Why you should not use automatic car washes - damage repair by Explicit Details of CT
 

It's certainly tempting to pull into that automatic car wash down the street for a quick $5 wash. But what can happen can end up costing alot more than 5 bucks to fix. My customer took his perfect black BMW through a local wash a total of 3 times during the winter to wash the salt off the car. He noticed some scratches and swirls on the paint that were not there before he took the car through the wash. Upon further inspection, he was shocked at what he found. Heavy swirl marks over the entire car and some very, very nasty, deep scratches along the entire bottom section of the car. He called me to see if I could repair the damage, and I was able to get the paint back into pre-automatic wash condition. It took about 10 hours of paint correction to fix the damage from 3 trips through the wash.

Here's some 50/50 shots of the damage on the rear bumper. On the left are the scratches and on the right is the paint that has been repaired by several passes with aggressive compound and then finished with a fine polish.
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And a 50/50 shot of the heavy swirls and the front fender.
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And a few shots of the finished product.
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The swirls were so pronounced in the first shot, I though it had scraped into something at first. Beautiful work by the way!

Not only should you avoid automatic washes, but any wash service in particular. Especially the dealer. If you care about the paint then wash it yourself with proper techniques. And wax, wax, wax.

I use the "touchless" automatic ones that dont touch the car except with water.

Havent noticed anything yet.

The touchless type are the least likely to do damage, but the stong detergents will strip most waxes and sealants right off. Unless you have a coating like Opti-Coat or Americoat on the car. Those detergents also arent the best for plastic trim.

Good work! Looks beautifully restored to show room condition.

Not to mention, I've always been told to avoid recycled water... What are your thoughts on this? I've used pressure washers at local car washes before, but decided just to buy my own.

I think it really depends on the particular car wash and how well they filter their water. Since there's no way to really tell, I would avoid them unless for some reason you really need to go to a car wash, a touchless would be the safest option.

I honestly thought the car was blue until you posted the entire car.

I think the glare from the sun off the snow was messing with the white balance on my camera, I'm still learning to use a DSLR properly.

Looked more like you just had it set to the wrong white balance preset.... was the car rubbed by base of the brush in the wash??

I think you're right, I probably left it on the same setting from the last time I used it. I've gotten alot better since I took these pics :)

It looked like the wheel brushes spun against the entire bottom half of the car as it went through.