How bad is an automatic car wash?

1

1500canoe

New member
I`m wondering how negative a single automatic car wash (often accompanied by a drying with sh*tty towels) is from time to time, especially on a daily driver (not a show car or garage queen, but still cared for).

I prefer to hand wash, with the occasional visit to the self-serve coin-op bay in the winter to blow off the dirt/salt. But, from time to time a dealer or other service may as a courtesy or necessity provide a "free" car wash. For example: I have a Krown rust protection treatment coming up, and they really want to get any over-spray etc off of the paint/tires/etc. with an automatic wash immediately after. How do you avoid these kinds of courtesy washes, and how bad are they going to be regarding swirl marks and etc. once in a while?

Thanks!
 
1500canoe said:
I`m wondering how negative a single automatic car wash (often accompanied by a drying with sh*tty towels) is from time to time, especially on a daily driver (not a show car or garage queen, but still cared for).

I prefer to hand wash, with the occasional visit to the self-serve coin-op bay in the winter to blow off the dirt/salt. But, from time to time a dealer or other service may as a courtesy or necessity provide a "free" car wash. For example: I have a Krown rust protection treatment coming up, and they really want to get any over-spray etc off of the paint/tires/etc. with an automatic wash immediately after. How do you avoid these kinds of courtesy washes, and how bad are they going to be regarding swirl marks and etc. once in a while?

Thanks!
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In December when I dropped my car off at a very reputable body shop to get work done, my car was pretty swirl free. When I got it back, I saw that I needed to do a harty polish with M205 on a MF polishing pad follwed by M205 mix on a Green LC CCS. For this time of year, I can typically get away with a light polish of M205 on white LC CCS. Needless to say that automatic car washes can do some damage.
 
If you have a scale of 1-10. Where 10 is the worst a swirlAmatic is infinity

Don’t do it ever. My oldest vehicle is a 2009 and it’s never seen one.
 
ONE courtesy wash from the dealership
 

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I am not even happy with my current 2 bucket 2 mitts hand washes (with a power washer pre rinse) on my black Camaro. I am still getting wash induced marring. Unless you are in a light colored car (white, silver, light metallic tan or baby blue.......) you will get a lot of noticeable marring from each wash. On a light colored car you will get them also but they are harder to notice you will more notice that the car just seems duller and has less of a pop to it when its cleaned and waxed. I am planing to go to a hybrid 2 bucket/rinseless wash. I will use one wash bucket with grit guard with regular wash soap in it and a dry bucket for used towels and use 1-2 towels per panel like rinsless but with normal soap then toss those in dirty bucket. I dont think the dirt is rinsing out of my mitt well enough when I dunk it in my rinse bucket so I am just going to use 12-20 towels each wash (depending on the level of dirty the car is) and see if that reduces my wash induced marring. The Camaro is black and a garage queen and it shows any marring at all because its always clean. My daily driver truck is metallic gray and gets washed with a boars hair tri head brush, I am willing to deal with some level of swirls on it because its a work truck it does a lot of plowing and towing and hauling and does 25K miles a year.
 
trashmanssd said:
I am not even happy with my current 2 bucket 2 mitts hand washes (with a power washer pre rinse) on my black
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I hear ya on this one. My wife drives a Black Cadillac and wow. What a pain in the ... to wash. I have abandoned the two bucket system and now use one bucket. Then depending on how dirty it is, anywhere from 4 to 6 mitts to wash the beast. One time after a beach trip I used 8 mitts. Autopia has ruined me.:P

To the OP. The wife took the Cadillac through a "touchless wash" one time. It looked like, it got blasted by sand. Not sure if it was the wash or the dryer. But it wasn`t pretty.
 
I feel bad taking a rental through a carwash and would never take a Service Loaner through one as I believe the resulting damage would be inexcusable.

or people who don`t care about their vehicle`s cosmetics they have their points. Giving the Drying Crew a spray bottle of RW and your own MFs can help a *tiny* bit and I recommend that to people who aren`t gonna do things (the Autopian version of) right.

Note that it could only take *one* trip through such a carwash to instill marring too deep for safe removal.

A touchless with no-touch drying can be OK, though usually hard on LSP/etc. and sometimes harsh enough to do actual (even permanent) damage. Eh, my wife runs her A8 through one now and then while traveling...OK, whatever..I do the same with some Loaners and rentals. But we always take a peek to see how the Touchless impresses us, and we`re prepared to pass if anything looks iffy.
 
I definitely will be the guy demanding that they don`t wash my vehicles from now on. Also I`m going to get some hang tags and notes printed to put out prominently.

I have 1 vehicle that has pretty heavy swirl marks already, and a second that is swirl free and brand new. I wasn`t sure how many washes it would take to mar/swirl the paint - it sure sounds like 1 is enough!
 
Except that Service Loaner is going thru the tunnel wash an hour after you return it.

Accumulator said:
I feel bad taking a rental through a carwash and would never take a Service Loaner through one as I believe the resulting damage would be inexcusable.

or people who don`t care about their vehicle`s cosmetics they have their points. Giving the Drying Crew a spray bottle of RW and your own MFs can help a *tiny* bit and I recommend that to people who aren`t gonna do things (the Autopian version of) right.

Note that it could only take *one* trip through such a carwash to instill marring too deep for safe removal.

A touchless with no-touch drying can be OK, though usually hard on LSP/etc. and sometimes harsh enough to do actual (even permanent) damage. Eh, my wife runs her A8 through one now and then while traveling...OK, whatever..I do the same with some Loaners and rentals. But we always take a peek to see how the Touchless impresses us, and we`re prepared to pass if anything looks iffy.
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This client had a membership to the tunnel wash place...
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Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 
glfnaz said:
Except that Service Loaner is going thru the tunnel wash an hour after you return it.
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Yes, and/but it goes into the Tunnel of Marring without bearing any damage caused by Yours Truly. Everything I touch in this life gets treated like it`s mine. Well, except for the Driving Schools` cars ;)

And actually, I gotta be fair here; as best I can tell my Audi dealer does a reasonably decent job of hand-washing theirs. The last few weren`t nearly as bad as I would`ve expected.
 
locori said:
Do soaps and other chemicals from automatic car wash strip off sealant and waxes that were applied by hand? I am planning to detail my daily with one coat of Klasse sealant and one coat of Collinite 845. I was wondering whether I should even bother to detail my daily if I`m going to put it through car wash through winter (maybe 10+ automatic car washes until March). If sealant and wax can somehow survive these chemicals, I might as well go ahead and detail my daily driver. I detailed my weekend car today, and while waiting for sealant and wax to cure on my weekend car, I decontaminated and "somewhat" clayed the daily driver. All I have to do is to apply the sealant and wax during next wash. Thanks in advance
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I would say that all soaps and chemicals from automatic car wash or even your own hand wash will in some ways degrade sealant and waxes. The hard part that I am not sure anyone can tell you for sure is how long it will take for an automatic car wash to strip off the protection. That really depends on what soap/chemical they are using and how strong they mix it. Truth is all car washes are setup different based on cost vs performance.

I am of the opinion that I would prep and apply the sealant/wax and go from there. But I am here as an Autopian.... I think some protection is better than none. In this case though I wouldn`t necessarily polish since I find more marring and scratching comes from winter grit and grim than other times of the year for me.
 
I bought my car in 2009. It was a 2006. Now i am a man of 80 yrs old. I am full with artritis , I have heart trouble. Since I had this car it seen only automatic car washes. I wash at least once a week , often twice a week. My car sits outside 24/7 and I demand a clean car.About every 3 weeks I use a spray wax on it When I use a spray wax on it I do not see any swirls ,or scratches. .The color is a medium blue. I can look at the hood and see a perfect refflection of my face in it. I guess you have to be careful what car was you go to. A friend of mine collect old cars and he goes to the same place I go to and I see no scratches on his cars either . All automatic car washes are not equal.
 
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