Keeping a black car clean can seem like a fool’s errand. Deep black paints contrast with light-colored water spots, bird droppings, dust and dirt, making stains and grime impossible to hide.
How do you maintain pristine black paint when they look so much dirtier than other paints? Ultimately it comes down to protecting the paint early on, being thorough when washing and drying, using clean towels and wash mitts and storing your vehicle in an area free of contamination sources like trees and sprinklers.
In this article, we’ll cover ten common sense tips for keeping a black car clean. All of these tips are DIY friendly, so you don’t need to be a professional or a car obsessive to properly maintain a black paintjob.
Tip #1: Only Use Soft, Uncontaminated Microfiber Towels, Wash Mitts and Applicators
Touching your car’s paint with dirty towels, wash mitts and applicators can scratch the paint and leave behind grime. Harsh, low quality towels and mitts can also scratch paint pretty badly. All of these tiny scratches and re-deposited contamination build up over time, dulling the paint and causing it to appear dirty.
Once this happens, your only solution is to decontaminate the paint and polish it to remove the scratches. This is an intensive, expensive process that removes part of your paint’s protective clear coat, so it’s not something you want to do often.
Instead, it’s best to use plush, clean microfiber towels and mitts that won’t scratch or re-deposit contamination.
To avoid using dirty or harsh towels and mitts, follow these best practices:
- Wash towels and wash mitts after every use with a detergent designed for detailing accessories (Regular detergent doesn’t break down wax and can make towels less effective)
- Inspect towels and wash mitts for embedded particles before storing
- Store clean and inspected towels and wash mitts in an enclosed area (like a box or cabinet) to avoid contamination by airborne particles.
Tip #2: Pre-Rinse & Pre-Foam Before Washing
When washing a black car, you should always rinse, foam and rinse again before touching the paint with a wash mitt.
Pre-rinsing and pre-foaming helps break down, loosen and remove contaminants and grime without touching the paint.
That way, by the time you start washing the paint with a wash mitt, you’re not smearing around dirt and grime that will re-deposit on the surface or scratch the paint.
Tip #3: Use a High-Foaming Soap That Breaks Down Contaminants
In tip #2 I recommend pre-rinsing and pre-foaming the vehicle before your regular wash. In order to do this best, you need to use a wash soap that actively breaks down contaminants as the foam dwells on the surface so you can remove as much grime as possible with a simple rinse. Premium wash soaps from reputable brands like Dr. Beasley’s and others are all designed to foam heavily and break down contamination.
Tip #4: Use the Two-Bucket Method
The two-bucket of method of washing involves using separate buckets for wash soap and clean rinse water. The rinse bucket is lined with a Grit Guard, a type of grate that traps particles and contaminants from your wash mitt so they don’t scratch or re-deposit on the paint.
Using this wash method, in addition to the best practices listed above, makes it almost impossible to re-introduce contamination on the black paint.
Tip #5: Use As Many Fresh Wash Mitts & Towels as Possible
In addition to using a clean, uncontaminated wash mitts and towels and employing the two bucket method, there’s one other thing you can do to ensure a scratch-free, thorough clean: use multiple wash mitts and towels over the course of your washing and drying process.
For the best possible results, you could even go as far as using a separate wash mitt or towel for each panel.
A fresh wash mitt or towel will always be cleaner and more effective than one that was just used, even if it was rinsed in a Grit Guard-lined bucket. While it may seem excessive to use a fresh mitt or towel on each panel, it’s worth it if you’re serious about keeping your black car clean.
Tip #6: Wash From the Top Down
When you wash a car (not just a black one) it’s best to start washing at the top and work your way down. The reason is a matter of gravity.
Washing your car from the top down ensures any grime or contamination clinging to the surface of the car drips downward. This prevents grime and contamination from getting re-introduced to the paint surface as you continue to wash.
If you were to wash your car from the bottom up, you’d be dripping grimy water all over the sections you just cleaned, undoing your hard work.
Tip #7: Rinse Thoroughly to Avoid Water Spots
Water spots are mineral-based stains that appear when hard water dries on the car’s paint. Because most people wash their cars with hard, mineral-rich tap water, these types of stains are extremely common.
Usually people don’t notice these stains because they’re too light to show up significantly on lighter colored paints. But with black paint, water spots contrast heavily with the dark color, making them hard to miss.
To avoid this, there are a couple things you can do. One is to use soft water without minerals. This is hard to do, however, because filters for hard water can be expensive.
The other strategy for mitigating water spots is to do a thorough final rinse with a light stream of water. A gentle flow of water creates a “sheeting” effect that effectively moves water off the surface without leaving droplets behind that may dry into water spots. It’s essentially a spot-free rinse.
Tip #8: Apply a Ceramic Coating
You’ve likely heard of people using wax to protect their vehicle’s paint, making it shinier and easier to clean.
When you’re dealing with black paint, it’s best to opt for a ceramic coating instead. Ceramic coatings are like an inorganic, ultra-durable high-performance version of wax that lasts for years on end instead of weeks or months.
Ceramic coatings create an invisible barrier over the paint that make it more difficult for contaminants to stick to the surface. This keeps the car cleaner and also ensures contamination is removed easily during the wash.
Tip #9: Clean Acidic/Bonded Stains as Quickly as Possible
Stains like bird droppings, insect remains and tree sap can bond to the paint if not addressed quickly, and even turn acidic and eat into the paint if left to sit for too long.
If a bonded stain turns acidic and eats into the paint, it forms a permanent etching that can only be removed via machine polishing.
For this reason, especially with a black car, you need to clean bonded stains as quickly as possible before they become caustic. Our recommendation? Keep a bottle of a detail spray and a clean microfiber towel in your glovebox at all times so you can clean any bonded stains as they appear.
Tip #10: Park Your Vehicle Away From Environmental Hazards
My last tip for keeping a black car clean? Be careful about where you keep your car. There are numerous environmental hazards that can make a car dirty while it’s parked:
- Sap from nearby trees
- Hard water from nearby sprinklers
- Contaminated water from leaky garage ceilings
- Pollen from nearby plant life
- Rail dust from overhead train tracks
With this in mind, you want to be sure you’re either parking your black car in a safe location outside, or better yet, an environmentally controlled parking garage or storage space.
Following these best practices is the key to keeping a black car clean. Remember to always use clean wash mitts and towels, wash from the top down, protect with a ceramic coating and park away from environmental contaminants. If you can keep all this mind, you can keep a black car clean for as long as you own it!
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