently without any threat of investigation.

Vic.

culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #8 on: November 12, 2018, 07:58:33 PM »
When you wash your car in the road or on your drive where does the waste water go?
Our local authorities appear to be doing nothing about the possible contamination of water courses by these car washing places, neither do the police appear to be investigating the use of slave labour or at least not finding any.
Quite sophisticated washing plants are springing up on large shopping complexes apparently without any threat of investigation.

Vic.

Simple, car gets washed about once every blue moon, the beauty of the diamondbrite coating applied when we bought the cars makes washing pretty much unnecessary, every time it rains you get a shiny car.   I do hose out under the wheel arches etc in winter to get rid of salty mud,  but thousands of tons of that goes down UK drains every winter anyway. Technology helping to save the rivers.  Just imagine a salmon trying to find its way back to its home river and being confused by smell of car shampoo..
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

jazzway

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 327
  • Country: nl
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: 2010 — 1.4 iShift Elegance — Storm Silver — GG3 L13Z2 3rd gen.
How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #9 on: November 13, 2018, 12:13:53 AM »
This topic was a bad idea as soon as it was posted. Not because of Pete, of course, nor the subject an sich. But talking about car cleaning is opening a can of worms and soon not going about the subject anymore, but against it. The car detailing section on this forum is a magnet for trolling. A shame, yes!

So, it wasn’t my intention to reply on Pete’s original post because of that. But as expected it soon went off topic and then i had to...
Quote
... imagine a salmon trying to find its way back to its home river and being confused by smell of car shampoo..
 
Pesticides (chemicals that kill insects) applied to farmland enter surface water and groundwater, often in large quantities.
Air pollution can make its way into rivers, lakes and streams. Some fall from the sky as dry particles. Other air pollutants are carried to the ground in raindrops, snowflakes, or fog. They not only harm water, but also the plant and animal life that depend on water to survive.
Rivers, streams and drinking water supplies are contaminated by synthetic hormones from contraceptive pills. More than 2.5 million women take birth control pills in the UK. Their EE2 content is excreted and washed into sewage systems and rivers. Even at very low concentrations, this chemical has proven harmful effects on fish.

The Typical Tap Water Content in the UK (and in the most part of the modern world) contains:

Chlorine
Fluorine compounds
Trihalomethanes (THMs)
Salts of:
arsenic
radium
aluminium
copper
lead
mercury
cadmium
barium
Hormones
Nitrates
Pesticides

Which cleaning detergents, laundry cleaners, softeners, shampoo, all purpose cleaners, fairy liquids, algae- and other outside cleaners do you all use in and around your house (not your car) and on yourself?  All natural, eco-friendly? Do you eat biological, produced or grown close to your home as much as possible? What other chemicals do you use, eat, drink, food, medicine and end up in the water system and is NOT filtered out?

No? Then don’t go over the people who like to wash their car once or twice a month!! The smell of a car shampoo is the less the salmon has to worry about...
« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 12:32:47 AM by jazzway »

culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #10 on: November 13, 2018, 09:08:25 AM »
So you are not willing to accept any opinion that disagrees with yours - (no matter how light hearted, salmon smelling shampoo etc) - sound like a liberal / democrat to me.  Forums exist for discussion, opinions, shared experience and information - not simply affirmation, and threads often meander around a bit.  Many of those compounds you mention exist naturally in water,  any that are there to protect the food we eat are welcome. Modern sewage treatment ( but not storm water / street drains) can remove pollutants down to microscopic levels, including hormones,  unfortunately stuff that goes down street drains is not normally properly treated.

Modern slavery does come into car detailing as it normally uses illegally trafficked people who are then treated as slaves in the very country they came to for a better life ( pity they did not choose to come via the legal route), does not affect you if you do your own cleaning and polishing,  but an awful lot of people don't give a second thought to who cleans their car and why it only costs £5 or £10.  I guess this affects pretty much every western country.

No I don't eat organic food ( which is a good idea if you can afford it, but it would be impossible to feed the exploding world population with organic food - the insects and fungi would get most of it ), I do try to use biodegradable things whenever possible and save water (fresh water is the scarcest thing on our planet).

PS -  I am not a troll ( LOL )
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

peteo48

  • Topic Starter
  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2689
  • Country: gb
  • I have entered the Jazz Age
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: 2021 Honda Jazz Mk4 1.5 i-MMD EX
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #11 on: November 13, 2018, 11:38:43 AM »
Hope I haven't opened too big a can of worms! I'm a bit sad in many ways - I love watching car restoration programmes like Wheeler Dealers and Car SOS. I also watch a lot of YouTube videos of car detailing because of my somewhat OCD interest in keep the car clean. I think this arose from the fact that my Dad, when he became UK Sales Director for an industrial lighting company, got a Mk2 Jag (Inspector Morse). It was always important for him to arrive at meetings in a clean car so I got generous pocket money to wash the Jag every week and a bonus for "simonizing" it every 6 months. I actually loved doing it and found it quite therapeutic.

Over the years I have kept my cars in decent condition. Go back 25 years or so and I'd use Fairy Liquid heavily diluted. It was thought to be gentler than other dishwash soaps. A watering can to wet the car, sponge starting from the roof down, rinse then dry with a chamois leather. I'd use Turtle Wax about 2 or 3 times a year. Every so often I'd get the hose attached to the kitchen sink tap and run it through the house to the front door (much to my wife's disgust) to hose out the underside to get rid of salt etc. My car was usually the cleanest and shiniest on the block.

Over the years I've adopted new routines but then I started wondering if this was all going a bit far. My shed is full of spray bottles, microfibre towels, tins of wax and so on and I was buying products just to try them out.

Then I started thinking - "is this all a bit over the top" - in addition some detailers disagree with each other. On the 2 bucket method somebody said that you will always be rubbing against dirt so the fact that a tiny bit of extra dirt gets picked up in the bucket won't make that much different. A more recent video attacks the fashion for PH neutral shampoos because they don't clean enough.

So I've decided to simplify my routine a bit and get the wife off my back for all the detailing clutter I've got in the shed (I have 25 microfibre towels, 3 different car shampoos, 3 different car waxes and sealants, 3 buckets, 3 detailing brushes, 3 different quick detail sprays, Autoglym Aqua Wax and I am only scratching the surface!

I suppose my general point is that it's a lucrative market and, like a lot of the best marketing campaigns, taps into fear - if I don't use this lotion my skin will wrinkle, if I don't use this car shampoo my car will rust away to nothing.

Told you I was sad. On run off - get some Optimum No Rinse, great stuff, no run off and bio degradable!


« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 11:40:22 AM by peteo48 »

sparky Paul

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 3436
  • Country: gb
  • My Honda: 2015 GG6 Jazz EX 1.4 I-VTEC / 2008 GE3 Jazz SE 1.4 i-DSI
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #12 on: November 13, 2018, 02:16:31 PM »
A admire anyone who is prepared (or who has the time) to spend cleaning and detailing their car, the brother in law is absolutely meticulous with his, inside and out. Some of the results look fantastic. However, for me, I can't be arsed. If the car get washed more than once a year, it's only because you can't see what colour the car is anymore.

However, that does not preclude me from contributing to any thread I please, just because it's not going with the flow. We don't start threads like this for an echo chamber, it's to hear everyone's opinions, and sometimes maybe learn something we didn't know.


culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #13 on: November 13, 2018, 03:11:27 PM »
A admire anyone who is prepared (or who has the time) to spend cleaning and detailing their car, the brother in law is absolutely meticulous with his, inside and out. Some of the results look fantastic. However, for me, I can't be arsed. If the car get washed more than once a year, it's only because you can't see what colour the car is anymore.

However, that does not preclude me from contributing to any thread I please, just because it's not going with the flow. We don't start threads like this for an echo chamber, it's to hear everyone's opinions, and sometimes maybe learn something we didn't know.




+1

Our next door neighbours lad during his late teens and early 20's ( married so moved out now ) would shampoo and chamois  his car pretty much every day and the street gutter ran with white froth ( if it was bad weather he cleaned the car in the garage) he even took number plates and wheels off very frequently to clean them and under the bonnet was clean enough for an operating theatre.  To me that level of cleaning was definitely verging on a mental illness, but his dad is a frequent ( couple of times a week ) car cleaner as well, so maybe it is genetic.

Never saw the car cleaning son trying to fix or repair his cars though, just clean them, so interested in appearance rather than functionality. 
« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 03:17:24 PM by culzean »
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

peteo48

  • Topic Starter
  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2689
  • Country: gb
  • I have entered the Jazz Age
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: 2021 Honda Jazz Mk4 1.5 i-MMD EX
Re: How did we clean cars in the old days?
« Reply #14 on: November 13, 2018, 03:40:47 PM »
I may be OK ;D - every 2 weeks at most for my car washing. One of the more respected detailing websites, PolishedBliss, point out that excessive washing is as bad as no washing as your car is subject to more abrasion. They recommend no more than once a week.

Tags:
 

anything
Back to top