What Kind Of Car Wash Damages Your Paintwork The Most?
In this classic Fifth Gear clip, Tim Shaw tries out an automatic car wash, a jet wash and a hand wash to see which method is the most detrimental to paintwork
Always remember to follow these car washing rules!
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
The real question is, where can I find this microscope
Honest question: What about touchless car washes?
Still thinking of it as a pressure washer, and thus, not as gentle as doing it by hand. Plus some of them aren’t that sensitive to car lengths, and the rubber covered arms impact on bumpers and mirrors if you’re not lined up correctly.
The automatic carwash wins and I’m not surprised. Ofcourse it depends where you go, but near me there’s an excellent car wash who clean and replace those things that spin around regularly, your car gets blasted dry with air and there are automatic towels at the end so you won’t be left with water marks. Also they don’t use stiff brushes, and they will deny cars that are too dirty to prevent contamination of the spinny things and the towels.
I’m glad you said ‘spinny things’. I thought I was the only one who used technical terms like that. Just teasing ya. Yep, if they don’t clean them, it’s like using sandpaper on your finish. Fine grit, perhaps, but still….sandpaper.
I use self wash stations. Being military and a student 1500 miles from home and commuting 24,000 miles a year, that’s what I’ve accepted as the best choice. I can scrub down the car from top to bottom myself, ensure its thoroughly scrubbed through along with the wheels. And the hose does a better job than the garden hose I don’t have. Ride on steel wheels so I don’t care so much for detailing those ever. Twice a year I’ll use the automatic wash to get the wax on. Once a year I’ll do a full detail, usually right before winter so I can get a thick coat of wax to prevent salt and road debris from scratching the paint off.
I’m extremely ocd about keeping the interior clean. That I do daily. If I’m at home I like hitting it with water on the daily to keep dust and debris off.
Guess I’m not using a squeegee anymore…
What about the classic car-wash that we have here in France ? Hot-water, a kind of snow-foam, high-pressure water and to finish distilled water… Simple and efficient, my car has no scratch
What ya do is use a lamb’s wool wash mitt that has been through the washing machine after every wash.
Well
To me it means that you don’t like your car if you wash it like that