Cleaner

[Chris Williams]

Everyone has there own idea, I did not find Bar keeper stuff very good. Personally I use a glass cleaner! I don't think anything is perfect at keeping figerprints off the cars.
Chris

[simid]

BKF is pretty good stuff, but a pain to use. Got to be real quick to wash it off and dry or it will leave water marks.

As for finger prints some have used windex, but I have splashed out a bit and use....

http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/detailing ... d_361.html

Also, you don't need much to clean the whole car after a days drive.

[bjbrownie]

Get yourself to Tesco and buy some 'Shiny Sinks' cleaner ( in the blue plastic bottle), I've been using it for years and its the only stainless cleaner/polish I find delivers- a dab on on damp e-cloth removes any fingerprints put on the car at shows and wipes off easily, don't waste your money on expensive cleaners, they all do the same job, after all, the DMC is only stainless steel 8)

[Rissy]

Over the years, I've experimented with different things. More recently I've tried more traditional methods, and I tell you what...do you know what I now consider the best thing to use to get rid of those pesky water marks and dry the car off after using simple car wash...?

A chamois. Brilliant. Don't know why I never considered it before. It's also excellent to use as a quick wipe down without even using a cleaning product when damp with clean water.

The only thing I'd say is though that this was with nice soft Scottish water not hard English water. So it might be different at its performance according to geography...

[simid]

Rissy Wrote:A chamois. Brilliant. Don't know why I never considered it before. It's also excellent to use as a quick wipe down without even using a cleaning product when damp with clean water.

I always use a chamois after any car wash. Good indication when drying the panels if they need a hit of wax after the next wash (painted cars).

I may try and use BKF again to bring up the shine of the SS. Just hate having the powder residual in all the panel gaps afterwards.

[Guinney1971]

I can echo how good Shiny Sinks is when your car needs an annual 'deep clean' - mind you I bet
its more challenging keeping a DeLorean with loads of movie prop replica stuff bolted to it clean.....

[MikeWard]

I don't think you can get much better than regular car shampoo, used with a melamine pad (think Dr Power Magic Eraser sponge), and a chamois to dry for cleaning the stainless. It's all I have ever used to clean mine.

Once cleaned, if any finger prints appear at car shows, just use the melamine pad with plain old water, to get rid of them, dry with a chamois, and they're gone.

[Guinney1971]

those 'magic sponges' are really good, I know Rich uses one on his car to remove finger prints,
I use it on my walls to remove my toddlers doodlings.............

[Rissy]

I have a stock of them from Aldi (cheaper for the exact same thing), but found them a bit footery, and due to small surface area, it takes a while to go over the whole car with. Fine for individual finger prints at shows where a dryish clean is required. Although, even at the most recent meet in Yorkshire, I instead opted for a moist chamois in a container, stored in the boot. 8)

[MikeWard]

Rissy Wrote:I have a stock of them from Aldi (cheaper for the exact same thing), but found them a bit footery, and due to small surface area, it takes a while to go over the whole car with. Fine for individual finger prints at shows where a dryish clean is required. Although, even at the most recent meet in Yorkshire, I instead opted for a moist chamois in a container, stored in the boot. 8)

I'm guessing they are a lot smaller than the Magic Eraser variant?

The magic eraser comes in a block, large enough to cut out two regular sized car sponges, and still have a small block/strip spare to use at show's to erase finger prints. Like you say though, they're on the expensive side at £5 a block, when the Aldi variant is (I'm guessing) a number of (smaller) pad's for £1-£2?

Only trouble with them is they don't last for two many washes before they need replacing. You would be lucky to get half a dozen washes out of it before it starts dropping to bits. Still, it's a small price to pay to have the car spotless......unless wandering fingers at car show's get onto it.

[Rich Hanlon]

Make sure everything is well bolted down, there can be souvenir-hunters about!

[Rissy]

Aldi eraser sponge pads as packed in box. I was cutting these into quarters.

[dave t]

We use 3M stainless cleaner.....3M products are top notch, used in the trade.

[simid]

I've tried to use some of those SS Cleaning wipes and found them leaving a wet film all over the panels.

Might try and find one of these 3M sprays.

[RobScott]

mines painted silver as the owner got fed up of cleaning it