Secrets They Don't Want You To Know About Rinseless Washing
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Concept
waterless washing
Waterless washing means cleaning a car without using any water. Instead, special sprays are used to lift dirt off the surface, making it a more eco-friendly option.
Term
rinseless washing
Rinseless washing means cleaning a car without rinsing it off with water afterward. You use a special solution that helps lift dirt so you can wipe it away easily.
Brand
BMW
BMW is a luxury car brand from Germany that makes sporty and high-quality cars. They're known for their performance and handling.
Brand
Mercedes
Mercedes is a famous luxury car brand from Germany known for making high-end cars that are very comfortable and packed with technology.
Term
brake dust
Brake dust is the dirt that comes off the brakes when you use them. It can make your wheels look dirty and is hard to clean off.
Part
pure magic cleaner
Pure magic cleaner is a type of cleaner specifically made for car wheels. It helps remove tough dirt and brake dust that regular cleaners might not handle well.
Term
acid-based cleaner
An acid-based cleaner is a strong type of cleaner that uses acid to help remove tough dirt and stains. It's especially useful for cleaning car wheels that get really dirty.
Term
ceramic coating
Ceramic coating is a special liquid that you put on a car's paint to help protect it. It makes the paint shiny and helps keep it safe from dirt and scratches.
Car
Porsche 356
The Porsche 356 is an old sports car that was made a long time ago. It's popular because it's fun to drive and looks great, which is why many people still love it today.
Term
pressure washer
A pressure washer is a machine that sprays water at high pressure to clean things like cars and driveways. It's very powerful and can remove dirt quickly.
Term
two bucket method
The two bucket method is a way to wash a car using two buckets: one with soapy water and one with clean water. This helps keep the wash mitt clean so you don't scratch the car's paint.
Term
tires
Tires are the round rubber parts on your car that touch the ground. They help your car move, stop, and turn safely. Good tires are important for driving well.
Company
Tyrak
Tyrak is a company where you can buy tires for your car. They help you find the right tires and can even come to your home or office to put them on your car.
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Today we're going to be talking about something that has been a subject
that has been around for years and years now and luckily I've been around since before
it was popular, as it got really popular, as it died down, and now as some people
still continue to do it, but I personally don't, and I get asked this a lot,
you know, am I going to launch a Rensseless Wash?
And the Jimbo's line, I'm going to have a Rensseless Wash.
Do I personally do Rensseless Washes? What are my thoughts on Rensseless Washes?
What's my favorite Rensseless Wash? And honestly, I don't ever do Rensseless Washes
anymore and I think there's a better way to do it. And I don't, I think there's a time and a place
for Rensseless Wash, but I definitely don't think that one, it's as good as the brands pushing it,
claim it to be. And I also don't think it's as efficient or as effective or as good as a lot
of the brands that push it claim to be. And I'm not saying it's bad and I'm not saying it
doesn't work. And I'll explain how much I've actually used Rensseless Washes over the years.
But I just think that there's a better way and I don't think it's as easy
and as efficient as some say it is. So, and I'll take you back just to create some context
around it. So, you know, this is frame that I'm not just ranting and trying to discredit
anyone or anything, but this is all purely my experience because after decades of
mobile detailing, being a Rensseless, full-time Rensseless mobile detailer, doing corporate
accounts, working in really affluent coastal areas, I really had my hands all in on Rensseless
Washing. In fact, there is old videos from 10 years ago on YouTube with Auto Fetish where I had
my Sprinter Van and I had no pressure washer, no water tank, no nothing because I was 100%
Rensseless. And so, if we go back to that time when I was a full-time mobile detailer,
I started with a water tank pressure washer and all that. But what started to happen is,
as I started to grow my detailing business, I started to work in some very affluent coastal
cities in Orange County. And during this time, you know, we are also in a quote-unquote drought
in California. So, you know, I'm working in these cities where they do not allow runoff,
they do not want to see any soap in the gutter and there's literally inspectors driving
around looking for people doing this. In fact, I got into it with a city inspector
in Seal Beach where I lived and operated most of my clients out of and we got into it so bad
they actually passed a city ordinance that said you could not detail cars within the city limits,
no car washing, no mobile detailing within the city limits. And that was because of me,
because I got into it so badly with them. Of course, I found a workaround and if you're
looking for a workaround, that ordinance only pertains to city streets and public property,
but not private property. So, the workaround for that was you could actually, that ordinance
did not work when you were in someone's driveway because their driveway is actually
private property. And so, that was always my workaround as I just made sure I stayed on
private property. But the issue became, if you had runoff that ran from private property to
public streets, okay, the gutter, they had a problem with that, right? So, I was really
coming into this issue of like, I either need to adapt my business or close my business because
how do you wash a car with no runoff? Sure, they have these stupid mats and containment
barriers and all that, but that's extra setup time. It's, I don't want to be
walking in water, then you're supposed to suck up the water and then reclaim the water
and they had these reclamation systems and it was just a nightmare, right? And so, I literally
had to adapt. And right around this time too, I had a great, this is 2009, I had a great
opportunity for a corporate account, a big massive corporate account that actually had
two separate locations, but the one caveat was, and the reason why they didn't have
any one yet, is they needed someone who didn't have any runoff. And so, they wanted a car
washer, but they needed someone that was like waterless or whatever. And so, because they had
some stupid, you know, certification for their building that it was environmentally
friendly and if they had a car washer on site, not only could that jeopardize their
certification for the following year, but it didn't look good for how eco-friendly
they were trying to be, right? And so, I went at the time, the only thing that
was around really was waterless washing. I mean, this is 2009, this is early, early on.
And so, I tried the waterless phase for a minute, but waterless washing, and I'm talking spray
bottle and that's it, some towels, is wishful thinking at best if you think you're going
to do a corporate account like that and be any sort of efficient. Just waterless washing is
not only was the chemicals not there at the time, we didn't have, you know, battery-powered pump
sprayers, we didn't have other tools to kind of make it efficient, we didn't have the information
out there, I didn't have the knowledge out there either to do this efficiently. And let me
tell you, it was a total friggin nightmare. I mean, just a total nightmare to try to do
waterless washing efficiently on 10 cars at one location was virtually impossible. It was
not fun at all. So, when I discovered rinseless washing, it was like a massive upgrade because
for me at the time, it kind of felt like a hybrid, like, okay, I'm using a bucket and water,
but not rinsing anything down. This is a much, much, just a huge massive upgrade, right? Much
safer, much more efficient, kind of made more sense. And so, I really started to do it and enjoy it
and kind of committed to it. And it freed up my ability to get through cars faster. And I literally
did not even overexaggerating thousands and thousands of cars as a rinseless wash or
in details because I would do, on average, I did 10 cars a day, five days a week, 50 cars,
you know, that's 200 cars a month, on average. And I was probably a rinseless only detailer for
10 years. So, whatever the math is on that, you know, you're doing, if I could do loose math 200,
you're doing 2400 cars a year, on average, for 10 years, 24,000 cars. Not including my own, right?
And so, after doing 24,000 rinseless car washes, I have some opinions on it. I have some,
you know, this is not pie in the sky theory of what I think is bad about rinseless washing,
it's what I actually know to be factually true from my experience. And there's some
big issues that almost no one talks about. Because when people talk about rinseless washing online,
they're talking about doing one car in your driveway, in a garage, in, you know, and so
there's some serious issues. And so the first problem that I started to run into, and it may
not be as big of a problem anymore, but the problem if you're running a business is that
customers don't understand it. And I legit lost customers because they didn't trust it.
And, you know, they see you out there with one bucket and a sponge and no foam, you're not
rinsing it, you're going straight to a dry car. They start saying things like,
you're going to scratch my car. You know, what are you talking about? I specifically remember
I had a good customer, they had a black Porsche. I went to their house and one thing I'd
learned about being a mobile detailer is everyone's looking outside their windows. And so you're always
being watched, no matter what, when you're washing someone's car in their driveway.
So I specifically remember I had a long term client, they had been a client for
three years or so. And I was doing his black Porsche at his house. And I started doing it
rinseless wash, which was new for me at the time. And he came out ballistic, just absolutely
ballistic, saying all those things, you're going to scratch my car. Why are you dry wiping dry paint?
Where's the hose? What are you doing? Where's the soap? How about rinsing it? There's no way.
So the problem, and that was just the first occurrence of many. And so what I realized is
even if rinseless is safer than people think, the customer perception was horrible.
And I think continues to be horrible. And the problem is, is that you have to then explain
and sell more as to your customer of why you're doing that. And that takes more time, more energy.
And it just doesn't vibe with people. It's too far of a thought extension for them to
be able to understand it. The perception is that you're going to scratch their car.
So then what happened is this just made for harder sales, fewer repeat clients because they,
even if the result was better, even if the end result was better, they didn't trust it.
So and then more explaining than actually working, right? So this was a major red flag to me,
but even with this guy in his black Porsche, I was in an HOA, I was in a neighborhood,
people are constantly looking out their windows. When you work in a fluid areas,
more people are home, which is another thing too. And so you have more eyeballs on you.
And it just can really be a another issue, another thing that you have to fight.
And when you're trying to grow your business, you don't need more opposition, right? So
one of the big things that I think I learned that no one wants to admit because they actually
market it as the complete opposite is that it's actually more labor intensive than a traditional
wash. It's marketed as, you know, save time. You could wash anywhere. It's so easy.
But what I learned is that if you're doing more than one kind of lightly soiled car,
the rinse less wash game, especially how I was doing it is a total grind,
total grind. You're bringing out towels constantly. You're bending over way more,
like way more, you're spending way more time on the ground or close to the ground.
You're wiping more, which just increases your chances of scratching a car at some point.
I don't think rinse less washes by nature scratch, but you are touching the car more,
which if you touch the car more, you are increasing your chances of scratching the car.
And to be honest, there's really good solid rinse less wash solutions that I've used for
a long time without scratching like on our, but there's also brands that have entered the chat,
if you will, that it is not a rinse less wash that they're selling. And so it's a diluted down or
it's a quick detail spray or it doesn't have the polymers or encapsulation. And I've really scratched
and messed up my own car testing out new products. I think that's kind of back in the day,
not as much anymore. But again, an issue wiping and touching your car more definitely increases
your chances of scratching it, especially now when people are doing a rinse less wash and then wiping
it and drying it with like a big drying towel. That is insane to me, insane because your chances
of scratching the car are just huge, right? Again, just refilling for multiple cars,
the bucket carrying the bucket around. And again, all of this is before you even get to the
wheels. And that's ultimately where the issues really came in is that again, if you have a garage
queen or you have a car that's not too bad, everything's fine. You're doing one car at
a time. You have a couple of people working on a car that's fine. But wheels and tires were
really my breaking point because the vast majority of the people who are paying to get
their car done have daily drivers that they drive often. And then if you're working in
a fluid areas like I was, you're dealing with Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes, okay? And rinse less
on wheels and tires is not fun at all, at all. Inner barrels that are caked, incredibly dirty
wheels, massive brake dust. So even if the car is even moderately dirty and say you have it on
a weekly program, rinse less wheels felt like just utter punishment, right? And at the time,
I didn't have a battery operated pump sprayer and things that can make it a little bit easier.
But without running water, without pressure, without the ability to use acid,
which I inevitably started to do, use acid cleaners with a rinse less wash.
But you don't really have the ability to get it as good. Now, you can do it, it's doable, but
it's a total pain in the butt. Total pain in the butt. Another area that is another problem
is door jams and wheel wells. Again, these areas alone make it completely not worth it.
So, you know, it's not, rinse less washing is not kind of as universal as people claim,
right? Door jams can be an issue. Wheel wells, total issue. Again, you're not getting in there with
your rinse less sponge. I don't care how good your sponge is, right? Same thing with engines.
In engine bay, rinse less leaves, not happening. It's doable, not fun at all. And then again,
if you have a car that is maybe not moderately dirty but heavy dirt, it went off-roading,
it's wintertime, it went to the snow, forget about it. This is, you need a steady stream of water,
okay? So dirt from the rain, pollen, road trips, caked on mud. Rinse less in these situations
immediately becomes totally unsafe or just stupidly time consuming, just incredibly time consuming.
So that's why we mainly see rinse less washes on pretty clean cars and then the focus is really
always on the paint, right? It's not on these intricate areas of the barrel of the wheel,
how to get the rim. There's nothing better than pure magic cleaner to clean a rim
when you have free flowing water and nothing worse than not using an acid-based cleaner
like pure magic cleaner on rims that actually need it because you just get a subpar result.
And that's where I started to realize is that I'm just getting a subpar result. Does it work?
Yes, but it's incredibly time consuming. It takes me two to two and a half hours to clean two cars
when if I could foam up and do my traditional method, it would take me 90 minutes or less,
especially in the summertime, you're using deionized water, you can let it dry itself,
big, big difference. So because I'm not anti-rince less, even though it seems like I am,
there are areas that it has its place and there are areas that it had its place for me.
So if the car is garage kept, lightly soiled, maybe already has ceramic, you know, a ceramic
coating applied and it's regularly maintained, rinse less could be awesome. I had a vintage
Porsche 356 dealership, European collectibles in Costa Mesa, if you want to look it up, that I maintained
all their cars. Now, the vast majority of their cars are stored inside and they don't get moved
and they want them done every week. Rinse less wash is super efficient, super safe and super quick.
I'm not going to move every one of those cars out of inside a garage. They're buried back
sometimes two or three cars deep, right? I'm not pulling those out. I'm not going to bring a hose
in there, right? So rinse less wash was perfect for this. If your car is just a weekend car
and you just want a 10 or 15 minute kind of touch up on it, rinse less wash, perfect solution.
But as a mobile detailer, as someone who's running a detail shop, it's in your dealing with
daily drivers and not garage or trailer queens. A rinse less wash, in my opinion, is incredibly
inefficient and you are more importantly than not being efficient, you are risking a lot more than
you actually need to. And so this is part of my experience that when I launched my own brand,
I really considered and I really thought about and kind of the whole journey is what I took
into consideration. And so I thought about rinse less washing, I thought about pre-rinsing,
thought about all the ways that we take care and maintain a car. And because I was fortunate,
I guess fortunate enough to do so many cars, literally thousands of cars, I had tons of
experience doing both ways. I was a mobile detailer that had a pressure washer and did the
traditional two buckets, pre-rins, soap up, rinse again, whatever. And then I transitioned
it into this rinse less wash for so long, I had this, I did hundreds of thousands of cars
in total. And so the whole journey had me like, if I want to develop my own product line, what
does that look like? And what do I do? And so this is where the journey evolved into
what if we didn't pre-rinse? My whole thoughts stem from like, this is crazy that we as car people
like to keep our car clean. And we always make fun of the old guys at the car wash that are
wiping down their cars constantly because we see how bad the finish is. So then my thought was
like, okay, the more we touch our car, the more we run the risk of scratching it.
Right? And so, but then we're going to do a rinse less wash where we're just constantly
touching the car, that doesn't seem right. And then I knew how inefficient it was for, you know,
all the other areas that I already explained. And so that's what drew me to the only other
thought I had was like, what if we dry foamed a car? I mean, would that be better? Because
we touch it less does pre-rinsing, does pre-rinsing the car really do anything? And so
that's it. I mean, you can go back to some of my most popular videos on my channel are me just
dry foaming a half a car and then pre-rinsing the other half of the car and then foaming it
to see which one was better. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's actually better. You get a better
result if you foam a dry car. Why is no one talking about this? No one is talking about that
at the time. It's starting to catch on because the more people try it, the more they
realize, holy crap, this is better. It's actually better, faster and more efficient. It's not
traditional. But guess what? You're not going to have customers, you know, saying that you're doing
something wrong, that you're scratching their car because you're actually not, you're giving a
better result, right? Even if there is some dirt left over and it's not completely touchless,
quote, touchless wash, you are getting the vast majority of the dirt and the dirt
that is remaining on the surface, at least with something like the Super Sober,
is actually broken down and it's just like dust, nothing at that point. So though the
adhesion to the car, the friction, it may be holding it onto the car,
it's really just completely broken down dirt. So that's why on the second foam, if you dry foam,
you rinse and you do a second foam, that is going to be your safest, you know,
contact wash moment if you need to go there, right? And it works on super dirty cars. It
works. You can use pure magic cleaner on the rims and you can pressure wash the wheel wells and the
door jams and it's so much more efficient and safer is what I learned. So you have that lubrication,
you have the dirt breaking down ability of a traditional wash, but what you don't have
is wasted runoff. So you are obviously going to have some runoff, but you don't have a ton
of water runoff. So it's easy to contain if you have any. So again, you have the safety of the
pre foam without just endless gallons of water down the drain, you know, spending two to three
gallons of water just pre rinsing the car when in reality, that's not even doing anything for you.
You can completely skip that step. So I really hope this didn't come off as an anti-rinseless
rant, even though I am kind of anti-rinseless. It simply just wanted to share my truth after
literally years and thousands and thousands of cars doing it. So I think rinseless washing just
to kind of wrap it up. Rinseless washing is useful in specific situations. I think it's great
for enthusiasts with clean cars. It's terrible for wheels, horrible for multiple cars. It's
misunderstood by customers, which is a big issue. And maybe the biggest issue of all is that
it's way more labor intensive than it's advertised to be. And that's why I moved on from it ultimately.
I wanted to develop a system that solved multiple problems and was more efficient. And detailing
is so labor intensive as it is. Why are we adding more labor into it? My whole thought is, how do
we make this simpler and get a better result? Why are we working harder? Don't need to work
harder. Let's work smarter with better chemicals. Let's develop those better chemicals and let's
put those better chemicals out to the masses. And that's why I started my own brand because I was
so frustrated that that was not happening. And so instead of just ranting like I'm so good at
doing, I decided to put my money where my mouth was and actually put out the chemicals that I
thought needed to be in the marketplace. So if you're interested in that, you can check
everything out over at jimbosdetailing.com. I will link it below and I will also link to Amazon
because I believe in making everything easier. So if you are an Amazon shopper, all my products are
around Amazon. Yes, I take a cut, I take a hit personally. It's not as profitable for me to sell
on Amazon. But it is there for your convenience because that works for the whole ecosystem of
what my brand believes in. So hope you guys enjoyed that one. Let me know what you think in
the comments below if I'm way off base. And that's fine too. I'm okay with that.
Yeah. So with that, I'm not going to rant anymore. I'll catch you guys on the next one.
Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed. See ya.
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About this episode
Rinseless washing has been a hot topic in the detailing community, but the host shares a wealth of experience that challenges its efficiency and effectiveness. Drawing from years of mobile detailing, he discusses the misconceptions surrounding rinseless washes, including customer skepticism and the labor-intensive nature of the process. While acknowledging its benefits in specific situations, he argues that traditional washing methods often yield better results, especially for daily drivers. The episode culminates in a discussion about developing a more efficient washing system that minimizes labor while maximizing results.
Original notes
Why don't I do rinseless washes anymore? After years of being a full-time mobile detailer in Orange County—working in strict coastal cities with heavy water-runoff regulations and during the peak of California's "drought"—I relied on rinseless washes to keep my business alive. I was a full-on mobile rinseless detailer for years. Corporate accounts, weekly clients, everything.
But over time, I realized rinseless washing has major limitations that no one really talks about.
In this video/podcast, I'm breaking down my full experience:
-
How strict water regulations pushed me into rinseless in the first place
-
Why I switched from waterless → to rinseless → to traditional washing
-
The real problems I ran into after YEARS of rinseless washing
-
Why customers didn't trust it (and how I lost accounts because of it)
-
Why wheels, tires, door jambs, and wheel wells are a nightmare with rinseless
-
Why rinseless is way more labor-intensive than people think
-
Why it only works well on lightly soiled "garage queen" cars
-
Why I eventually moved away from it completely
And most importantly…
How all of this led me to develop the Dry Foam Wash Method—a system that uses significantly less water but way more chemistry to safely break down dirt with less labor, less waste, and fewer limitations.
Rinseless washing still has its place.
Traditional washing still has its place.
Foam cannons still have limitations.
There is no perfect system…
…but there are smarter ways to wash a car depending on your goals.
This episode is all about the reality of rinseless washes—not the marketing hype—and how years of hands-on mobile detailing shaped the way I wash cars today.
Want to Try the Dry Foam Method?The Super Soaper (Perfect for Dry Foam Washing):
https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/the-super-soaper
or Amazon: https://amzn.to/4eqLf3f
Tough As Shell Ceramic Spray (Great After Any Wash):
https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/hard-as-shell-ceramic-spray
or Amazon: https://amzn.to/4r7Ogwe
Everyday Microfiber Towels:
https://jimbosdetailing.com/products/everyday-microfiber
The Auto Detailing Podcast
Jimbo Balaam interviews guest like Barry Meguiar, Jason Rose, Yvan Lacroix,
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