Originally Posted by onehundred80
+1
I clayed my car the other week, it had been washed in December and had dust on it in the garage, I went over it with the California Duster a few times and then very gently with a detail spray and a lot of microfibers. I would have been even more careful with the black one I had.
Using the waterless products on a dirty car would give me the screaming heebie jeebies. I have seen u-tube clips on these products and I cringed. How dirty is too much?
How dirty is too much? That's sort of a judgment call, but we all judge things a bit differently! You mentioned using a quick detailer to take the dust off your car. Well, I do that almost every day with my daily driver when I get home. Our parking lot is in the flight path of John Wayne Airport so we get a lot of fallout here and the cars have a nice little layer of yuck on them at the end of the day. With near daily wipe downs, I haven't had to fully machine polish my daily driver in 5 years. And I'm probably pickier about my daily than most guys are about their show cars - and from the shows I've attended and the cars I've seen, I know this to be true. But that's also a judgment thing: I've had several people tell me after one of our detailing classes that they thought their car looked really good when they first arrived, but then later realized how much better it could look. I've altered their judgment on the whole thing. I like doing that!
You also mentioned using several microfiber towels to wipe down your car, and that's smart. I'll usually use two or three when doing my daily wipe down, but if I use UWWA on that same car following a few rainy days, I may use 5 or 6. The time I used UWWA after driving the Crossfire back from Vegas in the rain, I used 6 towels, and that's a small car with no roof.