As some of you know I just traded into a BLACK 2006 F-150. However, I live on a dirt road and always like to keep a clean truck, the Beige was perfect for this. Anyways. It gets dusty in a day so would it hurt the paint to just hose it down to remove the dust and dry it? or do I need to really wash the truck and than dry it? Tonight, I just ended up hosing it down thoughly with tap water, hit the whole truck with the Mr Clean auto-dry feature, and than dried it. I just want to make sure this isn't going to cause any problems in the future, if I make this a habit.

 

Versus a 'dry' removal (like taking a MF towel and running across the paint), it's definitely better.

Here's what you need to be aware of -- lubrication will help minimize swirling and microscopic scratching (synonyms). The more lubrication that you can provide to the paint, the better you're going to be.

For this reason, I don't think you're doing anything to really hinder the paint (not any worse than a QD spray and a MF towel IMO) but, it's certainly not as good as going with a nice shampoo and full wash.

In short, don't use this to remove any gross contamination -- only MINIMAL dust. Personally, I'm using a product named Poorboy's Spray and Wipe for light dust and then typically follow with a coat of a nice QD spray like 425 or FI.

RP