I have another post about how to clay bar a car in minutes rather than hours. What I didn't cover is how to maintain the finish.
First, I use the two bucket method. There is a soap bucket and a rinse bucket which has a grit guard in the bottom. The soap I use is Chemical Brother's Mr. Pink. I fill both buckets 3/4 of the way to the top, then add a healthy squeeze of soap to the soap bucket.
To start, I thoroughly rinse the car. Then I use a chemical brothers microfiber wash mitt soaked in the soapy water bucket to wash the car. I do one 'section' at a time, then thoroughly rinse the mitt in the rinse bucket, then into the soap bucket, and onto the next section. The sections are: Half of the roof and drivers side windows (top half of the doors), drivers side half of the windshield, half of the hood and front fender, bottom half of the drivers side, trunk and rear bumper and half of the rear glass. Then I rinse the soap off the car. I then do the front bumper / grill twice and rinse that. Then the same sections for the passenger side.
Last I do the wheels. I use a wheel brush from the soap bucket, soap the wheels, clean them, then as I'm spraying the wheels I go over a second time. This gets the brush nice and clean before going back to the soap bucket.
I use a leaf blower to semi-dry the car. This gets most of the water off, but leaves some small water drops behind.
Lastly I dump the rinse bucket, rinse it and fill it again with clean water. Then I put a clean microfiber towel in the rinse bucket and wring it out as best I can. This leaves the towel damp and preps it for drying the car. I fold it in half, then in half again - this will give me 8 squares to work with. I spray the square I'm using with TEC583 which is diluted 1:1 with distilled water. Then I wipe down a section. Next section gets a new clean square and a fresh spray with the TEC583. Once the entire car is done, I let it sit for 10-15 minutes before I buff the car with a dry microfiber towel.
This really makes it shine, and adds a layer of protection in between wax / sealant.
