Car wash machines

[Tom89t]

What is your favor car wash machine? Mine is Pdq tandem Ritetouch.

[Takumi]

Rain.

[corco]

Garden hose

or an elephant

[Takumi]

Garden hose

or an elephant

Ooh, elephant. Good one.

In all seriousness, I've only ever used a car wash machine once, and it was to get salt/mud off the car after a snowstorm. Naturally, it snowed again not long after.

[Dr Frankenstein]

I had a Kärcher pressure washer in my garage... until I realized the hard way that I actually have to keep it in a heated garage or somewhere else in the house. The winder made the pump crack.

[Scott5114]

I always just drive to one of those car-wash places where you park in a walled-off bay and feed dollar coins into a slot to let you wash your car yourself.  When I lived with my parents we just made a bucket of sudsy water with Ajax dish soap and used the same sort of bath towels you use in the shower on the car. Rinsing was performed with the garden hose. Probably took longer, but was much cheaper. Would still do this if I didn't live in an apartment.

[1995hoo]

I prefer to do it myself, but in the winter after snow it's sometimes too cold and I'll need to wash the undercarriage. In those circumstances I use a touch less wash with no rails located on Edsall Road near home; it's of the "drive in and stop" variety, but your wheel need not be placed just so before it runs. It also has a 60-second countdown display on the drying time, which I really like; I'm sure I've annoyed other people waiting on line as I slowly crawl under the drying thing, but I paid for those 60 seconds and I intend to use them up :-)

[oscar]

I always just drive to one of those car-wash places where you park in a walled-off bay and feed dollar coins into a slot to let you wash your car yourself.  When I lived with my parents we just made a bucket of sudsy water with Ajax dish soap and used the same sort of bath towels you use in the shower on the car. Rinsing was performed with the garden hose. Probably took longer, but was much cheaper. Would still do this if I didn't live in an apartment.

In northern Virginia, such places are pretty hard to find.  My truck is too big for the usual automatic car washes, so when I need to wash it I have to drive out to Sterling VA in the far outer suburbs, about 25 miles from my apartment.  Do it yourself isn't an option at my apartment complex, either.  So my truck gets washed more often when I'm on the road (where self-service car washes are common) than when I'm in town.

[Chris]

I live in an apartment too, and that's what I hate about apartments, you can't wash your car at home, as there is no water available and parking is not right next to your house so walking back and forth up the stairs with buckets of water isn't really an option. So I go to the car wash. They have a 200 ft conveyor belt where you drive onto, and then it gets washed by both machines and manual car wash by staff. It costs about $ 9 so I don't do it every week (understatement).

[1995hoo]

I always just drive to one of those car-wash places where you park in a walled-off bay and feed dollar coins into a slot to let you wash your car yourself.  When I lived with my parents we just made a bucket of sudsy water with Ajax dish soap and used the same sort of bath towels you use in the shower on the car. Rinsing was performed with the garden hose. Probably took longer, but was much cheaper. Would still do this if I didn't live in an apartment.

In northern Virginia, such places are pretty hard to find.  My truck is too big for the usual automatic car washes, so when I need to wash it I have to drive out to Sterling VA in the far outer suburbs, about 25 miles from my apartment.  Do it yourself isn't an option at my apartment complex, either.  So my truck gets washed more often when I'm on the road (where self-service car washes are common) than when I'm in town.

There's a self-serve car wash of the sort Scott5114 describes on US-1 in Woodbridge. If you go down I-95 to the left exit for US-1 (I think it's Exit 161), you can find the car wash by crossing over to Prince William County and continuing past the VRE station that's on the left. Go through the light just after the VRE station and look for the McDonald's, which is also on the left. The car wash is the third building after the McDonald's on that same side and there is a large billboard right after it. If you come to Marumsco Plaza you went too far.

Depending on where in Arlington you're located it may not be all that much closer than Sterling , but depending on the time of day it might be easier to reach. (Too bad it seems like gas is no longer all that much cheaper down there. In the past at least the cheaper gas in Prince William County was an incentive to make the trip.)

[J N Winkler]

My basic approach is much the same as Scott5114's--I drive to a self-service car wash with high-pressure wands--except I tend not to bother washing the car at all unless (1) it is absolutely necessary to remove salt or heavy accumulations of dirt, or (2) the car wash offers a spot-free rinse cycle (generally using softened or deionized water).  My personal view is that unless a spot-free rinse is available, there is no point whatsoever to washing the car for purely cosmetic reasons.  I won't use a wash mitt because that abrades the finish and, in my opinion, does more harm than good.  I also think it is pointless to fuss about the cosmetic aspects of a car's appearance unless it is routinely garage-kept.

As I have gotten older I have become more fussy about exterior glass.  Because I have to park my Saturn outdoors where it is hit by water from a sprinkler system during lawn irrigation season, I have become accustomed to cleaning the exterior glass occasionally with Windex (a very harsh ammonia-based cleaner which you would not routinely use to clean car glass), using towels to mask the paint and weatherstripping from overspray.  Sprinkler water is absolutely the worst kind of water that can hit a car exterior because it is groundwater, with a very high mineral content, and thus dries with spots on both paint and glass.  I don't care about the paint because the car is not garage-kept, but over time the spots interfere with visibility through the windshield and side windows, and so have to be removed.  In Kansas the sun is strong enough (especially in summer) to leave thick film on the insides of windows, so that too has to be removed with Windex in order to maintain adequate nighttime visibility.

I have noted a huge difference between the US and Europe (particularly Britain) in how cars are kept.  Garage keeping is far rarer in Britain, for example, than it is in the US.  Partly this is because many houses in Britain were built without garages in the first instance, while the houses that do have them tend to be old enough that the garages don't have enough room to accommodate modern cars (even the smaller cars that are far more popular in Britain than in the US).  I believe self-service car washing with high-pressure water is possible (especially at so-called "out-of-town" sites for which the requisite planning permission is somewhat easier to obtain), but not easy to find.  I have heard Britons refer to car washing as something the nice immigrants from Eastern Europe will do for you.

In parts of continental Europe, like Switzerland, it is fairly common for postwar apartment blocks to have communal garages at basement level, accessed by a ramp.  Frequently these blocks have a bay with water hookups for car washing and other facilities for basic repairs.  Because these facilities are communal, however, your neighbors expect not to be unduly inconvenienced.  This means not taking too long washing a car (or whatever) in the shared bay, cleaning up all tools and other supplies promptly, and not taking up space unnecessarily with parts and equipment.  Keeping a "parts car" in such a garage (like some working-class Americans do in their yards, if they have fences and tolerant neighbors) would be unthinkable.

[formulanone]

A dealership I worked at had a Karcher machine that was pretty good, and I used it about once a week for two years (since it was free). Never damaged anything, although if it was very dirty or buggy, you'd have to scrub it with soap and water first, sometimes with and handheld power sprayer. But before and since then, I hand wash and wax my cars.

When my wife and I were looking for apartments many years ago, a separate car wash area was a must...it was rarely used by anyone other than yours truly.

[agentsteel53]

I never wash my car.  I like having dirt and bugs from lots of different places.

I just squeegee the windshield when necessary at a gas station.

[1995hoo]

.... I won't use a wash mitt because that abrades the finish and, in my opinion, does more harm than good.  ....

....

This is one of the potential problems with many commercial car washes, including the coin-op DIY type discussed in this thread: Grit and dirt on the brushes or on the foaming brush. It's one reason I opt for the touchless ones when I use a commercial wash (the other reason is that most of the ones with brushes require that you roll through between rails and the rails can scratch your wheels). At least with the foaming brush you can use the high-powered water gun to rinse it off before you use it.

[realjd]

This is one of the potential problems with many commercial car washes, including the coin-op DIY type discussed in this thread: Grit and dirt on the brushes or on the foaming brush. It's one reason I opt for the touchless ones when I use a commercial wash (the other reason is that most of the ones with brushes require that you roll through between rails and the rails can scratch your wheels). At least with the foaming brush you can use the high-powered water gun to rinse it off before you use it.

The owners manual for my car explicitly tells you not to use touchless car washes. Apparently they contain some pretty strong chemicals that can erode door seals and such. The "soft cloth" car washes are OK according to the book. I've never had any of my cars scratched by a "soft cloth" car wash.

[1995hoo]

This is one of the potential problems with many commercial car washes, including the coin-op DIY type discussed in this thread: Grit and dirt on the brushes or on the foaming brush. It's one reason I opt for the touchless ones when I use a commercial wash (the other reason is that most of the ones with brushes require that you roll through between rails and the rails can scratch your wheels). At least with the foaming brush you can use the high-powered water gun to rinse it off before you use it.

The owners manual for my car explicitly tells you not to use touchless car washes. Apparently they contain some pretty strong chemicals that can erode door seals and such. The "soft cloth" car washes are OK according to the book. I've never had any of my cars scratched by a "soft cloth" car wash.

Interesting. The only time I've had a problem in a touchless one was in my RX-7, but that was because the car is coming up on 25 years old and so it doesn't deal too well with the high-pressure water blasts and the like. I pretty much have to wash that one by hand.

I do know some of the hard-core auto-detailing types recommend against using any sort of automatic car wash because many, perhaps most, of them use recycled water that can contain all sorts of leftover gunk no matter how much filtering they use. While I understand the rationale behind their point, in practical terms it doesn't help me much during the winter because at some point I generally have to go through some sort of commercial car wash (whether the coin-op type with the wand or one of the machine types) simply because of road salt on the undercarriage. I'm probably overly paranoid about that because my beloved '82 Accord fell victim to undercarriage rust in 1995 and since then I've made a point of trying to clean thoroughly under there.

[Takumi]

For my 4th Gen Prelude (the '95), it says to wash with a soft cloth by hand in the shade, and that chemical solvents and strong cleaners can damage its surfaces.

[J N Winkler]

I don't know about the claim that car-wash chemicals erode door seals.  I tend to treat them anyway as a maintenance item.  My 1986 Maxima was 21 years old when I finally got rid of it, and it had all of its original weatherstripping despite being parked outdoors for 11 of those years.  One of my summer maintenance tasks was to wipe the weatherstripping with a wet cloth and then spray it with silicone.  It stayed supple and new-looking; it was the framing strips between sliding windows and fixed glass that were starting to rust (they were originally coated with a flat black paint which slowly chipped over the years).

The high-pressure wand can raise paint, especially in areas where it has started to chip.  Whether it does so depends partly on the angle of attack and partly on the quality of the paint coat applied at the factory.  Even with this, however, I feel more comfortable using high-pressure water than a cloth or mitt because the latter can leave swirl marks which become especially obvious under relatively low-level specular illumination (e.g. an overhead light in a garage).  Grit can also embed itself in fabric and doesn't necessarily shake out when the cloth or mitt is agitated in the washwater bucket.

[NE2]

The ones consisting of several half-naked cheerleaders are always excellent. My only concern is that they'll decide to clean me and I'll no longer be a dirty old man.

[Scott5114]

I live in an apartment too, and that's what I hate about apartments, you can't wash your car at home, as there is no water available and parking is not right next to your house so walking back and forth up the stairs with buckets of water isn't really an option. So I go to the car wash. They have a 200 ft conveyor belt where you drive onto, and then it gets washed by both machines and manual car wash by staff. It costs about $ 9 so I don't do it every week (understatement).

Don't know about the Netherlands, but the last two apartments I have lived in both specifically stated in the lease no car maintenance or washing is permitted on the grounds.

[Sanctimoniously]

Rain.

This.

[Tom89t]

Here Sonny's bay wash Car wash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM5OWOUVbyM

[formulanone]

Rain.

This.

But soap never falls from the sky.

[kphoger]

I only have the car washed a few times a year.  Due to its size as a minivan, I don't really save any money hand-washing it, so I opt for the automatic ones.  There's only one in my part of town, so that's the one I go to.  The thing I don't like about automatic car washes is that they don't actually do a good job of cleaning your car, which seems to me would be its primary concern.  I wish it would do a scan of my vehicle's dimensions, then adjust the beams accordingly to get as close as possible to the vehicle.  Spraying it from four feet away just doesn't seem like the best way to get a car clean.

I also dislike using the DIY wash bays because I dislike getting my clothes wet.  If they would let me wash the car naked, I would be more inclined to use them.  Well, OK, only in the summer.

[Duke87]

Put me down in the "never wash the car, just the windshield on occasion" category.