The three bucket method: do you need a wheel bucket?

The two bucket method keeps the dirt you wash off out of your shampoo. The three bucket method adds one more bucket, kept for wheels and nothing else. Whether you need it comes down to one question: does anything that touches a wheel go into a bucket?

How many buckets do you need to wash a car?

Why wheels get their own bucket

Brake dust is a mix of metal from the discs and material from the pads. It is abrasive, and wheels collect more of it than any other part of the car. Rinse a wheel brush in your RINSE bucket and that dust is now in the water your paint mitt goes into after every panel.

The rule is simple. Anything that touches a wheel never touches paint afterwards. That covers brushes, cloths, mitts and the water they were rinsed in.

Do you need a third bucket?

• Yes, if you rinse your wheel brushes, or an old mitt you keep for wheels, in a bucket as you go.
• Not always, if you spray on a ready to use wheel cleaner, work it with brushes and rinse the brushes under the hose or pressure washer. Nothing from the wheels reaches a bucket, so two is enough.
• Yes, on a car that is filthy, after a track day or through a gritted winter. There is more on the wheels and in the arches, and it is worth keeping all of it apart.

If you are not sure, use three. A third bucket costs far less than polishing out a set of swirl marks.

How to set up a three bucket wash

1. Fill WHEELS with clean water. Do the wheels first, one at a time, while the paint is still dry and dirty.
2. Spray on the wheel cleaner, let it dwell and work each area with its own brush. Our guide to cleaning alloy wheels covers the brushes and the order.
3. Rinse the brushes in WHEELS between wheels, and rinse each wheel before the cleaner dries.
4. When all four are done, move the wheel bucket and wheel tools out of the way. They are finished for the day.
5. Pre rinse and snow foam the car.
6. Fill WASH and RINSE and carry out a two bucket wash as normal.

How to tell three buckets apart

Mix them up once and the system fails, so make it obvious.

• Colour. Our Two Bucket Kit pairs an orange WASH bucket with a black RINSE bucket, so those two never get confused. Give the third bucket a different colour or a bold label.
• Labels. WASH, RINSE and WHEELS in marker pen or on a sticker does the same job on any three buckets.
• Storage. Keep the wheel brushes and wheel cloths inside the wheel bucket between washes, so they never end up in the wrong place.

What never crosses over

• Wheel brushes, wheel cloths and the wheel bucket stay with the wheels.
• The paint mitt never touches wheels, tyres, arches or exhaust tips.
• A mitt retired from paint to wheel duty gets marked, so it never comes back.
• Water from WHEELS never tops up WASH or RINSE.

Is there a four bucket method?

Some people add a fourth bucket for the lower panels and sills. A second mitt does the same job with less water: one mitt for everything above the door handles and one for everything below.

Quick answers

Kit for this job

• 20L Wash Bucket with Grit Guard, single or Two Bucket Kit
• Wheel Kit
• No.03 Wheel and Rim Cleaner
• Soft Bristle Wheel Face Brush
• Caliper Safe Wheel Wand
• Long Handle Wheel Arch Brush
• Wheel and Dirty Jobs Cloths 3 Pack

More from the Journal

• How to clean alloy wheels without scratching them
• The two bucket method: how to wash your car without swirl marks
• One bucket or two? What the second bucket actually does
• Do grit guards work? What they do and how to use one