Quote:
atomic80 said:
You're right, the towels today don't seem to do a good job absorbing water. I have noticed that but however they seem to do a bit better after a few wash cycles. I'll be laughing all the way to the goodwill store. The ones that I found at the local auto supply store seems a bit too coarse which is why I was skeptical when I first heard you mention using that. I live pretty close to Griot's but I don't recall them having terry cloth towels. I'll have to check again I guess. I've actually been using their microfibre towels which works great, I thought.

Thanks for the advice.



The terry towels at Griots are horrible for drying your paint it's probably why Griots removed them from the "Car Care" section and replaced them w/ Mico Fiber. The only thing I use Griots cotten towels for is drying my wheels after they've been cleaned. All cotten towels create fine scratches and the dirtier your car when you use them to push around dirt particles the more they will scratch. And some towels trap dirt and are worse than others. Regarding drying; not only don't they absorb but some leave behind lint and others have polyester thread (Griots are 100% cotten). Poly thread is stronger than steel lb for lb and will literally fine scratch the hell out of your clear coat. Using a soaking wet towel to clean a dirty car is even worse because you basically have 10-30lbs of heavy material pushing down fine dirt particles into your clear-coat and they also remove your wax quickly. Terry towels have greatest chance of a larger dirt particle getting caught and scratching your paint of any washing & drying method. Plus the fact towels are the biggest pain the arse to use and then clean. In terms of "absorbing water" you're right. After my washing process I use this highly absorbent Micro Fiber drying towel it absorbs water like a sponge:
http://www.griotsgarage.com/catalog.jsp?L1=L1_1000&L2=L2_1003&SKU=11023

It's about 1/4 the size of a regular cotten towel but I can easily dry 2 vehicles with it.

This one is very good as well.
http://www.griotsgarage.com/catalog.jsp?SKUupsell=11117