Washing car covered in ASH

[SCVWGUY]

For those in Orange County how are you washing your car that is covered in the ash from the Riverside fires. WIth the fog it has made like a paste on the my daily drivers

[Quicksilver]

You need to get the ash off the car and a coat of wax on it. During the Laguna Beach fire it was snowing a huge quantity of ash and being fairly pragmatic I looked at it and thought, "It makes no sense to wash it until it stops snowing". It snowed ash for three days and then I washed the car.

About a month later I noticed a cloudy pattern in the clear coat. You know how the morning dew collects on the car? It tends to collect in a pattern showing the outline of the underlying reinforcement of the body panels. My guess is the dew collected the ash and the resulting acid burned through the clear coat. That was the end of the pretty black paint job.

I would wash it using a good quantity of soap to help break the surface tension and help transport the ash off of the car. Don't use a sponge to wash it. Use a lambs wool mitt or pad. A sponge has more of a flat surface that will tend to hold small particles against the paint as you scrub. The natural wool fibers make a very open surface and it is very hard for a particle to be trapped between the small round fiber and the paint. It is more apt to be picked up by the mitt and transported away from the paint.

Here is a nice picture of the ash on a neighbor's car in Huntington Beach about 40 miles from the closest fire.



Wayne

[SCVWGUY]

Wayne,

I am also in HB!

[azasadny]

I was in Portland, Oregon when Mt St Helens went off (5/80) and I remember the damage that the ash did to paint jobs. I think the alkalinity in the ash messes with the paint and the officials and insurance companies recommended washing it off ASAP. I pity those with garages. I used to live in CA and alot of my neighbors had carports or a bare slab of concrete, no shelter for the car at all. I don't know that a car cover would keep all of it off, but it couldn't hurt.