Introduction
We would like to start a small series on the subject of vehicle and motorhome care. For us, care is the be-all and end-all, not only to feel comfortable in your vehicle, but also to maintain its value. In addition to regular inspections by a workshop, this also includes washing and cleaning the vehicle.
There are two ways to clean your vehicle:
- You drive into a car wash
- You drive into a self-service car wash
For us, there is only one option that comes into question here: our Grand California is washed exclusively by hand. Of course, it is more convenient to simply drive to a car wash, but that has so many disadvantages that we are not prepared to accept.
The car wash problem
Most camper van washes are not actually such facilities, but are usually normal truck washes. The systems are therefore designed for cleaning trucks and their tarpaulins, and the brushes are designed accordingly. The material is usually so hard that it leaves small scratches all over the car, which are arranged in a circular pattern due to the rotation of the car wash brushes. These scratches can be removed by extensive polishing, but even this cannot be done forever, because at some point there will be no more paint left to polish.
Crack point motorhome window
Much worse than the circular scratches on the paintwork are the same scratches on the acrylic windows. I bet everyone who regularly drives through a car wash with their van or motorhome has lots of small scratches in the windows. The more often you drive through the car wash, the “blinder” the windows become.
If you have now rushed to your vehicle to check the whole thing and are reading on in a bad mood, don’t panic! Acrylic windows can also be polished and most scratches removed. But the same applies here as for the paintwork, at some point there will be no more windows that can be polished. A little bit of material is removed with every polish and if you do this regularly, there will eventually be no more acrylic. In the rest of the article you will find a polish that you can use to get rid of the bad mood.
We have had good experiences with the Dometic Clean&Care Arcylglas cleaning set, which you can get for around 28 euros at Camping Wagner, among others.
Hand wash by car wash staff
Stop! Where I go, they wash the motorhome completely by hand for 30 euros and everything is top notch. Some people will say that now and unfortunately I have to reply: No!
In most cases, such services are also available at truck wash facilities, and for good reason. The more thorough operators know what their portal system does to a motorhome and especially to the windows. So they simply offer a hand wash. This always follows the same pattern: an employee comes with a high-pressure cleaner, removes the coarse dirt and then the telescopic brush is used to give the whole vehicle a good scrub. Finally, the high-pressure cleaner is used and the wash is finished. The only annoying thing is that the brushes used were washing the tarpaulin of the truck in front of you a minute earlier. We don’t need to talk any further about the dirt, which consists of small stones, among other things, and what this means for the paintwork and especially the windows. Apart from that, the entire vehicle will have water stains if it is not blown dry by the portal system. This is because the high-pressure cleaner is not usually operated with osmosis water, which does not leave any stains when drying.
Please don’t get me wrong, there are certainly 100% good car washes that offer hand washing and do it properly. But unfortunately, most of them are just expensive and ruin the vehicle.
Hand wash in a self-service car wash
This is definitely the gold standard, if you like to call it that. Nothing is more thorough, cleaner and cheaper than washing your motorhome by hand in a self-service car wash. But only if you wash with your own sponge and brush, otherwise you will have exactly the same scratch issue as in a car wash. Imagine what people clean with the brush at a self-service car wash, from the car to the rims to the rubber floor mat. These brushes are never clean.
What equipment is needed?
Of course you’ll have to spend a few euros on basic equipment, but we’re not talking about insane sums here. The products we mention are all things we have used ourselves. In other words, we are speaking from experience and not from hearsay.
Equipment list
Washing bucket
The first item is perfectly simple and probably already in your stash. A simple 10 liter cleaning bucket into which you can pour the water and shampoo. There are also special buckets for washing cars, but no.
Telescopic washing brush
A telescopic washing brush is important, only with this help can you reach every part of the vehicle, on the roof or on the high side wall. We have been using a model from Nigrin for some time now. This has a fixed brush head and no mop cover. Initially, we also had a model with an overcoat, but this always came loose and eventually gave up the ghost. It was also not really good at building up pressure to remove stubborn dirt.
Thus, our choice fell on the Nigrin brush, but here you also need to be careful, because this brush is also a compromise. The firm brush head is really great, but the bristles are relatively hard and who presses here too firmly, you guessed it, makes scratches in the paint again. Go easy on it, there aren’t many brushes that are better. Should you think while reading, of course, clear ours is much better, then write that with pleasure in the comments.
Sponge / Washing glove
In addition to the brush, we recommend using a wash mitt or sponge for the finishing touches, which will help you get into the corners. We use several variants, but our favorite is the Megiuars wash mitt.
Manager
Unfortunately, there are not many self-service car washes that are equipped with a scaffold to make washing more comfortable. If you are one of the lucky ones with such a facility nearby, you can of course do without a ladder.
Have a look at our website WomoWasch.de to see if there is a self-service car wash with the appropriate equipment near you. If you know of a plant that is not listed there, we would be happy to receive the information.
If you need a ladder we strongly recommend a telescopic ladder, Thule has a fantastic model on offer, which is equipped with a magnetic mount on the top and so easily holds on to the vehicle. This significantly reduces the possibility of a fall from the ladder. The Thule ladder is but really not cheap and costs a whopping 300 euros, but scores with a 1A processing. The Thule ladder and a few alternatives, which we have not tested, but which have a similar operating principle, are linked.
Puller
At the top of the text, I mentioned that the high-pressure cleaners in car washes generally do not use osmosis water, which unfortunately also applies to many self-service car washes. However, new systems usually offer this, and the wash programs are usually called “Shiny dry” or similar. Please read the description of the wash programs on your self-service car wash carefully.
If osmosis water is not available, we recommend using a silicone squeegee. Important, please do not use classic leather for drying, if there is still dirt on the paintwork and you rub over it with leather, you will get ugly scratches again. At this point we recommend a soft dryer, like this one:
Last but not least, the shampoo
Almost most important is the car shampoo, here now divide the minds which shampoo, from which manufacturer is the best. There are countless variants from all price ranges here. Since we sealed our vehicle with a ceramic sealer from Meguiares, we also use a matching base shampoo from the manufacturer.
This is important because if the products don’t match and you use any shampoo, with any sealant, the shampoo may just wash off the sealant.
Do yourself and your vehicle a favor and wash by hand. In the next parts of the series, we will go into more detail about individual products and give tips on the washing process itself. We hope that this is a successful start and can help you a little.
Again, please note that this is only our experience and opinions. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to use the comment function or write to us using the contact form.
Love greeting Silvie & Martin
