Afternoon all! So, my recently aquired '5 has a mohair roof! Very nice some of you may say, but good looks come at a price - its a PITA to clean! Here are some of the lessons I have learnt:
Do not wash the mohair. The finish you get is simply quite dull and very lack lustre. If you have a drop of bird soil, tree sap, etc, treat that patch with autoglyms bird dropping remover if possible. If it is stubborn, wash with warm soapy water when you wash the car.
Definitely DO hoover the mohair! Depending on power of vacuum, you want to use roughly 70% of total available power (this is on my 2000watt mille). If possible use a pet hair tool that helps lift fibres that have woven into the material and then sucks them up. Finish with a reasonably wide suction attachment (usually the stair tool or matress cleaner I believe) to finish. Be sure to hoover in one direction to raise pile uniformly. This leaves a nice “as new” look.
Autoglym hood protector is a must have! As above, hoover the mohair first, apply the cleaner and agitate areas of dirt with the tool provided, and then once complete lightly wash with water, once done, use an Aqualblade or similar to get most of the moisture out of the hood. THIS NEXT BITS IMPORTANT! Wash the car and leather off whilst waiting for the hood to dry further. After this is done, Use masking tape and newspaper to cover: Front and rear screens, Windows, Top of bodywork. If you do not do this you will have problems.
Once the above is done, spray on the hood protector provided in the kit. Use liberally, you should be aiming to use roughly half the bottle in your first application. If you do not apply the masking tape and newspaper as recommended, the hood protector gets on glass and paint, and will require the paint to be clayed to remove. It is VERY stubborn to remove even when wet.
After you have applied the hood protector, if its sunny / not going to rain, stand back and admire your work! If not, use some plastic sheeting to cover overnight. Whenever it rains or you wash the car, you will now get a beautiful bead of water like you do on your paint just after waxing
After applying the treatment DO NOT WASH YOUR HOOD WITH CAR SHAMPOO. You will remove the hood protector. Simply hoover as described above once every week if you like it to look great, or every other week if you arent so fussed.
I hope this helps people, because I found info quite difficult to find online, with no real “this is how it is” guide, so I thought I would attempt to put some info out there for the benefit of others.
If anyone has anything to add or any tips to share I’d welcome them!
Good write-up. However, I’m not sure how easily it will be to avoid getting shampoo on the hood, especially if I use a ‘snow foam’ approach for cleaning.
I agree 100% with the advice on hoovering the hood weekly which I do. Dust and dirt can become ingrained much more easily than you may imagine and damage the fabric. Other lessons I have learned are to only ever used plain water and a large very soft brush to clean the hood. No power washers, jet sprays or the like. Detergents, in my opinion damage the fabric over time. I had some good advice many years ago from a master tailor who said once a suit is dry cleaned the fabric is never quite the same again. I think the same applies to hoods. Other degrading influences on the fabric are sunlight, UV rays is the term today, so I am told! Road salt in winter, bird droppings, tree sap and all manner of substances thrown up from the road by other vehicles which can be the very devil to remove. Now I realise that avoiding all of these is just about impossible, many owners do not have a garage and have to drive on salted roads in winter etc. It is a question of doing the best you can with the resources at your disposal. Personal motivation obviously plays an important role. It is all very well for me, being long retired, to say that my hood is nine years old, looks like new, water beads off etc. My car is garaged and does not go out on salted roads, for the vast majority of owners that is not an option! Just a final thought, I cannot think that fitting a hard top in winter, which means the hood is folded and creased for a long time and will suffer from condensation causing mildew and mould, is such a good idea. Just my thoughts and opinions, you understand!
Geoff, Agree 100% on the hard top. Hard tops can look great, but IMO they damage the hood and leave horrid crease lines. I am planning on picking up a cheap estate car to run about in this winter, to avoid all of the road crap that will otherwise end up on my fairly prestine '5! You can get b5 a4 avants for under a grand these days, and you will pay almost half that for a hard top that may actually break your soft top! I know many will dissagree with my logic… but for me its more practical
soft tops folded down for long spells just kills them, so if you buy a used hard top for £250 to £500, and then have to replace your soft top because it looks terrible when it goes back up at similar money its cost a bit. As much as a cheap old runner indeed or maybe.
Iterestingly, hood maker Raymond at Jack Smith Trimmers advises cleaning mohair hoods with Fairy Liquid and warm water and does not advise any of the expensive water repellant coatings at all.
So i did mine this evening… though i think i went OTT with the masking off…
So thats the car protected
First off i vacuumed the hood, then after spraying the hood with a small garden water sprayer i applied the Autoglym soap and rubbed it in, allowing it to foam as i went…
Rinsed that off with the hose pipe…
As per the Autoglym instructions i blotted the excess water off to leave the hood damp…
Then liberally applied the sealer / protector…
All well and good, that is until i removed the polythene…
grrrrrr…
Dried it with the towel i had used earlier, hopefully it wont be all messy in the morning! I then put the car in the garage to soak overnight…
Autogym say that to get even better protection cover the hood with polythene to keep it wet over night, so reading between the lines you dont want to be treating the hood on a warm or sunny day as the protector will dry too quickly.
soft top
