When you’re washing a car, using a shampoo designed for car bodywork is one of the key ingredients needed for doing a complete and spotless job.
Car shampoo (referred to some as car wash soap) is effective at removing dirt and grime and can help water flow off the bodywork to avoid smears when you later dry it. From various motoring-related product stores, you can buy either car shampoo or products that combines both shampoo and wax in one mixture.
In this guide, we highlight five of the best car wash shampoo products you can get from UK stores and explain how to use car shampoo properly.
Best car wash shampoo
There’s a huge range of car cleaner products to choose from nowadays, including just car wash shampoo options alone.
Ideally, you’ll want a car shampoo product that is effective, delivers shiny and nice-smelling results and represents good value for money. In these respects, some products perform better than others so here are five options which come strongly recommended.
Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner
Standard Price: £7.45 (for 500ml)
Autoglym is one of the better-known companies that offer car cleaning products and their Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner is popularly used, easy to find in shops and effective.
When first introduced, it was one of the first car shampoos to contain conditioners and rust-inhibitors which make it easier to give your car a high gloss finish while protecting difficult-to-reach parts of the body work. While this isn’t marketed as a wash and wax product, it does include a water repellent film which helps the water to fall of the bodywork easily.
Bilt Hamber Auto-Wash
Standard Price: £10.95 (for 300ml)
While this is one of the smaller and more costly options for car shampoo around, it is a very high quality product and only a small amount (usually just 5ml or a teaspoon’s worth) is needed for each car wash.
It dries quickly, it’s biodegradable and adds a form of protection to the paintwork too. Be aware though that unlike many other car shampoos, this product can’t have its liquid squeezed out of the bottle, so you must pour it out instead.
Valet Pro Advanced Poseidon car wash
Standard Price: £5.95 (for 500ml)
This is another popular choice of car shampoo in Britain because it is affordable and offers a high-quality finish.
One of the best things about this particular product is that it’s very good at giving a car a noticeably shiny finish once it has been used.
Meguiar’s NXT Generation car wash
Standard Price: £8 (for 532ml)
This is one of the nicest smelling car shampoos available to buy and not much is needed from it to help clean a car properly.
It also features water softeners which help soften hard water to create more suds and lessen the chance of water spots emerging after washing the car.
Auto Finesse Lather
Standard Price: £11.95 (for 500ml)
Another high-quality product that should work safely on virtually all wax and protective coatings, Auto Finesse Lather contains a pleasant citrus scent and is very good at breaking down dirt quickly.
It can also be rinsed very quickly and because it’s very concentrated, only a small amount of this shampoo is needed for each wash.
How to use car shampoo
When you have your chosen car shampoo on hand, also make sure you have a clean, good-quality sponge, a car-wash mitt and two buckets of water (or you can use one bucket, as long as you change the wash water regularly).
When you’ve got all of this together, add the right quantity of car shampoo to the bucket used for washing (the product bottle should come with guidance with what amount to use for a wash, if you don’t already know). Then give it a quick mix and you should be good to go to cover it on your car.
Start wiping the solution with your sponge and work from the roof down, leaving the wheels until the end to reduce your chances of getting grit on the bodywork. When the water in your bucket gets dirty, tip it away and use fresh water. It’s also wise to wring out your sponge, mitt and any cloths used to avoid dirty water spreading round.
When you’ve given you’re a once-over with the shampoo, use a bucket of fresh water to rinse the excess shampoo away. Then you’ll be read to dry your car and add any other finishing touches.
For more guidance on cleaning a car, check out our guide on seven things NOT TO DO when cleaning your car, as well as our tips for pressure washing a car.