Should I use pH neutral car wash for ceramic coatings?
Yes and no. Mostly yes.
What you should really use is any car shampoo, which is made by a reputable manufacturer specifically to be safe on cars. It may or may not be pH neutral.
"pH neutral" has become something of a shorthand for "safe for cars", and so some brands might put this on the bottle.
Why is pH neutral important? It isn't, in fact there are many good reasons to use car shampoos that aren't. Citrus based cleaners are very good at removing things like oil and tree sap because they are acidic. Many soaps have bite because they lean towards caustic, and that is fine too, as long as you don't over do it.
Every week we see cars with damage to plastic trim, window rubbers and chrome, in the form of staining and burns. This is because people have taken their cars to those fellas by the side of the road who wash your car, by hand, for £10. One of the many (and more legal) reasons they can do this so cheaply is that they can clean your car very quickly. They are helped in this by mixing up the soap at double strength or using wheel cleaner.
By making the soap very caustic, you can make it very aggressive. As Barry would say, "Bang, and the dirt is gone!". Now you know why your shower doors have those chemical burns on them.
Hands that do dishes can be soft as your face, but dish soap is quite harsh because designed to remove grease and may also contain a lot of salt as a thickener. Unfortunately, a lot of people will decide that on a sunny day they can get out with the kids and clean the car as something fun to do. They have a bucket, a sponge, and dish soap will probably do the job, right?
It probably won't do any real harm once or twice, but it is not good for your car long term. A ceramic coating would probably hold up to this pretty well, but it isn't good for rubbers and plastic long term.
Car shampoo is not expensive, and I really don't people use dish soap and floor cleaner to save money. I think it is often a question of convenience, it's what they have lying around and it saves them a trip to Halford's. However, car shampoos are not rocket surgery to make. And so next time you are in the supermarket, take a wander through the motor accessory isle and pick up a bottle. Even your supermarket's own-brand car shampoo is going to be far superior to Mr Muscle Power Clean.
Supermarket Car Care Products
We took a look at Asda, Tescos, Morissons and Sainsbury's and as far as we can tell, all of them except Sainsbury's stock the four things you need to clean a car with a ceramic coating.
- A Plastic Bucket - This is a handy device for holding water, you can even use two in order to help you avoid wash marks. There are many videos on YouTube showing you how to do this. It's called The Two Bucket Method.
- Car Shampoo - The afore mentioned supermarkets stock Car Plan, Armour All, Triple Wax, Demon, and Simoniz. Any of these is perfectly adequate for the job.
- A Microfibre wash mitt - We want you to use a wash mitt, because they are far less likely to cause wash marks than a sponge. Asda sell a wash mitt by Auto-drive. Tesco and Morrisons sell one by Simoniz.
- Microfibre Towels - Lastly, you should dry your car. Large microfibre towels are easiest. We suggest you have two to do a whole car. All the supermarkets sell purpose made towels. They also sell chamois and synthetic chamois leathers which will also do the job.
Finally, we recommend you spend about 9 minutes learning good methods on how to clean your car on Youtube. This will not only save you time, save you from wasting money on products you don't need, it will also save your car from scratches and help you to maintain your ceramic coating. If you have access to a self service car wash Gary has also done a video showing how he cleans his car.
Written by Danny Argent. Last updated 10/02/2023 17:36