How safe is rinseless wash during winter?

[hemi1300]

Curious how safe rinseless is with some slight salt spray on the vehicle, or should you always pressure wash first to remove as much salt as possible before rinseless?

[BrianT]

The only issue I see is the rinselesswash might dissolve some of the salt so you might want to see if you need to do a second pass.

[LSX Maestro]

There's no way I could just go straight to a rinseless without doing damage to the clear coat with my truck and our Michigan roads.  I have the lucky situation of being less than 2 miles away from a quarter car wash so on dryish days I take it up there, pay $4 and power wash every single bit I can off the truck.  On days where I'm tight on time, that can even be enough after I use air to dry it off at my garage.  A rinseless takes it from being pretty clean to sparkly shiny white.  

[Nickfire20]

I know this is a rinseless question,  but yesterday i did a waterless on my black truck.

 

it had been cleaned, polished, sealed a few days ago.  But then i drove on dry roads and got some salt dust on the truck.  When i did the waterless, i had white smearing everywhere!!!  Huge head ache!  Took multiple more passes to fix.  So, i just have to live with the dust now, or do a full 2bucket again.

[Chris@Adams]

On ‎12‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 7:39 PM, hemi1300 said:

Curious how safe rinseless is with some slight salt spray on the vehicle, or should you always pressure wash first to remove as much salt as possible before rinseless?

Yes I would pressure wash all the Winter junk off first. Then you can do a RW or WW.

[8675309'SS]

14 hours ago, LSX Maestro said:

There's no way I could just go straight to a rinseless without doing damage to the clear coat with my truck and our Michigan roads.  I have the lucky situation of being less than 2 miles away from a quarter car wash so on dryish days I take it up there, pay $4 and power wash every single bit I can off the truck.  

+ 1. OP. Spray off whatever you can first. I tried 2 doors top to bottom once to experiment, it was not as sound a method as spraying first. 

I am about 10 blocks from a spray place. I don't the use their soap, just water.  I let the water run through the sprayer for several seconds to clear out whatever the person before me ordered up, i.e engine cleaner, wax, soap.  After the the pay n spray, I do a rinseless in my driveway, using bucket of towels method.  I also typically spray the lower 1/4 of the car with rinseless diluted 16:1 and let it dwell while I am doing the upper parts of the car. 

For new people reading this thread, other dilution ratios here:

 

[LSX Maestro]

2 hours ago, 8675309'SS said:

+ 1. OP. Spray off whatever you can first. I tried 2 doors top to bottom once to experiment, it was not as sound a method as spraying first. 

I am about 10 blocks from a spray place. I don't the use their soap, just water.  I let the water run through the sprayer for several seconds to clear out whatever the person before me ordered up, i.e engine cleaner, wax, soap.  After the the pay n spray, I do a rinseless in my driveway, using bucket of towels method.  I also typically spray the lower 1/4 of the car with rinseless diluted 16:1 and let it dwell while I am doing the upper parts of the car. 

For new people reading this thread, other dilution ratios here:

 

That’s exactly what I do, including the wait until you have straight water.  I haven’t tested with Adam’s PS and I’m not going to but when I used to use a cheaper wax on my truck, and washed it at the quarter car wash, I used the presoak and it stripped most of the wax off. Water only! Commercial stuff is nasty.