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Here is the story of my BMW X6 
My question of what to use for my swirls is at the very end.
I was reading a thread with someone named Bud who was very adamant that automatic cloth wash systems are safer than washing by hand with a wash mitt. He even quoted some study done for Mercedes Benz by a university in Munich. He also was arguing that touchless car wash systems are more dangerous than a soft touch cloth wash system because touchless systems use harsh chemicals that will dull your clear coat over time (I really don't believe this). So in his opinion the safest way to clean a car is to go to an automatic cloth car wash place.
Back in 2009 I had a gray 2008 BMW 335xi that I took to Firehouse Car Wash (now Mister Hot Shine) in American Fork Utah for its entire 3 year life. I thought these guys were the best in the biz, they only used drying towels on two cars and then changed them out. They had red towels which were only used on wheels and tires and they even had their dryers turn their belts around. I even witnessed one dryer drop a towel on the ground and put it in the dirty towels and get a new one.
The only issue I had was when I thought their tunnel had put a scratch on the back of my car. So I put my angry face on and spoke to a manager who was very arrogant and said this is a million dollar tunnel! I have a customer who runs his Aston through it! I just thought to myself well that guy who owns the Aston is a moron but the scratch ended up being some wax buildup or something that I just wiped off LOL whoops sorry Mr. Manager my bad! But I had renewed faith in their tunnel again and for the entire 3 year life of my 3 series I never noticed any major swirls.
So for my next car I choose a black (eek) 2012 BMW X6 xDrive50i which has been washed at Firehouse Car Wash for its entire 2 year life. Being a black car I was a little concerned about their brushes getting dirty from that car that hasn't been washed in a month that goes down the tunnel in front of me but hey "Firehouse employs cutting-edge technology; gentle closed-cell foam brushe and state-of-the-art chemical delivery technology." so no problem right?
Well fast forward 2 years later and I recently took my car through the tunnel and while the brushes were smacking my car silly I heard a loud "ting, ting, ting" like there was a rock stuck to one of the brushes, I bet my face was so white when I came out the other side the dryers probably though I was a ghost.
Needless to say when I got home I decided to take a closer look at my paint under some light and I was blown away with the amount of swirls. I always knew my paint had some swirls but I could only see them when the sun hit it a specific way. I wonder what Bud the automatic cloth wash advocate would have to say about these swirls?
I know these look really bad but my paint honestly doesn't always look like this. I just got a very good angle and some good light lol.
My X6 lease is up in September of 2014 but I still thought I would see if I could remove some of the swirls. I tried using Meguiars Ultimate Polish with Meguiars DA Polisher G110V2 on setting 3 with a yellow pad. I then finished it with Ultimate Liquid Wax with black pad setting 1. It seemed to remove some swirls but as you can see from the pix above there are plenty still alive. So my question is do I jump straight to Ultimate Compound or try to get them out with SwirlX first? Or should I just forget about it and stick to touchless for my next lease and see how that works?
My question of what to use for my swirls is at the very end.I was reading a thread with someone named Bud who was very adamant that automatic cloth wash systems are safer than washing by hand with a wash mitt. He even quoted some study done for Mercedes Benz by a university in Munich. He also was arguing that touchless car wash systems are more dangerous than a soft touch cloth wash system because touchless systems use harsh chemicals that will dull your clear coat over time (I really don't believe this). So in his opinion the safest way to clean a car is to go to an automatic cloth car wash place.
Back in 2009 I had a gray 2008 BMW 335xi that I took to Firehouse Car Wash (now Mister Hot Shine) in American Fork Utah for its entire 3 year life. I thought these guys were the best in the biz, they only used drying towels on two cars and then changed them out. They had red towels which were only used on wheels and tires and they even had their dryers turn their belts around. I even witnessed one dryer drop a towel on the ground and put it in the dirty towels and get a new one.
The only issue I had was when I thought their tunnel had put a scratch on the back of my car. So I put my angry face on and spoke to a manager who was very arrogant and said this is a million dollar tunnel! I have a customer who runs his Aston through it! I just thought to myself well that guy who owns the Aston is a moron but the scratch ended up being some wax buildup or something that I just wiped off LOL whoops sorry Mr. Manager my bad! But I had renewed faith in their tunnel again and for the entire 3 year life of my 3 series I never noticed any major swirls.
So for my next car I choose a black (eek) 2012 BMW X6 xDrive50i which has been washed at Firehouse Car Wash for its entire 2 year life. Being a black car I was a little concerned about their brushes getting dirty from that car that hasn't been washed in a month that goes down the tunnel in front of me but hey "Firehouse employs cutting-edge technology; gentle closed-cell foam brushe and state-of-the-art chemical delivery technology." so no problem right?
Well fast forward 2 years later and I recently took my car through the tunnel and while the brushes were smacking my car silly I heard a loud "ting, ting, ting" like there was a rock stuck to one of the brushes, I bet my face was so white when I came out the other side the dryers probably though I was a ghost.
Needless to say when I got home I decided to take a closer look at my paint under some light and I was blown away with the amount of swirls. I always knew my paint had some swirls but I could only see them when the sun hit it a specific way. I wonder what Bud the automatic cloth wash advocate would have to say about these swirls?
I know these look really bad but my paint honestly doesn't always look like this. I just got a very good angle and some good light lol.My X6 lease is up in September of 2014 but I still thought I would see if I could remove some of the swirls. I tried using Meguiars Ultimate Polish with Meguiars DA Polisher G110V2 on setting 3 with a yellow pad. I then finished it with Ultimate Liquid Wax with black pad setting 1. It seemed to remove some swirls but as you can see from the pix above there are plenty still alive. So my question is do I jump straight to Ultimate Compound or try to get them out with SwirlX first? Or should I just forget about it and stick to touchless for my next lease and see how that works?
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