The pre rinse

If you're using your 4x4 as it was intended to be used like our Land Rover here, it will have dirt and mud caked onto the tyres and up under the wheel arches and other parts of the body and chassis. 

It's always a good idea to remove the bigger chunks of mud, especially from under the wheel arches, undercarriage of the car etc before moving onto any cleaning of the wheels, engine bay or the body work. We do this with a pressure washer, or with the Jet setting on your hose.

Get underneath the wheel arches and the rest of the car as best as you can and blast all of the mud and dirt out. Be thorough as mud likes to hide in all sorts of nooks and crannies. Be smart with the pressure washer, don’t get the tip of it too close to the surfaces, a 15cm to 30cm distance is more than enough with most electric machines, taking extra care around rubbers, suspension seals, bearings, electrical bits and painted parts, also making sure you don’t push mud and grit into where it should not go. Don’t forget to clean off the inside rims too as the mud can make your wheels out of balance. Once this is done we will move onto the engine bay.