Reasons You Should Not Wash Your Car With A Detergent
MAJOR REASONS YOU SHOULD NOT WASH YOUR CAR WITH A DETERGENT
From the little investigation, I have undergone for the best way to wash a car regularly without any damage to its color and the body in general.
From that I came into this little observation, though more observations may be added later as more discoveries are made, the detergent use in the washing of clothes is not good to wash the car body, rather a liquid soap should be used, below are my reasons:
IT FADES AWAY THE COLOR
The major function of detergent is to assist in quick removal of dirt in clothes during washing of clothes, detergents consist of chemical base like sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide.
These chemicals reacts good with water to make cleaning of clothes easy but this same detergent is used for car washing it has the disadvantage of helping paint on the car to fade away.
The reason is because the water that the detergent is added has automatically become soapy and has the molecules of the water broken down such that any application of such water on the body of the car would create another chemical reaction.
This tends to penetrate into the chemicals of the paint pigment used for the car painting thereby weakening its rigidity and bond with the car body leading to a washing away of the paint particles, though this action is not visible to the eyes but its effect manifests over a period of time.
For this reason it is better to use other liquid washing product in the market mostly meant for washing of plants and domestic utensils, this is because they are made with less reacting chemicals that focus on dirt removal on a solid surface.
Example of such products in Nigeria market are lemon fresh, mama, lemon, and many others, the chemicals used in these products includes; Sodium benzoate, EDTA-2NA, Kathon CG, P_77 surfactant, fragrance, etc. which has no effect on the paint of the car.
CAUSES THE BODY TO PEEL OFF
Discovery has shown that when detergent with high concentration in water is used to wash a particular car over a long period of time, it will result in the paint on the car body losing its bond with the metal sheet used in the molding the car body.
Hence, causing the paints to peel off in very minute pieces such that over a period time it becomes large on the affected part.
This reaction is exactly what prompts the corrugated iron sheets use in roofing to start rusting after a period of time, the sheets which are coated with zinc and popularly called a roofing zinc do corrode and rust after fixing it on a building following between the zinc and the atmospheric oxygen in air during rainfall and early morning dew.
The reaction gradually converts the solid zinc which helps to prevent corrosion on the roofing sheets into zinc oxide which makes the color to change to brown and help the oxygen to gain access to the main iron and then react quickly to rust the sheet.
In such a case when using a detergent and you do add it in a large volume in order to produce foams it has a disadvantage of creating a way for the paints to peel off especially if there is any crack on the car body which permits the water to gain access to the base of the paint.
LEAVES THE BODY WITH A SLIPPERY FEEL
When detergent is used to wash a car it makes the body give a slippery feeling when touched, though this is not a disadvantage in any way but a point noted.
If you come in contact with the car washed with ordinary water or liquid washing soap for household utensils the difference can be noticed.
REMOVES AND DAMAGE ANY STICKER ON THE BODY
Detergents wash away stickers on the car body over a period of time, the water can suck the sticker easily than ordinary water such that any little scrubbing on the sticker surface during washing could remove some part, this action could continue gradually until the sticker faces are completely washed away followed by its base layer.
AFFECTS THE CAR GLASSES
Although enough evidence has not been obtained for this but it is believed that over a long duration of the car glass it could have some negative effect on the glasses.
