Advice
Removing Sahara dust from your car without scratching it
Sahara dust is fine mineral grit and behaves like sandpaper. Never wipe it off dry with a cloth. That drags scratches into your paint. Rinse it loose with plenty of water first, ideally with a manual pre-wash. At Excellent Carwash in Amsterdam that pre-wash is standard.
Why wiping it off dry is so damaging
Sahara dust consists of sharp mineral particles including quartz, which is harder than the clear coat on your car. Run a dry cloth over it and you drag those particles across the surface, producing a web of fine scratches, the pattern you later see in sunlight as rings around your own reflection.
The same applies to your wipers. Do not switch them on over a dry, dusty windscreen: you grind the sand across the glass and across the rubbers.
What to do instead
The rule is simple: the sand has to be floated off, not pushed. That means plenty of water and as little mechanical contact as possible in the first stage.
- Rinse the car generously with water first, top to bottom
- Use the bay lance from a distance, not at full pressure close up
- Do not touch the paint until the sand has been rinsed away
- Wet the windscreen with washer fluid before switching the wipers on
- Do not forget the wheel arches, where most of the sand collects
Why a manual pre-wash makes the difference here
At a car wash without a pre-wash, the brushes go straight over a dust-covered car. Here, our wash experts remove the coarse grit first by hand and with water, after which only wet textile brushes make contact. That is precisely the difference between a clean car and a car with a scratch pattern showing in the sun.
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