Car Wash

[grgonium]

With winter here, the salt and dirt sucks. You all notice how dirty the car gets with the water being kicked up?

My question, for those who do drive in the winter, Do you wash your car? If so, how many times per week? And where? Soft cloth or touchless?

My family has a petro car wash pass, so I go 2-3 times a week. I'd go more if I could. I only use the touchless carwash that I drive into, park, and it washes around the car. I do realize the side mirrors don't get washed as well as they could, but that may be because of the type of wash.

Anyone go through washes with rails? or softcloth?

[#87]

I washed mine once in the last 2 months

As long as you don't go to a standard swirl machine and use a good technique when you do it yourself I don't see any harm in once a week washing. 2-3 times is kind of OCD but hey I just see it as a fun machine you may see it as your baby.

Do what it takes to make you happy when you look at it.

[Skurj]

still waiting for my car...

But my current toyota I wash pretty close to once a week. If its an automatic car wash I will only ever use a touchless. My dealer hand washes it whenever its in for service.

I do a lot of miles so usually filling up 2x a week so one of those I also get a wash.

I do creep slowly through the dryer as well, but I do get to keep the car in a garage so no worries with frozen doors windows etc.

[L3P47]

I like to wash mine once a week. Here for the last few weeks though it's been raining every other day. So, when I get home i'll take the hose and rinse off all the grime from the road. When I do wash though I wash by hand with a microfiber mit. I wouldn't recommend taking it to a touchless wash just because it can't get everything that needs to be hit. Then again though that's just my take on it.

[thorlius]

I used one of those Petro passes here with the touchless washes during the 2011 and 2012 summers with my C6. It's actually a great deal if you go splits with people at work and rotate daily, especially as long as nobody's prickly about the weekend coordination. They don't do perfect jobs, but they did make the car look (and smell) great in 99% of the visible areas.

I haven't washed the FR-S once yet for three reasons:
1) All I hear/read are stories of how thin the paint is on these cars, so the thought of pressure washers within the first few months concerns me.
2) The one guy at work who'd split with me on those Petro cards got laid off back in August and I'm not interested in daily washes for myself for over $200 for 3 months. (Everyone else at work drives aging econoboxes.)
3) I am going to be beating the piss out of this car because a) that's how it should be driven, and b) to see just how reliable this Japanese engineering and manufacturing really is. :P

That said, it'll be going in for a full interior and exterior detailing once the spring hits.

[chenshuo]

Using gas station automatic wash often is not good because the soap they use is very strong and can strip off your wax quicker. And those places don't wash the under carriage well.

What i recommend is find those DIY car washes where you insert coins and spray wash yourself. Wash your car there every week but only use water to give your car a good "rinse", especially the under carriage. My family follow this routine on our '04 corolla and up until today there's no rust. The car didn't get rust proof either.

[caliboy15]

I use coin op. carwash twice a week just to remove salt and dirt

[grgonium]

Originally Posted by caliboy15

I use coin op. carwash twice a week just to remove salt and dirt

Yes I totally just do it to remove salt and noticable dirt. Didn't realize soaps harm that much. But is that worse then salt sitting on the car?

The wash I go to does wash underneath the car as I drive in.

And yea between 4 cars in the house, I can wash at least twice a week, so why not?

[Mikepage]

Originally Posted by chenshuo

Using gas station automatic wash often is not good because the soap they use is very strong and can strip off your wax quicker. And those places don't wash the under carriage well.

What i recommend is find those DIY car washes where you insert coins and spray wash yourself. Wash your car there every week but only use water to give your car a good "rinse", especially the under carriage. My family follow this routine on our '04 corolla and up until today there's no rust. The car didn't get rust proof either.

[Wattage]

I've washed mine twice this winter. I try to take advantage of warmer days to do it, today was perfect.

I use a shammy and hand wash it. I have a pressure washer but I just set it to a mist to wet and rinse the car off.

The only disadvantage to all of this is I don't wash the under body, but I did get it oil sprayed so I'm not too worried.

[L3P47]

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

[captslow]

ONR (Optimum No Rinse) + 2 gallons of water + grit guard + wool mitt.

[wbradley]

If you use a pressure washer the chamois defeats the purpose I think. That is unless you just do a light wipe after a thorough pressure clean. Don't want a lot of scratches in the clearcoat. Yesterday was 14C, pressure washed my winter car top and underside.

[Dusky]

Took advantage of the nice weather yesterday and washed my car for the first time since early December. I applied abit of ironx and was surprised with the amount of iron deposit that is on the paint... I might do the weekly coin car wash thing then.

Btw the car was Opticoated and detailed/washed every 2-3 weeks before the winter.