Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

[Mary S]

I understand about the touchless washers and how the harsh detergents strip the wax. I have used them for most of my car's life, and I always pick the most expensive option, which puts some kind of wax on (not ideal but it is something).

But just wondering, the old ones that had the flaps of whatever material that sloshed over your car... Well, suppose they engineered them so that they were just as gentle on your car as someone's hands lightly cleaning your car with a microfiber or lambswool mitt, and that plus the "good car shampoo" and power wash to get the car clean, well is it possible?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[DualActionDetail]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

They exist, but are difficult to find. There are so many variables in play that could ultimately affect if the wash is "good" or "safe".
These variables include but are not limited to:

• Has to be an "attended" wash with employees, management, etc. Otherwise, a truck covered in mud, with gravel in the bed, and hydraulic oil splattered on the side from a long day at the job-site could have washed just before you. Attended locations should be wary of these and address them appropriately.
• equipment used to prep vehicle (has to be prepped to remove solids and a small portion of film so wash media doesn't move those contaminants around)
  • hopefully not brushed with nylon bristle brush (ouch!). Some use hog or boar's hair brushes, which are okay, if you can trust that the detergent used is clean, which isn't always the case.
• soaps used
  • Have to be at effective ratio and allowed enough dwell time before wash media interacts with vehicle surface.
  • If soaps are truly working, you'll notice that the wash media is not dirty, it should be clean since it is doused in soap every car every day.
• Water used
  • this is not only a question of "enough water?" meaning the vehicle has to be completely wet the entire process, but "good water?". Is the water softened?
• Equipment used, and wash media used
  • in my experience, avoid washes with "top brushes"...these are the horizontally aligned ones that dip down and move across your car's surface from hood to back. Dangerous! Imagine what they can do to hood emblems, windshield wipers, etc. Also imagine, if the operator hasn't included a good retract function: what types of things the wash media from a brush like this would pick up if it dipped down into a truck bed! (truck bed should've been cleared during prep phase)...
  • No reputable wash uses brushes anymore. The cloth you see hanging in vertical strips that sways side to side is soft media, but it is very dense, (can I say low pile, here?) so as to not be able to pick up contaminants. The wash material that is on any equipment that spins should be a closed-cell foam make-up. It is just about impossible for these types of material to absorb contaminants.
  • Speed of equipment
  • Pressure of equipment against sides of vehicle
  • Pressure settings for high pressure rinse
    • hopefully not set too high, and hopefully not aligned too high. If alignment is too high, voila! you get a free "pinstripe-stripping" service, on the house!
• drying agent/wax used
  • to be clear, since most of us MOL users know what a true wax is, the waxes/sealants used in automatic washes are not meant to be true waxes providing any longer-term protection than that between washes. Any wash that tells you differently...well...you be the judge. They can be compared to the properties of a Quik Wax or similar product. They aid in the beading of water to allow the blow-dry process to be most effective. They do offer a small amount of UV Protection and surface protection in that contaminants picked up after application won't be allowed to seat to the vehicle's surface as well.
• Spot Free/RO system used
  • Have to have spot free. Have to!
• Drying system used
  • be wary of washes that towel-dry. Ew! Look at the towels. Most reputable automatic, express-only, washes have a set up of several high-powered blowers, often aided by gas heat to allow the water to evaporate and move faster, that should get 85%-95% of the car dry.

So with all of that being said, if you can check off everything there then you may have found a good car wash. Then of course, there are always times where whatever you have on your car can have worse effects than whatever the wash could do. Weigh the risk, I guess.

[Mary S]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

Thanks! There are a few attended car washes in our area, one that is rather close. I may go check it out just to see it and ask the owner questions. I will be washing my own car whenever I can, but it bad winter weather it would be nice to have an option you I can trust.

[dvtldav]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

In the winter months in NE Indiana, I use the spray and wash. I rinse it off and soap it down, then use my car wash mitt/sponge whatever and go over the car and wash it as normal, then rinse it off. I have 2 of these types of washes within a couple of miles so after rinsing off I drive home pull it in the garage (my garage is not heated but it stays above 40 most of the time) and dry it off using UQW with a sponge applicator and wipe it off with an Ultimate Wipe. I know this is not perfect but it is better than a dirty car.

Dave

[Mary S]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

In the winter months in NE Indiana, I use the spray and wash. I rinse it off and soap it down, then use my car wash mitt/sponge whatever and go over the car and wash it as normal, then rinse it off. I have 2 of these types of washes within a couple of miles so after rinsing off I drive home pull it in the garage (my garage is not heated but it stays above 40 most of the time) and dry it off using UQW with a sponge applicator and wipe it off with an Ultimate Wipe. I know this is not perfect but it is better than a dirty car.

Dave

I guess if you had room for them in your car, you could bring the 2 buckets using warmish water (makes a big difference on cold days), and just use the power wash for rinsing.

[dvtldav]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

I guess if you had room for them in your car, you could bring the 2 buckets using warmish water (makes a big difference on cold days), and just use the power wash for rinsing.

I have done that also.

Dave

[Bill Davidson]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

Those "soft touch washes" are the reason I joined this forum. Scratches everywhere including the tail lights.

Check out this thread to see the damage.

http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41673

[Mary S]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

Those "soft touch washes" are the reason I joined this forum. Scratches everywhere including the tail lights.

Check out this thread to see the damage.

http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41673

Your point is indisputable, these car washes can be brutal.

My question was just: Could a good automatic car wash exist?

The bad car washes have been around since dirt was young.

It just seems that with today's modern technology, somebody somewhere might have figured out a way of inventing an automatic wash that actually cleaned the car with good car shampoo that does not strip wax and does not harm the paint any more than a hand wash does.

I mean the DA is supposed to do as good a job at waxing as waxing by hand.

Would this really be rocket science to automate a wash that works almost as well as hand washing?

We were talking the other day about the old rumors about Armour All that never seem to die, and I just want to challenge the rumors that if a car wash is automatic it has to be bad. Maybe the problems can be solved with today's technology, maybe in some cases they already have been, but we are all still avoiding all automated car washes because of the way they all were 10 or 20 years ago (and granted some still are).

[Bill Davidson]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

Would this really be rocket science to automate a wash that works almost as well as hand washing?

It would be darn near rocket science. Your goal is to try to wash your in the least invasive method possible. Car washes just don't do this. They tend to favor the most aggressive method so that even the dirtiest of vehicles comes out clean.

[new2detailing]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

This topic comes up regularly (especially by those who have very cold winters that prohibit normal washing routines). There are some really good points by all the posters here. That being said, I would rather use a touchless wash in the winter time than to let salt/brine/road contamination to sit on my vehicle. A correction in the spring rectifies any problems incurred during the off months. In response to Marcki's question : I think that automatic car washes are designed to be efficient and minimize water usage and can accomodate many different sized vehicles. It is the balance of time per wash/water per wash that limits the effectiveness of many automated washes. I have found that the touchless wash that uses a platform that measures and circumnavigates around your vehicle (sometimes 2 passes per cycle) does an admirable job of removing grime/dirt (I believe it goes by the name Laserwash?). The downside (as pointed out by Bandit Bill) is that they tend to be harsh and can wear out the LSP protective properties in rather short order. Obviously, touchless is better than automated brush washes, but all pale compared to a proper hand wash/technique

[CieraSL]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

I doubt there will every be a "good car wash." I think it's unrealistic to expect a car wash to do a good job with the few dollars that the average Joe is willing to spend on a car wash. If a car wash has attendees, they must have the proper tools and training to do a good job, which I doubt most car wash owners are going to pay for.


I am proud to say I have never once taken my car through a car wash. Given, I haven't always washed it the right way, but I have never taken it through a car wash. I swear my car shudders every time we pass by a car wash.

[Mary S]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

I am proud to say I have never once taken my car through a car wash. Given, I haven't always washed it the right way, but I have never taken it through a car wash. I swear my car shudders every time we pass by a car wash.

I have, but it was based on the ignorance of not knowing any better.

Here is the beginning of my new patented carwash system.

You know those "things" that flop all over your car in the friction-based car wash?

They will be made out of patchwork quilts of these:



Remember, you saw it here first!

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

There absolutely are automatic car washes that won't rip your paint to shreds, but has been noted they can be a bit tricky to find. The problem is, especially when talking to a group of detailing enthusiasts, we've all seen the worst of the automatic washes and that tends to put us in the mindset of "they must all be like that". Well, they aren't. But it does indeed seem that the bad outnumber the good. On top of that, as enthusiast detailers, our standards tend to be a quantum leap beyond that of the average car owner - we are not only crazy picky, but we actually know what to look for.

As for removing road salt during the winter, you're down to sort of a "lesser of two evils" here. On the one hand, even the best automatic car wash facility might be challenged on extremely busy days in the winter as they run a couple hundred horribly salted/filthy cars through their system. On the other hand, that salt is incredibly corrosive and you want it off your paint ASAP (if not sooner). No wax is a match for a thorough coating of road salt, so even if you're worried about the detergents of a touchless wash stripping your wax, you've got bigger things to worry about. Besides, if your car has been covered in salt for a few days there's probably not much wax left anyway.

Get the salt off the car. Worry about a few swirls in the spring.

[Mary S]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

I seriously want to know though, which are the good ones. I want to find them. For example, there is an attended wash in my neighborhood that opened in 2006. Maybe they didn't take advantage of what modern technology might have to offer, but maybe they did. http://www.mirrorimagecarwash.com/services.aspx

There are some that are still running that might be 20 years old that may not be able to backfit new technology into their existing systems.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Devil's advocate wants to know.. could a good automatic car wash exist?

I seriously want to know though, which are the good ones. I want to find them.

Ah, this is where you have to be a detective..... or a guinea pig! It's doubtful you'd ever find a data base of carwashes that do no damage to your paint, and even if you did it would likely be highly subjective. Of course, where one car might not have any issues with a specific facility another might depending on how scratch sensitive the respective paint systems are.

You could always hang out on the drying area of a car wash and see how many high end black cars come through that still look good, but even that is no guarantee.