September 17, 2019 - Marge Scrubbed by ME

Well, Sunday the professional detailers did not show up to give Marge a scrubbing. I emailed the company and they quickly responded with an apology. After several emails they were unable to get in contact with the local detailer they had hired for the job and had no alternative in the area. I had a choice of having it done this winter in Florida, or cancel the detailing and getting a refund. I opted for the refund. The no show was aggravating because we sat around all day waiting for them to show up, I had pulled in the slide outs, unhooked the electric, and moved the truck so they could do the job unobstructed.

Monday morning I decided that I should just wash Marge myself. Upon starting I realized she was REALLY dirty. It is hard to pick up dirt in pictures but here are a couple of "before" pictures.

The front cap always gets lots of bugs. Getting the ones up on the top white section requires me to stand on the second from top step of my eight foot ladder, which is a little precarious. I then have to scrub the bugs with a brush to get them off, then wash, then rinse. Last year I coated the cap with Polyglow which is a sealant. This helped in getting the bugs off but it was still a slow process of scrubbing, washing, rinsing, and moving the ladder multiple times. Up and down, up and down.

The area of the trailer behind the truck bed gets lots of dirt, bugs, and road tar. Here is a "before" picture.

All the black spots in the picture are tar left after I scrubbed the bugs off. I put some gasoline in a squirt bottle and worked on a couple of globs of tar at a time. When finished it all had to be washed and rinsed. A slow process. 

The front cap and lower area get the most road dirt and bugs and take the longest to clean.  The back cap doesn't get any bugs but it does get a lot of dirt which is picked up by the tires and swirled around the back. Here is a "before" picture of the lower part of the back cap.

The sides get road grime but also get a lot of streaks from dirty water running off the roof. Here is a "before" picture of one such spot with arrows pointing to the black streaks.

Unfortunately these black steaks don't come off with car wash soap. They have to be scrubbed with a cleaner like Awesome and then the area washed.

Monday I did the front, back, and door side. By then it was mid-afternoon and 93 degrees so I quit for the day. This morning I did the off door side.  Here are some "after" pictures.

Front cap

Lower front area.

Back cap.

Side area with no black streaks.

In the above picture you can see shiny and whiter areas where I removed some decals last winter because they were cracked and faded. I have ordered some oxidation remover with wax and hope that in one application I can bring back some shine and blend in the areas. Doing the two sides will be a several day project. 

For me trying to keep an RV clean and shiny is absolutely the worst part about owning an RV. Because they sit out so much they fade fast after a cleaning and waxing due to all the UV rays. Ours doesn't have clear coat like a car finish. If I ever buy another rig it would have full body paint, making cleaning and polishing a whole lot easier.