Car Wash
 

Do any of you guys go to those drive through car washes? They are usually at the gas stations. Or do you prefer to do it yourself in the driveway?

A friend of mine told me that those drive through washes are bad for the paint (causes scratches and such) I am curious to see if anyone els has heard or seen this.

driveway. this should be moved to show & shine

I'd do them in my driveway if my driveway wasn't the side of the street....I take it to the pay and spray, personally. I'd rather clean it myself and not have the machine do it for me D:

I wash it by hand at the car wash in the summer because I lve in a apartment with no water source.
In the Winter when it is really bad here I sometimes take it through a car wash that only uses spray does not touch the car except with water, Thius helps to keep the salt off the undr carraige.

Touchless only. If it anything other than some guy w/a sponge in hand it could scratch the paint. If it has one of those wheel guides don't go anywhere near it. It's not worth it. Find a hand wash only place. If there isn't one then wash it yourself.

Don't use sponges on cars either, potentially bad for paint too. Only the finest whool on my wash mitt, and the finest gold class soap from meguiars :)

I'd rather drive a dirty car until I can wash it by hand than drive through a car wash.

Paint is paint nothing will last forever. Buff it once a year and enjoy. If that dont tickle your cherry then repaint.

or you can actually take care of your car and not have to waste thousands of dollars repainting your car

Mostly I wash in the driveway. Like the previous poster said - stay away from the wheel guide that drags you through the car wash. The little flaps in front of the rear wheel wells hang too low (not to mention everyone's concern about the cloth scratching the car).

In winter I'll use the do it yourself spray wand at the car wash to get the road junk off the car.

Dave

I never use a car wash with a car with aftermarket wheels because you never know if the tracks will scratch them. Sometimes they even screw up OE wheels.

Drive through car washes are the devil!!!!!

Sorry, just got done watching Water Boy

By hand only.

You know they recycle all that wash water right? Mnnn gritty water blasted onto my car at 150 PSI...:eyetwitch

Even the touchless are too high-pressure and can harm the paint. Hose-and-hand in the driveway is the way to go. I do use the drive-through washes in the winter, though, because it's got to be better than letting salt and sand sit on the paint.

There is a method to "properly" clean and detail regarding every aspect. However, even those detail freaks have to rotary polish their clearcoat on a yearly basis! Most of them do not have sports cars; they're just addicted to the clearcoat on their sedan or suv or minivan.

I never car wash unless perhaps I've been displaced from a home while in transition status for a month or more. Anything less than that, Optimum No Rinse is enough to bi-weekly keep clean.

Sure, I use Z-CS and I claybar semi-annual. But spiderwebs up close in direct light just do not concern me. No use fighting a battle than can never be won.

I was always taught that hand is the only way to go - for all the concerns voiced here already (damage to paint, damage to wheels)...plus there is some satisfaction to washing your own car.

how can auto spray washers hurt any car? Hand washing can scratch the paint, pure water can't.

NEVER.

First off, they never get the car completely clean. They always miss a spot somewhere. And you end up getting a false sense of clean, and all the little things it missed (bug splatches, dirt, grime) end up baking onto the surface because you assume it was clean.


If the carwash uses rubber/plastic filaments to clean: BAD
If it uses the cloth strips: Bad (Dirt transfers from the last car to yours and scratches)

In between washes, at the do it yourself, all I need is some high pressure spray.

it's only a car, doesn't need to be spotless. PDQ type of car wash works great. $5 well spent.

Would you rather be handwashed by a soft woolglove, or would you want to be sprayed with big pressure nozzles?

Your car's paint is delicate too. The best way to get it clean and keep it clean is handwashing it. Preferably also bi-annual claying to get out small contaminents from the paint surface.

In the winter, I use the touchless car wash where you just drive up to the wash bay and park there. No "driving through" and no rails.

In the summer, I do it myself. The 8 gets a lot cleaner when it's a labour of love :-P

First of all, I don't think the automatic car washes are a great deal.
Our local station has a touchless car wash and that's $7-10 depending on whether or not you want the wax, etc...
There's a place not far from my home that offers hand washes for $10. Once I drove in with a black car. They used a new washglove and chamois to clean it. They got my business from now on!
If I can't wash the car myself, I'll go to the hand wash.

I take my 8 offroading quite a bit...

100,000 miles on the tach.

Paint looks fabulous.



If flying rocks, layers upon layers of dirt baked in by the Texas sun, and my everyday batshit insane driving habits have resulted in little more than a few miniscule paint chips on the bottom of the front lip, I promise you some pressurized water and dangly cloth strips aren't going to a damn thing to your paintjob.
I will never understand why some people think the paint on their cars is so pathetically delicate. I clean my car about once every 4 months. In those 4 months is several autocrosses, a few roadtrips, a shitload of dirt roads, and a lot of tail-happy driving. My car glistens like a big, black, brand new mirror when I wash it. Unless your local touch free carwash is also used for hurricane damage simulations, I promise it wont hurt your paint.

water doesn't hurt the paint, but sand stuck in the wax then wiped across the paint will. I always use spray washers and never any damage.......................
But if you want to waste your time, go ahead and wash by hand.

Buy the 10 pack deluxe at Quik Trip for $55. It is the same machine as PDQ.