Roof cleaning

[Sir Paolo]

Hi all,
As this summer has been particularly wet the roof has been on a lot more than usual, and as a result has got dirtier.

I periodically give it the full Renovo treatment (cleaner, re-colour and water-proofing), but it’s a bit of a pain.
Especially the rear section where you have mask the rest of the car to stop the various solutions pouring in.

As such, I was wondering what you do by way of an interim clean.
I have read up about using a soft brush with a mild soap, but I’m not sure if this removes the waterproofing treatment, so you’re back to option 1 and having to do the whole treatment.

BTW, the chap who replaced my rear window plastic reckoned that the roof treatments also made the mohair dry and less flexible (?).

I’d be interested to know your thoughts- cheers!

[LucyP]

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/product-group-tests/...

[Belle427]

The Gtechniq products that win that test are very hard to beat. You do need to take care spraying the protector on though as it can get messy on paint and glass etc.

[sawman]

I recently used the autoglym stuff, much less faff than renovo, and seems to have been effective so far

[Sir Paolo]

Thanks for your responses guys!

However, I was wondering if you could clean the roof without using a dedicated cleaner, which I’d guess would remove the waterproofing treatment.

As ideally, for now at least, I wanted to avoid the deep cleaning, re-colouring and re-waterproofing.

[Smokey Boyer]

When I had my new roof fitted on the Chimaera the trimmer who did the work advised me to wash the car as normal using a good car shampoo, no high pressure jetwash, just running water to rinse. I did not need to wash the roof as frequently as the paintwork as it was often folded down/in the boot. He said to use the Autoglym roof cleaner and treatment every 6 months. The Autoglym stuff was pretty easy and quick to use.

[Sir Paolo]

Thank-you “Smokey”, I’ll give that a go.

It makes sense to do that on the roof at the same time as the rest of the the car, it saves having to mask the paintwork