When you’re looking for a leaf blower to dry off your vehicle after a car wash, you should be looking at how much volume of air the blower can move. With a higher CFM (cubic feet per minute) rating, you will have more success with blowing excess water off of your vehicle. You should also be aware that a vehicle that has been waxed or ceramic coated will benefit most from using a leaf blower for drying; a vehicle that has not had any protection applied to the paint will not yield any results.
If you go with a higher CFM leaf blower such as ones I’ve reviewed in the past like the WORX WG520 or the Toro F700, you’ll see CFM ratings of 600 CFM and 725 CFM, respectively. However, I’ve always wondered how a smaller CFM leaf blower would produce. I came across an extremely popular leaf blower made by Sun Joe that is only 260 CFM, so I wanted to see how it compared to the other higher-powered leaf blowers I’ve used.
The Sun Joe 6-amp electric leaf blower has a small form factor and is pretty easy to wield, as the size is pretty small and the outlet is narrow. But that’s pretty much the best of it. The unit does not push much air through its outlet, so if you try using this unit to dry your vehicle, you’re going to have a hard time.
And that is pretty much it; when you use a leaf blower to dry off your vehicle after a wash, you want something that can get the majority of the water off of a car. This Sun Joe leaf blower doesn’t push much water. As you can see from the images below, it barely moves any of the water droplets on a newer vehicle’s paint.
Sometimes when I’m driving home, I’ll see this liquor store using this exact Sun Joe leaf blower to blow the dirt and leaves off the sidewalk in front of his store. This is what this kind of leaf blower is intended for: blowing leaves and light debris. This leaf blower is definitely not effective at pushing water off the surface of a vehicle.
So if you’re looking for a leaf blower to dry off your vehicle after a wash, look elsewhere. You may be enticed by the $20 price tag on this small unit, but it’s not going to be at all effective at blowing water off your car. If you want to go with a more powerful unit, look for one with a higher CFM rating. If you’re looking for one, this TORO leaf blower is one that I’m currently using that does has a high CFM rating and does an excellent job at drying most water off of a vehicle especially when it has had wax or a coating applied.
