How to wash your Subaru! Featuring the Gyeon Basic wash kit!
Whether your Subaru still sports the factory paint or a fresh new paint job, taking care of your paint can be difficult. I have dabbled with car care products over the years and with the help of a talented friend I was able to take good care of my 20 year old paint. But now with a fresh coat of paint covering the majority of my car it was time to get serious about both car care products and cleaning techniques.
Gyeon’s basic wash kit shown above. If you don’t know where to start or are looking for a fresh start Gyeons got you covered.
Talking with my painter and a few other friends I found many of them investing in both high quality cleaning products but also an automotive pressure washer. While I think you could do a perfectly good wash without the pressure washer, I value my time and have found that this speeds up the process while also protecting the paint from scratches when cleaning it often. What products and pressure washer kit did I pick up… keep reading to find out.
Time Frame
This is going come down to your detail level, but with a fully involved hand wash I would set aside 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours. This includes scrubbing the car from top to bottom, cleaning the wheel/tires thoroughly, drying the vehicle and then sealing/waxing the paint. This is why I have invested in tools and quality products to reduce this time.
Tools
Gyeon cleaning mitt in its home!
Gyeon’s drying towel in action!
Cheap and super effective!
Any buckets will do. This is what I have used for many years with my grit guards.
The products we will be using today. Foam is our prewash, Bathe will take care of the heavier dirt and Wet coat is our sealant to keep everything looking good between washes.
How to
Setup
We first begin making sure that the car panels are not hot and the vehicle is not in direct sunlight. This can cause adverse reactions with the car cleaning products causing premature damage to the paint and we obviously don’t want that.
The rest of the setup is rolled out and ready for a bath. The sun is going down and shortly the car will be in the shadows.
Once we are ready we can fill our buckets with water. This is often referred to as the 3 bucket method; The first bucket is for our scrub mitt and soap and will include a grit guard. Mix the proper amount of soap to water. Our second bucket will be used for rinsing our mitt and will be filled with water and grit guard. The grit guard helps release the larger dirt and debris from the mitt and keeps the mitt from picking it back up and dragging it across the paint. The third bucket will filled with water and holds our wheel and tire cleaning tools. This concludes are pre cleaning prep work.
My three bucket method utilizes a wheel and (left) tire bucket, (center) a soap bucket and (right) a rinse bucket. This helps keep your cleaning tools free of dirt which could cause wear and tear on the clear coat/paint.
Straight from Gyeon: Use 15-20ML of Bathe per four gallons of the warm water.
Wash time!
Next up we can setup our pressure washer system and rinses off the car of any dirt and debris before moving to the Gyeon Foam. You can add the specified amount of Gyeon Foam to your foam cannon and then dialing in the pressure. You can now make it snow all over your car and the Foam will go to work by releasing the dirt and debris on your vehicle. Rinsing the car clean of all the debris and dirt is our next action.
This was my first time using Gyeon Foam, Astro foam cannon and my Ryobi pressure washer, but I think it came out pretty well. With a proper mixture with a quality product like Gyeon Foam you will get a good level of foam that sticks and helps drag away the loose dirt to keep your paint safe during the washing process.
With it all rinsed off we are ready to get any stubborn leftover dirt removed from the car. With the 10-15mL of Gyeon Bathe added to the wash bucket and a quick spray of water you should have a foamy soapy mix to apply to the vehicle. Now equipped with a sudsy Gyeon cleaning mitt you can deeply clean one panel, then clean the mitt in your second bucket and rinse the panel. I prefer to start from the top of the vehicle and move down, while moving around the vehicle until it is completely clean.
Gyeon cleaning mitt chilling in the soap bucket!
Moving one panel at a time you can take your soapy mitt over the panels. After the soap has been applied you can clean the mitt and rinse the panel. Then move on to the next until the car is all clean.
Having cleaned the car from top to bottom it is time to protect the paint by using the supplied sealant which is Gyeon Wet Coat. This product adds an instant hydrophobic coating to help repel dirt, debris and water. This product can be applied to wheels, trim and paint.. but the best part about it is the easy application method. While the car still wet you will apply 2-3 sprays per panel and then rinse it off. That’s it!
The car is all clean but still wet. Looks like it is ready for Wet coat.
It is time to apply Wet coat before you dry the car. Below the short videos will help showcase how it works.
Above we see the car prior to applying Wet coat. The water stays in a sheet before tumbling off the car.
Applying Wet coat is just as easy as it looks above. Car needs to be damp and you can then apply it.
You can go ahead and rinse it off as shown. You will see how quickly the water beads up and rushes off. It’s like a mini ceramic coat.
Now that your sealant has been applied, you can start drying the car. The Gyeon cleaning towel and Wet coat will now help you make quick work of drying the car. I was absolutely blown away by how quickly I was able to remove the leftover water on my car. I was able to dry the car completely without needing to ring out the cleaning towel once.
Super soft and absorbent, this is by far the best drying towel I have used.
I was able to easily dry the car off without even ringing this towel out once.
It’s time to admire all your hard work and enjoy a fun drive. Maybe with such a clean slippery car you can eek out a bit more Mpgs… or maybe that is just wishful thinking!
All shined up and ready for the weekend!
Gyeon’s links
Amazon tool links
Ryobi Automotive pressure washer car kit
Buckets and grit guards