If you use your eight-lug truck for what it was built for, it's going to get dirty. Maybe that means you use your truck for work, four-wheeling on the weekend, or maybe just sitting in the driveway or parking lot and getting dirty. To preserve its value and make it more fun to drive, like any quality piece of equipment, you need to give it a little care. What better time than at the end of an active summer as it turns into fall?
| Carrand's Water Snake can redirect the adjustable spray in any direction, which is great for getting under the frame or on top of the cab.
It was a brutal winter, spring was not mild, and summer was punishing. Mud, dust, road slop, and salt have left their mark. Our expedition trucks never see a garage, so over the years, we have discovered ways to make cleaning them as easy as possible.
First, you need to rinse off the chunks. Soap comes later. Even with all the fancy gadgets out there, it's hard to beat the ordinary garden hose hand sprayer. Carrand makes the Water Snake that can redirect the adjustable spray in any direction, which is great for getting under the frame. Its telescoping wand and three-position off-high-low thumb switch make the top of the cab easy to reach.
With the big stuff rinsed off, it's time for soap. A couple of years ago, we found the Grit Guard bucket. It has a big grate in the bottom that allows sand and grit to fall through, instead of turning your wash mitt or brush into a piece of sandpaper. Great idea. Add soap and water. No worries.
We used Joy dishwashing detergent for years, at the risk of stripping the wax off our paint. We thought it worked fine, but several companies have products specifically designed for washing vehicles and they are much better. We have tried many of them, including Protect All, Meguiar's, Turtle Wax, Mothers, and Armor All. They are all excellent products. Our favorite is Armor All Ultra Shine Wash & Wax.
If your truck is dirty-and I don't mean a little dust-you can't clean it with a hose. Remember the secret? Take a rag and wipe off the dirt. Rags work, but there are special products that vastly improve and speed up the job. Emgee/CleanTools, Adjust-a-Brush, Turtle Wax, and Carrand all offer great wash mitts made of some combination of natural wool, polyester, and nylon. One interesting tool we use is the Truck & Cap Window Washer by C.A. Roberts. It gives us a 48-inch reach to clean between the cab and camper, and the other end has a built-in dual squeegee.
Wash mitts and gloves are important, but for big jobs, a brush works wonders. There are plenty of extendable brushes out there, but Carrand's Deluxe 10-inch Flow-Thru has a huge, soft head that carries loads of soap and water, and the click-lock handle is super easy to adjust with wet hands. Some people will like its three-position Flow-Thru feature.
Maybe a bug sponge will help with the guts on your grille. Meguiar's and Thetford make special bug and tar removers, but they probably take off your last wax job, too. Got love bugs? They're really nasty. We've heard folks in Florida spray cooking oil on their hoods and grilles to keep the little buggers from sticking when a hatch occurs.
Next, and perhaps one of the most important steps, is drying. If you've done a good job with the soap and rinse, grab an Original California Water Blade. This is one great tool! If you're still drying your truck with an old bath towel, you will be amazed at how fast the Water Blade's patented T-Bar silicone edge easily removes 90 percent of all water from most surfaces in seconds. The new design includes a cool little mini blade at the end for drying the mirrors.
The old bath towel still has a place, but for most of the 10 percent of water the Water Blade leaves, the Absorber is next in line. Made by Emgee/CleanTools, the Absorber has replaced all our chamois and most of our towels. If you don't have a bath towel to sacrifice, Carrand, Mothers, and Turtle Wax have great selections of drying cloths.
Speaking of glass, there are some tricks we've learned. A good coat of Rain-X really does keep everything from sticking-especially rain. If the glass is really bad, one of the several spray cleaners will work.
We especially like the Invisible Glass Cleaner by Stoner, Inc. The combination squeegee/scrubber from Carrand has a 20-inch handle, which makes reaching the middle of a Super Duty's windshield easy. We carry one on the road. It saves paper towels and beats using the greasy wash sticks often poking out of gooky soups in service stations.
We all know how difficult it is to get the inside of a windshield clean. Now there are two products that make that awkward job almost fun. The Shield Wiper slips on the back of your hand, making those hard to reach corners a breeze. The Reach & Clean wand by Invisible Glass can clean where your hand has never gone.
Over the years, we have noticed an interesting phenomenon. If you can't clean your truck, at least clean the tires and wheels. For some reason, clean rubber makes everything look better. There are several products by Mothers, Armor All, and Autoglym that will remove some of the brake dust and road grime from rims with just a hose, but what it really takes is a good brush and elbow grease. We have found that a bead of Soft Scrub and/or a little Simple Green does the job. With all of these, a stiff bristle brush is mandatory. (Natural bristle is the best if you can find one.) For getting into places you may not want to stick your fingers, Carrand offers a selection of long, round, wheel brushes that are just right for cleaning around the spokes of your mag wheels.
Once your tires are clean and dry, there are many products that will put the "new" back on old rubber. We don't like the shiny look, so Original Armor All, Vinylex by Lexol, Mothers Protectant, Turtle Wax F21, and Autoglym's Instant Tire Dressing give us that new tire appearance. Most require you to buff off the excess if you want that matte finish look of new rubber. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, Carrand makes a tire dressing applicator that is convenient.
If you've let your aluminum wheels become scratched or pitted, there are some great tools and products that will give them back a blinding shine, including: X-Treem, Griot's Garage, Flitz, Maas, and Mothers. Flitz has a drill-powered buffing wheel and Mothers has a selection of PowerBalls that are used with a variable speed hand-drill. We really like the new Cone PowerBall for getting into hard-to-clean mag wheels. Choosing the right polishing product can make the difference.
Companies are always on the lookout for growing needs of automotive enthusiasts. Mothers, Turtle Wax, 3M, Rain-X, and Invisible Glass have all introduced products for headlight restoration. Sunlight, UV rays, and the elements can degrade modern headlight lenses. If damage is minimal, the easy-to-use wipes by Invisible Glass may do the job. Mothers, 3M, and Turtle Wax are more complete. Turtle Wax uses micro-fine polishing pads and sealer. Mothers employs a special PowerBall (used on an electric drill), and its special PowerPlastic polish. Once the lens is cleaned and restored to its original clarity, Xpel makes precision, custom-cut, optically clear PVC headlight protection kits.
If you have a few miles on your truck, chances are it has some nicks, scratches, and rock hickies. Mothers now has a paint chip repair kit. The Quixx Repair System and the Turtle Wax Scratch Repair Kit may also eliminate those ugly battle scars. For mild scratches, Meguiar's ScratchX may do the job.
If your ride is new, get some Xpel hood and fender paint protection kits on it right away. These custom-cut sections of plastic film are easy to apply, and they really work to keep bugs and gravel from nicking your paint
Turning our attention to the inside, if you're lucky enough to have a real leather interior, it needs special attention. There are two basic cleaning solutions, the one-step and the two-step. If you're in a hurry, Meguiar's one-step Gold Class leather foam will get the job done. We prefer the two-step Lexol method. Lexol Cleaner is used first, followed by Lexol Leather Conditioner. Works great and smells good.
Cleaning the dash and instrument panel can be difficult, with all its nooks and crannies. We recently discovered Cyber Clean, a weird kind of squishy synthetic membrane developed in Switzerland. When it is pressed on and into those impossible to reach places-like A/C vents and around radio buttons-it picks up dirt and dust like a magnet.
For the bigger areas, Lexol's Vinylex is our favorite. Turtle Wax F21 and Autoglym Vinyl & Rubber Care also leave a nice finish and repel dust. For glass and plastic surfaces, like auxiliary gauges and GPS screens, Invisible Glass has introduced mini Lens Wipes that clean without scratching. We carry a few in the glovebox.
If you have carpet or cloth seats, there are lots of options. Mothers and Meguiar's both offer good spray-on carpet and fabric cleaners. WD-40 has a new Spot Shot carpet stain and odor eliminator, and a product called Carpet Fresh that gets rid of odors. Frankly, keeping your interior clean is easier than cleaning it. For that purpose, Covercraft makes SeatGloves, SeatSavers, and Canine Covers. Their durable polycotton fabric is easy-on/easy-off, and can be cleaned in the washer/dryer anytime they're dirty.
Everything is spiffy now. What about a good wax job? There are so many choices from companies like Mothers, Protect All, Griot's Garage, Turtle Wax, and Meguiar's-it can boggle your mind. Autoglym is the new kid on the block, with a full line of waxes, sealers, and polishes. Coming from across the pond, Autoglym has been approved by Her Majesty The Queen, so we suppose it could work on a heavy-duty truck. Another new high-tech product is Nano Power Finish by CTA Products. It's very quick to apply and can be used on all surfaces. It contains nano particles that seal areas wax cannot reach.
What waxing and polishing often amounts to is how much work you want, how long you want it to last, and what results you want. That doesn't mean you have to do the clay bar treatment every time, but we have found using a clay bar is so easy, it's a good way to start any wax, sealant, or polish job, because it removes contaminants that waxes just cover up. You can feel the difference.
Some products claim to do everything in one step: wash, clean, wax, and polish. Others may involve different products for each of those steps. Wax Shop Super Glaze is still one of our favorites. It's fast, easy, and doesn't leave a white residue on black trim. For your daily driver, the one-step Sealant Polish and Protectant by Griot's Garage is a good option, especially when used in conjunction with one of the new spray-on waxes. We've tried those from Meguiar's, Mothers, Rain-X, Thetford, and Turtle Wax, and they all seem to do a really good job. Ice by Turtle Wax does not leave a white residue on trim.
Many of these companies have excellent instructional DVDs and videos on their websites. Griot's Garage (www.griotsgarage.com) and the informative Forums at Mothers (www.waxforum.com) are two good ones. Griot's Garage has short how-to videos on many of its car care products, including how to use the clay bar.
With any wax, polish, cleaner, or sealer, application is half the secret and often twice the work to do it right. For small, tight places, the assortment of Mothers PowerBalls used on a variable speed drill can save a lot of time. Griot's Garage has 3-inch and 6-inch random orbital polishing and buffing tools. Both produce professional results with no chance of damaging your paint, and we like that! If you don't use a PowerBall or an orbital buffer, reusable Lexol Application Sponges are ideal for waxes and Lexol leather care products. Autoglym also has an interesting pad that fits the fingers. If you use any kind of power polishing and buffing tool, cleaning the pads has been a messy job. Grit Guard's new Universal Pad Washer does the job in seconds.
The old bath towel is quickly losing ground to the microfiber cleaning, drying, and polishing cloths. You should have a few of these around before you start a serious cleaning job. A 100-percent cotton terry cloth will also get it done, but why ruin a good bath towel?
If you use a selection of the products mentioned here, by now you will have made 15 trips to the garage and back to the truck. A very cool tool is the Bucket Taxi. It has big wheels that even roll on gravel, and little pockets for stuff like a wheel brush and a Water Blade-or a can of beer-and the center will carry a full bucket of soapy water. We just load it up and pull it behind us-saves a lot of walking.
This all seems like way too much work, so part of the secret of how we keep trucks clean is dusting them off before they need more attention. The Original California Car Dusters pick up dust like a magnet. Emgee/CleanTools and Thetford make damp wipes with carnauba wax in resealable pouches. Any of the spray-on detailers like Meguiar's Quik Detailer, Mothers Showtime, or Autoglym's Rapid Detailer can be used with a microfiber cloth to produce quick results.
All of this information is about dirt and how to get it off your truck, but the real trick is to keep it off in the first pace. Even a garage has dust that your car or truck attracts like flies on dead meat. Our Ford F-350 and F-550 never see a garage, but at home, we keep them looking new by simply covering them with custom Covercraft WeatherShield covers. They can sit for months under sun, rain, snow, tree pitch, and bird doo. When we pull back the Covercraft fitted covers, the most our vehicle might need is a quick pass with an Original California Car Duster.
So now you know a few of our secrets. It's time to get to work! The only product missing is one that hasn't hit the market yet: Instant Elbow Grease in a spray bottle!
