I was at my dealer the other day and I noticed that they were drying a car with a wide, flexible squeegee. Does anyone know what this is? It looked so easy to dry the car this way. I have a regular old squeegee , but its not as flexible.
I have seen them in Walmart and auto parts stores. I think they should work fine but my concern has been to have some tiny stone stuck there and then create a nasty scratch on the car.
I have just graduated from old T shirts to a chamois. There is always room for improvement.
Look up California Water Blade.
I’ve used one for 10+ years now. Fastest way to dry ever! Works on anything. Better chance of stones in a rag than stuck to a clear silicone blade. I use mine on a custom painted ride without any concern.
I use a bath squeegee from the dollar store (verrry lightly) to remove much of the beading from my hood. Otherwise it blows up through the open roof when I drive away. Then I take a ride to get the rest of the water off. As long as the device is used with very light pressure and very sparingly, the blade is wiped before each use, and the car is kept well waxed, I think it’s harmless.
Keep the car well waxed and a short drive will do the job for you. The beads will roll right off.
Mine looks like the one the woman is holding on this page-
I suppose there have been changes or improvements over time but likely they all perform similarly.
Mine has the vertical blade with a horizontal lip extending out about 1/4" from either side of the blade.
I keep it clean and never let it sit on the working edge when not in use. It’s like the day I bought it, no wear whatsoever and just as flexible.
It conforms to most contours and gets up tight in the window corners. You don’t even need to follow up with Windex after drying windows with this thing. It gets it so dry it squeaks. I haven’t used a chamois or towel in more than 10 years. It takes only a minute to dry the entire car (to my level of detail anyway).
Disclaimer- I have stated in the past I do not wash my daily drivers and it’s true. This thing I use on my hot rods and show cars, boats and even motorcycle. Haven’t had to wax one of them after many dozens of washings since this thing is not abrasive.
I was getting gasoline the other day, and an apparently very frugal customer was washing his entire car with their window squeegee! Not just the windows, the whole car. He was there when I arrived, and there when I left. It seemed like it was going to take about 20 minutes for him to finish, didn’t appear to be in much of a hurry. lol
OK I’m a believer. I had a car to wash so went down to Walmart and just bought the $9 one. It worked great. I just used it to get the water beads off and then still used the chamious to finish up, section by section. It sped the drying job up quite a bit with a lot fewer ringing out the drying cloth. Saved so much time, I might just go ahead and wax too.
@hcord13 The one I got was the Pilot 11" one for $9. They had one a little bigger and a better handle for $15 but really this worked just fine. Can’t find that specific one on line but just go into Walmart and take a look. The one I got was the model CC-2010WK. I use a squeege on my house window on a pole but I’m going to see if this works better and maybe improvise one on a pole.
http://www.autobarn.net/11-inch-water-blade.html?site=google_base&gclid=CJHl-v2K7bgCFdBaMgodMkkArA
Wide swaths. 
Just go down to Walmart and invest $10. Try it and if you don’t like it throw it away and you’ve wasted only $10. What else can I say?
I’ve been using the water blade for a long time, mostly on the glass and especially on the sunroof. I also use it in my shower, to clear water off the glass door and off the tile. If you do it every time, you may never have to scrub the shower again. My only complaint is that it can be very loud and squeaky.
@GeorgeSanJose There’s a difference between “frugal” and “cheap”. The guy you saw was cheap.
Okay, so got one from walmart and tried it today. It was great on the windshields, but not that impressive on the rest of the car, esp the black one. Still had to put my absorber to work.
@galant I think maybe you were expecting too much. It doesn’t eliminate drying with a chamois if you want a nice job, but it removes the majority of water beads to greatly decrease the work with the chamois. If you were expecting it to just eliminate drying, I appologize if I ever gave that impression.
@Bing; no need for apology. I can always return it, but decided to keep it for now. At least works fine for the glass.
I think my situation is a bit unique in that I am in inland south California and with the heat, don’t have much trouble drying the cars. My biggest problem is the hard water spots when the sunlight dries the water before I get to it. This is obviously exaggerated on my Mazda CX-9 which is a bit big and also black. I try to wash it close to sunset, we don’t really get overcast days.
Pretty much every time I wash my car, I end up either waxing it or detailing it. Looking into getting a black car detailer I say (I guess Turtle).