Touchless vs. doing nothing

It reached -5 degrees the other night here in Kansas City (without windchill). It was physically painful to go outside. I drove 10 miles to a friends house and the engine barely warmed up on the trip there. I envy you warmer climate posters.
 
I have no garage, no friend's garage, but I do live in Massachusetts where it is now -17 F. with wind chill (11:30 pm). My VW Golf looks like Hell, and there's no way to clean it properly. Will a car wash hurt my car? If not, I don't see the point of leaving all that crud on the car's surface and wheel wells.
 
It sounds bad, but I deliberately put a layer of thin ice on the back of my car when rinsing it down so that if it got dirty on the drive home it would just melt all off in the garage. (it was as dirty as it's ever been cause of all the driving this weekend).



I saw negative numbers on my Passat monitor today, -4°. I should have put it in Celcius so that it would have read lower ;)
 
-4, that would have read -20 in Celsius. Only a little warmer than here today. ;) But, once you get below -40, Fahrenheit sounds colder.
 
Whatever you do, be cautious about washing your car in a cold climate with any hot water in the mix. I have been researching paint issues over the past year and have come across information from paint manufaturers that this causes "thermal shock' to clearcoat. The weird thing is, it supposedly dosen't visually happen right away, but rather the many tiny cracks that become visible do so after about 8 months to a year. I have wittnessed these cracks on some vehicles, one a 2000 Isuzu Rodeo SUV (black) that I detailed for the first time in 2002. I brought it to the attention of the owner before I worked on it, to save myself liability issues. I thought perhaps it was cause by a bad rotary buffing job that cause it to check/crack, but research on it led me to a site (wish I had kept the link) that was a BASF or such paint site that spoke of this hot water concern. There are perhaps other causes for this same paint issue, but I can assure you all that the hot water/cold car concern is valid according to the people that supply the paints to the manufacturers.



Not saying anyone here would do this, but given the laws of physics, it makes sense not to put anything hot on cold sheet metal. Warm may be a different story. Cheers.
 
I am currently looking for jobs around San Diego..... I live in jersey now and I have just about had it with this winter crap.... forget about cleaning the car I am having trouble finding places to clean myself....... the pipes have been frozen for the past three days :(
 
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