Drive through car washes?

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
May 11, 2010
Messages
21,565
Location
Charlotte, NC
Display Name
Snorting his way across the USA
I've used drive through car washes for years. I've never had an issue other than the occasional under-rinsed job. Touchless has never done a good job. Brush and mops work great, and if you get the full deal with wax, the finish remains perfectly fine.

What prompted me to post this is I recently bought a new Subaru Outback, which has a zillion sensors, and I personally know a person that ran her Chevy Volt through the car wash and all those sensors quit working. Yes, I know, it's a Chevy Volt.

I'm not that lazy. Okay I'm a little lazy but the price I pay for hand washing my car is that I have very hard water. Car washes use softened water, or the process is so short it doesn't matter. My cars have always been cleaner looking after going through the wash vs. hand washing. I only do it maybe once or twice a year, max.

I have another friend with a Subaru who seems to take hers to the drive through car was with no apparent ill effects or paint damage.

If you Google the topic, you will find mostly that the Internet Experts are horrified to use drive through washes and they cause scratches and swirls especially on Subarus. It generally hasn't been my experience plus driving your semi-offroad vehicle through semi-offroad conditions causes semi, to fully, offroad abrasive and dirt conditions.

Any thoughts on this?
 
I try to wash my cars at home by hand, but if I take it to a car wash, I only do touchless. It gets reasonably clean, the ceramic coating helps, but not nearly as good as washing it at home. The car washes that touch are horrible for your paint.
 
Depends on how picky you are. I’ll use one to get the salt or dirt off something I’m not super worried about the cosmetics of if I don’t have the time to wash it properly.
 
Wash at home. Use a powerful gas leaf blower to dry, even with hard water it will look fine.
 
$10 drive through automatic wash. I prefer the brushless kind, but the "brushes" these days seem to be made of silicone rather than the dirty rags of days gone by, so I don't worry so much about them.

GeorgeC,
car wash yeah
wash.jpg
 
cowman said:
Depends on how picky you are. I’ll use one to get the salt or dirt off something I’m not super worried about the cosmetics of if I don’t have the time to wash it properly.
Click to expand...

I always go to a touchless wash after a snow, if I drive on salted roads. I drive extra slow over the undercarriage sprayer. You have to get that salt off, and I ain't getting out in the cold to wash anything, if I can help it.
 
2017 Outback has been thru the car wash 1-2 times per month for its entire life. It still looks great and everything works *shrug*.

It helps that I specifically ordered white pearl metallic because it doesn’t show swirl marks. Yeah, if you get real close you can see some swirls on some parts of the car, but it really still looks fantastic.
 
Every time I have bought new (to me) car I meticulously hand wash it then put on a number of layers of hand buffed old fashioned carnuba “turtle wax”. Then when it get dirt just rinse it off with a garden hose. Every 5 years or so it is good to go back and repeat the process with another coat or two. It works.
 
My subie is basically a chia pet of grime and neglect at this point. We had hotel security guards wash it for us in Africa because they were ashamed, and I kvetched about my damaged patina.

I can't speak to swirl marks or paint longevity with car washing, but some of our cars have a "car wash mode" buried deep in the interface, and yours might too with all of the gadgetry.
 
Not all drive through car washes are the same...the cheapie gas station washes do use the plastic bristle swirly thingies but I have several full service car washes in my area that also have drive through exterior only service that use the felt strip pads that swish back and forth vs the more abrasive spinning plastic beat you paint to hell washes.

I used to be all touchless until I discovered the less abrasive type washes, but I will still never use the gas station washes.
 
Depends. Softer paint will swirl. I understand the Outbacks and Foresters have a clear coat, which puts a harder top coat on the softer paint.
 
The people I see whining about swirls and scratches from automatic car washes seem to be the same people who expect to be able to keep their car in car-show splendor. You know, the ones whose identity is tied to their car and who ***** and moan for months if a bird craps on it. My vehicles live in the real world, and get run through automatic car washes. In fact, I had a membership for one and it was getting washed a couple times a week for a year or more. Neither one shows any ill effects from the terrible mistreatment, and if I really wanted to (I don't) I could still polish them out to factory-new or better in an hour or two with some buffing compound.

Some people just love getting wrapped around the axle about Reddit-level theoretical nonsense.

I do like knowing that the underside is getting washed regularly. I don't worry about rust coming from the top or sides, but up from the bottom.
 
If your car with its fancy sensors cant gandle a simple car wash then how will it survive driving in a heavy rainstorm?
 
DaleB said:
I do like knowing that the underside is getting washed regularly. I don't worry about rust coming from the top or sides, but up from the bottom.
Click to expand...
That’s what small oil drips and very minor seeps from power steering leaks are for. You combine that with primarily driving on dusty crushed lime stone gravel roads and it develops a hard coating shell of petroleum and alkaline stone that mummifies the undercarriage. (It does take a hammer and chisel to break it away to change out parts though).
 
Flatiowa said:
That’s what small oil drips and very minor seeps from power steering leaks are for. You combine that with primarily driving on dusty crushed lime stone gravel roads and it develops a hard coating shell of petroleum and alkaline stone that mummifies the undercarriage. (It does take a hammer and chisel to break it away to change out parts though).
Click to expand...
I no longer own or drive cars that leak. It's freeing, actually. Now I can get under a vehicle and take a look, and if I see an oily spot on or underneath a vehicle I know it's something that needs looking into.

For decades everything we drove had the layer of oil-soaked road grime you describe. Heck, I don't remember ever seeing a clean undercarriage even back to the eqrly 70s when I started helping Dad out with oil, lube, tire rotations, and tuneups. It was just a fact of life; cars were filthy. The new ones collect road grime and spray, but it's dry and can be washed off. I like that a lot better. I'm restoring a '66 Mustang; it will be interesting to see whether it instinctively oils its own underside or not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top