Are Your Towels Disciplined?

Good "towel discipline" is the cornerstone of running an efficient detail shop. By towel discipline we mean only certain types of towels are being used for their intended purpose. Each purpose may be dictated by the type, construction, characteristics, or even the color of the towel.

For example: An efficient detail shop may use four types of towels - blue terry towels for general cleaning, red terry towels for silicones such as tire shines and interior dressings, green microfiber towels for windows and blue microfiber towels for wax application and removal.    To maintain efficiency, these towels are maintained and stored in separate locations. Also, once dirty, the towels are kept separated when awaiting laundering. Thus, this efficient detail shop may have four dirty towelbins marked accordingly: Blue, Red, GMicro, BMicro. Sorting the dirty towels by color, reduces the risk of cross contamination among towels. This could mean the difference between streaky windows or crystal clear windows and oily residue on body work or a mile-deep shine.

How you launder towels is also important. All towel types should be washed separately.

• Wash terry, huck, or other cotton based towels in hot water and dry in a standard dryer or line dry.
• Wash microfiber towels in cool or warm water only. Set dryer to air dry or simply line dry. NEVER DRY A MICROFIBER TOWEL IN A HOT DRYER - The dryer's heat may melt thefibers and destroy the absorbent characteristics of the towel.
• Wash towels using a fabric softener-free detergent. Fabric softeners can leave an oily residue on the towels and cause streaks on windows and paintwork. Simoniz Liquid Laundry, Red Label Laundry powder both work extremely well and contain no fabric softeners.

Once towel discipline is obtained, you will increase your shops productivity, safe money on re-cleans and consistently meet your customer's expectations. Cliff Lucente