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Apartment Life



  Red
Hello,

My car is going for a little makeover with a certain Mr Gally in the next month once we can get a date organised and i want to keep it as perfect as i can going forward. Apart from my lack of skills and equipment which i hope to rectify the biggest problem i can see is the fact i live in a top floor apartment 3 floors up. How do people who live in this kind of situation cope with washing their car? And doing everything else needed to keep it sparkling?
 

Crybert

ClioSport Club Member
  Cup 172
I'm in the same boat. Just have to travel to my parents and do it there. No hose outlets in the car park where I stay so not possible
 

Coby.

ClioSport Club Member
  XC60-R.......V40-R
AF Cutrus Power or the likes and a local jet wash.
JD manages without a hose at his house.
 

Advikaz

ClioSport Club Member
My place is very strict & full of snobs, won't let you wash your car on site, so currently I have to go back to my parents & clean it.
 
Last edited:
AF Cutrus Power or the likes and a local jet wash.
@JD manages without a hose at his house.

Not any more lad. Run one through the house. And I'm on the ground floor.

I use to take it to the local jet wash, spray on a pre-wash and then jet it down. But it left tide marks as the water coming out of the j/w was so hard.
 

Crybert

ClioSport Club Member
  Cup 172
You can have an external tap installed but you'd have to be friendly with one of the ground floor neighbours and it wouldn't be cheap
 
As mentioned above, try a local jet wash.

Get yourself a good bucket or two, pre wash, shampoo, wash mitt and drying towel. Clean the car and dry it at the jet wash. And if it needs wax or polish complete this stage at home.

However just use the jet wash and not the brushes they supply :eek:!



Hope this helps, Joe.
 
  Golf GT & A4 Avant
Cliotoby had this problem I think

As said above, a regular trip to the jet wash with something like AF citrus power, leave it to dwell then pressure rinse off.

For washing the car at the apartment, look for rinseless wash products like optimum no rinse (ONR) and the likes. A single bucket of water, few microfibres and a panel at a time, then top up with a quickdetailer to remove any water marks left behind and to maintain protection
 

Gally

Formerly Mashed up egg in a cup
ClioSport Club Member
There are certainly ways around it but it can still be a ballache. Local jet wash is always a good one, means you can still use a decent process. Water is also better up here.

Optimum no rinse etc is good but it's very limited imo.
 
As mentioned above, try a local jet wash.

Get yourself a good bucket or two, pre wash, shampoo, wash mitt and drying towel. Clean the car and dry it at the jet wash. And if it needs wax or polish complete this stage at home.

However just use the jet wash and not the brushes they supply :eek:!



Hope this helps, Joe.

Exactly this. CP or RDS spray down at the jet wash, go pay, come back and it's worked its magic, jet wash off, towel down and/or drive off. In fact I'll be doing it this weekend and using Hydr02.
 
  Evo
I've just moved to a 1st floor apartment this year from my parents so am faced with the same dilemma. My ground floor neighbours hate anything car related and probably resent my decatted 172 firing up at 5am every morning to much to allow me to steal a water supply.

Haven't had the 265 out of storage since last September yet but dreading keeping it clean up to my standards later this year :(
 
  Red
As mentioned above, try a local jet wash.

Get yourself a good bucket or two, pre wash, shampoo, wash mitt and drying towel. Clean the car and dry it at the jet wash. And if it needs wax or polish complete this stage at home.

However just use the jet wash and not the brushes they supply :eek:!



Hope this helps, Joe.

Thanks i should be able to do that... Now fancy roping a basket for me to buy all that haha?
 
  Not a 320d
Hello,

My car is going for a little makeover with a certain Mr Gally in the next month once we can get a date organised and i want to keep it as perfect as i can going forward. Apart from my lack of skills and equipment which i hope to rectify the biggest problem i can see is the fact i live in a top floor apartment 3 floors up. How do people who live in this kind of situation cope with washing their car? And doing everything else needed to keep it sparkling?

Without reading the responses I've been doing this for exactly a year now and let me tell you it really makes you appreciate how nice it is to own a house with a drive way. f**k Surrey and its bullshit house prices. I Lived in a shared house for 6 months before buying a flat in Woking with the GF and over this time had no access to an outdoor tap or electricity supply. I can hear people's s**t running down the pipes in the wall ffs.

Started with a waterless wash - ONR. First time id ever used this and id be lying if I said I didn't make mistakes and I cause some nasty RDS. It also leaves behind a residue which covers up any protective layer youve applied like wax or nano's sealant. I rated it highly at first but didnt take me long to figure out a jetwash would be miles better and worth the extra effort.

Go find your local Jetwash.

Ive become the master of this. I rekon it costs me in the region of £10 to wash my car each time too so its certainly not economical. But if this is a problem to you dont wash your car.

Requirements:

2 Buckets
Sponge Or Mitt
Shampoo of choice
6 x 10 litre bottles of water. Tescos are the best with their handles.
Various Brushes Of choice...

1. Drive Down to the jetwash, buy yourself two tickets. Lowest price/time each - enough to give your car a wash down to remove suds and s**t.

2. Park up at the side (Not in the jetwash itself because people get really funny about this) and spray down the car with a pre wash - snowfoam in a spray bottle or Devil Shine Dirt Shifter.

3. Wash your wheels. I Spray on the wheel cleaner and leave it to dwell while I get the rinse bucket and empty two bottles of water into it. Then wash the wheels. Then empty the shitty water over the path and wipe out the dirt in your bucket.

4. Hopefully at this point no b*****d is busy washing their car so drive right in there and park up. Buckets out. Fill with two bottle of water each. Add shampoo.

5. Enter ur code and set to rinse (Note that Morrisons has two jet settings. One a low power filtered water and the other is actually quite powerful (est. 120bar). Rinse car and wheels. Spray the shampoo bucket and make foam. BEWARE the jet has a habbit of randomly cutting out. My bonnet bears the scar from such an occasion.

6. Wash the car as you would normally with two buckets (trust me you REALLY need two buckets!). You should be quick and thorough as usually there's two angry people waiting for me at this point.Empty the buckets once done, put in boot

7. Enter ur second code. Rinse off.

8. Reverse out and park up (Unless no ones around or the other bay is free). Dry the car. Ideally I would store the towels in a dedicated plastic box. Treat your towels better than you do the car and youll minimise any damage.


At this point I drive home. AS its less than a mile down the road and park it up in the cramped shithole basement car park. If you have a fair way to go then you should do this on site.


9. Apply detailing spray. I can recommend Sonax Brilliant Shine. Little fussy to use but great for removing watermarks, tree sap, aphid s**t, and any other crap that washing didnt remove. Its also a great sealant so tops up the shine and beading (Youtube this stuff its great) but it can be fussy to apply and wouldn't recommend applying in high temperatures (Remember mid day-later afternoon during Summer 2013?) so wait until the evening or during the day in winter.


I own a black car so even after washing it looks filthy. I need a QD because when im home ive obviously collected dust on the 2 minute drive back and its still got traces of crap on it and water marks. I also haven't got time to wax. Thats why I rate Sonax BSD so highly. Because its a god send and is better at cleaning paintwork than C2V3 or Reload is.

My parents also live 250 miles away.
 
  275 Trophy
I live in a 1st floor apartment and wash mine using the 2 bucket method, but I cart the water up and down the stairs in the buckets.

It's a massive ballache to be honest and a drive with an outside tap is very high on the list of priorities for the next house.

I do sometimes use the local jetwash first but it seems to waste more time as the results never seem any good - once I've got the car home I tend to start afresh anyway.
 

Far too OTT, Baller.

Drive in, spray on RDS and WWHW, pay for jet wash to let it dwell, brush wheels, jet wash off, towel down.

Drive (500 yards) home, tyre shine, C2V3 all over, done.

HELLO

ebe3u7ah.jpg
 
  Evo
Far too OTT, Baller.

Drive in, spray on RDS and WWHW, pay for jet wash to let it dwell, brush wheels, jet wash off, towel down.

Drive (500 yards) home, tyre shine, C2V3 all over, done.

HELLO

ebe3u7ah.jpg

I'm very much unfamiliar with detailing gear, what's RDS and WWHW?
 
I'm very much unfamiliar with detailing gear, what's RDS and WWHW?

Yeah I didn't think that was clever when I posted it. Sorry, Ben.

RDS - Rapid Dirt Shifter - a product from DemonShine/CarPlan that's £6 for a litre bottle from Halfords, ASDA, few other places. It's a wax safe pre-wash product, so dissolves dirt. Similar to AutoFinesse Citrus Power (check out my review thread further down for more info and its uses).

WWHW - Wonder Wheels Hot Wheels - purple wheel cleaner from Wonder Wheels that breaks down dirt, but also contains a chemical that results in iron contaminant removal (same chemical reaction that IronX provides), so full cleans wheels but will also eventually remove protection on the wheels i.e. isn't wax safe. RDS will also work on wheels if they are waxed/protected.
 
Thank you! So no need for a wash mitt or anything of the sort?

Idea of it, Jamie, is to remove as much dirt as poss before touching the car (less dirt = less dirt on the mitt to drag around = less swirls). However, in this case, it's to remove as much dirt as poss with just a jet wash down. If you look at my CP thread, you'll see what a difference a spray of CP or RDS can do versus just a jet wash. Results speak for themselves. My car is hand washed maybe once ever two months? But still looks like the above with a jet wash down.
 
  Not a 320d
Far too OTT, Baller.

Drive in, spray on RDS and WWHW, pay for jet wash to let it dwell, brush wheels, jet wash off, towel down.

Drive (500 yards) home, tyre shine, C2V3 all over, done.

HELLO

ebe3u7ah.jpg

I must be doing something wrong. Use RDS all the time and its never enough to jet wash it off - then dry with a towel? In 7 years I have never used a pre wash (Except for STRONG G101 in really hot water) that I can do that.
 
I must be doing something wrong. Use RDS all the time and its never enough to jet wash it off - then dry with a towel? In 7 years I have never used a pre wash (Except for STRONG G101 in really hot water) that I can do that.

That's my mistake. I don't dry with a towel at all. Unless it's been hand washed. Apple-ogies boyo!
 
  E46 M3 & UR Quattro
Personally I am now using a 25l water container with a hozelock tap on it, run an extension cable out the window and connect the pressure washer up.

The container lasts for around 6-7 minutes of constant use so is more than enough to do the whole car in my experience.

Works really well!
 

Darren S

ClioSport Club Member
We were pretty much 'forced' to purchase an underground spot due to the parking spaces outside being monitored by the love-children of Stalin and The Worst Parking Management Company, going. We got a ticket within the first few weeks (£60) for not displaying a small permit, even though our reg. number is on file and we were parked in a freely available slot. Weapons.

Anyways, we've stumped up the fee for two underground slots and besides being free of de-icing duties, we also get free water and electricity down there. The only caveat is that any access water is swept down one of the many drain covers - which is fair enough, imo.

I've not taken advantage (really) of the freebies on offer down there - but I fully intend to when the weather gets just a little bit warmer.

D.
 

Gally

Formerly Mashed up egg in a cup
ClioSport Club Member
We were pretty much 'forced' to purchase an underground spot due to the parking spaces outside being monitored by the love-children of Stalin and The Worst Parking Management Company, going. We got a ticket within the first few weeks (£60) for not displaying a small permit, even though our reg. number is on file and we were parked in a freely available slot. Weapons.

Anyways, we've stumped up the fee for two underground slots and besides being free of de-icing duties, we also get free water and electricity down there. The only caveat is that any access water is swept down one of the many drain covers - which is fair enough, imo.

I've not taken advantage (really) of the freebies on offer down there - but I fully intend to when the weather gets just a little bit warmer.

D.

That's such a great perk, all detailing/cleaning needs is somewhere dry with a roof and water/electricity. You don't need a big epic garage. You are more lucky than people with a house but no dry area.
 

Knuckles

ClioSport Admin
When I lived with my gfs mam I used a watering can lol!

bucket with shampoo, rinse with the watering can then crack on with the polishes and wax etc.

when it was really bad I'd take it to the jet wash first.
 

Coby.

ClioSport Club Member
  XC60-R.......V40-R
That's such a great perk, all detailing/cleaning needs is somewhere dry with a roof and water/electricity. You don't need a big epic garage. You are more lucky than people with a house but no dry area.

Agreed.... What if do to have that, We have a large driveway with raps and electrics but our garage is full of junk, I long for some shelter to do a full detail out of the British weather.
 
  Evo
I've just ordered some AF citrus power under recommendations of this thread and thinking of getting one of the 8ltr water sprayers suggested above. My theory is to try this:

Take it to local jetwash and apply AF citrus power all over car
Jetwash off after a few minutes to soak in
Drive back home ( about 5 mins )
shampoo car from bucket
rinse with water sprayer
dry off and bobs your uncle.

Hopefully that'll get me to a similar finish of my old snow foam and shampoo procedure.
 

Coby.

ClioSport Club Member
  XC60-R.......V40-R
That should work :)

Surprising how much a quick jet wash will remove especially with CP applied beforehand.
 

Darren S

ClioSport Club Member
That's such a great perk, all detailing/cleaning needs is somewhere dry with a roof and water/electricity. You don't need a big epic garage. You are more lucky than people with a house but no dry area.

Yeah - we're pretty lucky m8. The lighting isn't too bad either - though that doesn't really show in the picture. We got the bay to the right of the Clio too (looking at it), so there's plenty of space to have kit out and ready to be used in a cleaning session. There's even the little concrete posts to stand bottles of cleaning products on! :cool:

Clioinbasement_zpsd32b892f.jpg


D.
 


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