Toyota GR86, 86, FR-S and Subaru BRZ Forum & Owners Community - FT86CLUB - View Single Post - Why you should not use automatic car washes

Richard Grasa · 05-10-2014, 01:39 PM

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.

And a 50/50 shot of the heavy swirls and the front fender.

And a few shots of the finished product.

05-10-2014, 01:39 PM	#1
Richard Grasa Member Join Date: Mar 2013 Drives: Work truck Location: CT Posts: 32 Thanks: 7 Thanked 16 Times in 13 Posts Mentioned: 0 Post(s)	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. And a 50/50 shot of the heavy swirls and the front fender. And a few shots of the finished product.