Wolfgang Uber Rinseless Wash is one of my favorite detailing products that has recently come out. I never thought a rinseless wash would surprise me as much as it does and when Detailed Image started to offer it, I was very happy.
Detail Spray
We are going to start off with one of my favorite things about this product and that’s making what Wolfgang describes as gloss intensive detail spray. This is a very versatile product that can save you a ton of money without substituting a drawback in performance. With this one product, you can:
- Rinseless wash
- Detail Spray
- Waterless wash
- Clay Lubricant
First I am going to display how to make a gallon of the detail spray
The first thing you need is distilled water, this is vital for product performance.
Next is to pour your distilled water in your gallon container. I like mixing my rinseless solutions for detail spray/pre treat spray in this open face container. This way I do not need a funnel or have the chance of spilling any product.
Note: If you do not have a gallon container you can use the jug of distilled water, just understand you are going to have to pour out a few oz’s so it does not over flow.
Now it’s time to pour the concentrate in your distilled water, for detail spray, add 3oz per gallon. You will see the water turn into a rich hot pink color that smells amazing!
After you have poured the concentrate, shake it up. You are now ready to pour your detail spray into bottles/containers. If you have an empty 16oz bottle, add 1/3 ounce of product and fill it up with water to create your waterless wash/detail spray.
This detail spray is simply awesome! It has bridged the gap on using rinseless wash concentrate for detail spray. If I handed you a bottle of Uber detail spray you would never know that it is a rinseless wash concentrate. This is all we have been using for detail spray at the shop and we are very happy with the performance. If you buy a bottle of Uber rinseless just for detail spray, it is well worth it, as one bottle of concentrate can make you over 5 gallons of detail spray! After use, it leaves behind a glossy and slick surface that can compete with some of the best detail sprays on the market. If you are looking to use it as a clay lube, I like to use 1 oz per gallon of distilled water.
Understanding Washing
Car shampoo and rinseless concentrate is essentially LUBRICATION to safely remove the dirt. If you spray a car down with a foam gun, rinse it off and let it air dry, the car is still going to be dirty. You physically have to use wash media to agitate the dirt off your paint. Soap or Rinseless solution is used for lubrication to help encapsulate the dirt, so you do not scratch your paint finish. Adding pressure while you are gliding your mitt across the finish is not going to get your car cleaner, in fact you want to do the exact opposite of pressure, I actually lift my hand up a little bit so I do not grind any dirt in the paint finish. You want to glide the dirt away gently. Another thing I would like to cover is the scratching subject, understand that the products are not the ones scratching the paint finish. If I put Uber detail spray or rinseless wash on the paint finish it is not going to scratch the paint. What scratches the paint is when the user does not use the proper wash media or proper technique to safely wash their car.
Note: No Matter how dirty your car is rinseless washing is still safer than an automatic car wash.
Rinseless Wash
Now we are going to go over how it does as a rinseless wash. The car we are going to clean is a Jeep that drove 2 days on the road from Indianapolis to Chicago, so it is by no means clean. However, if you live in an apartment complex, or have water restrictions where you live and rinseless washing is your only option, it is a great idea to never let your car get too dirty as that will increase the risk to scratch your finish.
Let’s get started, here are some of the before shots.
Like the saying “there’s more than 1 way to skin a cat”, there is more than 1 way to perform a rinseless wash, and we are going to perform a traditional 2 bucket method that everyone can do.
I filled up my DI bucket with 4 gallons of water, Wolfgang instructions are 1 oz per 3 gallons, so I added about 1 oz and 1/2.
Soak your wash mitt in the solution.
Note: It is highly recommended to have more than 1 wash mitt for a rinseless wash, 1 for the upper 75% of the car and one for the lower 25% of the car, I call the lower part of the car the “danger zone”, This zone has the most grit and dirt that has the highest chance of potentially scratching your finish. My blue bucket is for washing and my orange bucket if for rinsing.
Remember the detail spray we made above? Well this is a very vital when doing any rinseless wash. We are going to use the Detail Spray to pre-treat the panel to soften the dirt and have the slick polymers help encapsulate any dirt so our wash mitt can effortlessly glide across our painted finish without scratching.
You are going to saturate the surface, be very generous with the pre-treat spray!
Now that your surface is pre-treated with Uber, it is time to get your wash mitt.
Always start at the top of the car.
Depending on your situation if you can spill excess water on the floor or not, always use the most solution you can, notice my mitt is squeezing out a lot of solution that is extra lubrication to safely glide the dirt away. Work in a slow snake pattern in straight lines, no circular motions, start from left to right and overlap by 50% to ensure every section is clean.
When you get to the lower 25% use another wash mitt.
This is the dirt I picked up, before I put it back on my paint I am going to clean it first.
On my rinse bucket, I am going to rub my mitt against the OUTSIDE of the bucket. Rub your mitt up and down to clean the mitt.
You see that? By rubbing the mitt on the outside of the bucket I got rid of a lot of dirt and debris and I did not even dip it into my rinse bucket yet. If you can avoid putting dirt even in your rinse bucket that means less chances of scratching. After you rub the face of your mitt on the wash bucket dunk your mitt into the rinse bucket and with your free hand agitate the mitt to release any dirt and debris. Also, rub it on the face of your Grit Guard.
Our mitt is nice and clean and now we are going to let it soak in the wash solution, while we dry the panel we just washed.
Drying
The Drying Process Is Important. Not only can the washing process scratch your paint, but the drying process can cause scratches as well. If you missed any dirt during the wash process and wipe your towel across that section, you will be rubbing dirt into your paint. This is where the detail spray again comes into play again, the detail spray adds extra lubrication to the drying process to greatly reduce the chances of scratching and towel marring.
Dry after every panel you wash, this will avoid the solution drying on the car.
Dry in straight lines. The same way you washed, is the same way you dry. In the photo below you will see me lifting the towel up slightly spraying detail spray right before I wipe it. You want to apply little to no pressure in the drying process as well. After this you can use a second towel to buff off any streaks.
Repeat the whole process around the car.
Above you will see the green towel I used to dry the entire car, notice how there is no dirt on the towel, and that is EXACTLY what you want, that means we got all the dirt off during the wash process, and we did not pick up any dirt during the drying process.
Wheels, Tires, & Wheel Wells
Normally you do this step first, but with a rinseless wash you actually want to save this for the last. This is another process that you can do a number of ways, and certain factors come into play such as hose access, how dirty your wheels and tires are, etc.
Pour your left over solution in a wheel bucket.
Spray some diluted all purpose cleaner in the wheel wells, as well as the wheels and tires.
Take your wheel brush that is soaking in the Uber solution and scrub the wheels and tires. If you do not have hose access, fill up a bottle of water and rinse the dirt, after wipe dry with a towel.
Note: If you are going to wash your car and have zero access to water always remember to bring a few bottles of water.
The Results
No swirls here, remember to take your time be patient and use common sense.
A lot of people can’t even imagine washing their car without a hose and traditional car soap, but once you understand what dirt is and the proper methods to get it off, you will get that you do not always need a strong citrus power soap/degreaser to get a clean surface.
Know When It’s Safe
If you spent a lot of time polishing your car and your car or truck is pretty much swirl free, use common sense when rinseless washes are safe. For the most part they are very safe, however there are different levels of dirt such as dried mud, leaves, heavy dust, rock dust, sand, fall out grass/weeds from mowing the lawn, etc. If you have to second guess it, more than likely just wait to visit a coin wash bay, or until you have hose access. You do not want to drag anything abrasive across your paint and a hose or a pressure washer will blow all that junk away.
If you have a daily driver and you don’t really care about 100% defect free paint, use with complete confidence as you do not have to be as concerned with heavier dirt. If you take the proper pre-cautions and use the proper technique your paint will continue to look great and rinseless washing is one million times safer and better than an automatic car wash.
Conclusion
Uber Rinseless is by far my favorite rinseless product, not only does it make my favorite economical detail spray, it also leaves an amazing shine on any paint finish. The best way I can describe this product is that it’s like washing your car in detail spray. Uber really transforms the way your car looks, it leaves behind a candy gloss finish that’s nice and slick to the touch.
I cannot recommend this product enough, as you can see from the after pictures, Uber is the real deal and it’s fun to use!