I’ve got to come clean: I use an automatic car wash. I’m WAY too OCD to start cleaning my whip at home. Thanks to a press release from the Splash Car Wash chain, I’ve got a cover story: environmentalism. The company whose name is begging for a spear wants us to know that it’s qualified for the International Carwash Association’s WaterSavers™ program. And you haven’t. Which makes you—and you know who you are—bad, bad people. “The Facts: Using a commercial car wash helps you go green because compared to driveway or parking lot car washing, effluent is routed to treatment facilities as opposed to the curb and storm drains. Once in storm drain systems, toxic wastewater can enter local lakes, streams, rivers and oceans where it becomes a threat to aquatic life. The contaminants found in car wash wastewater are twofold. Firstly, there are the residual chemicals and matter — more severe than run-of-the-mill dirt and dust — that are freed from a car’s exterior when washed. These substances can include oils, greases, rust, trace amounts of benzene and residues from brake pads and exhaust fumes. Secondly, the wastewater can include chemical residues originating from the cleaning agents (soaps, degreasers, sprays, wipes, etc.) used in the car washing process.” And then there’s the water . . .
The Facts: Professional car washing also uses less water with advanced, computerized technology to control water output reducing the water amount used by up to 60 percent compared to a home wash with a garden hose. Splash Car Wash uses special pumps and nozzles that combine half water and half air to create pressure that effectively cleans without requiring large amounts of water. At home washing requires between 80 and 140 gallons per car. Splash Car Wash uses less than 45 gallons per car.
So that’s it guys. Put down that hose and step AWAY from the Griot’s Garage brochure. Think of the fishies!
45 gallons / car…
what a waste…
I use a two or three bucket system.
max 10 gallons!
Hmmmm? The two vehicles in front me are filthy. So I think,lets take the crap of thier cars,and beat it into my finish. Right, so now I’m a friend of the environment.
Though if I really wanted to be green,why wash the vehicle at all? Or for that matter,why do laundry? Hey what about those wastefull showers everybody takes?
You will have to pry the mitt and pail from my cold dead hands.
80 to 140 gallons? That doesn’t pass a basic reality sniff test.
Assuming a ((n) above average) flow rate from a garden hose of 5 gpm, I use at most 20 gallons straight from the hose.
Throw in another 4 gallons, two gallons each for the two buckets I use and I come up a maximum total of 24 gallons total.
Less if I break out my pressure washer. It flows under 3 gpm and I use it for less than 5 minutes to do either of our rides.
I’ll give no debate about the runoff, but other than the soap, how is this any different from contaminants dripping off the car when you drive in the rain?
And listing ‘exhaust fumes’ as one of the things you wash off a car? Ludicrous.
Those numbers are always based on the assumption that the home washer leaves the hose running on the ground the whole time. I agree with the above – 1 bucket of wash water and about the same amount of fresh water from a spray nozzle to do the basic wash job.
As for wastewater runoff, they have a point. Car washes have much better water treatment systems. However, I think we can agree that a car never washed only gets dirty to a certain point. After that, where does the excess dirt & brake dust go? It falls off the car when you drive in the rain, straight into the storm drains. Uh oh, the car wash lobby will probably try to mandate expensive automatic car washes every week to prevent this!
Any estimates on how much of the same “residual chemicals and matter” gets washed off the millions of miles of highway every day by rain? It must be thousands of tons.
So how long before the environmental whack jobs fight to make my bucket and sponge illegal to possess? I can’t imagine that I use 80 to 140 gallons to wash my truck, much less my wife’s car. My clean sponge and low pressure spray from the garden hose are much nicer on my cars’ finishes than a high pressure nozzle and brushes full of gunk from hundreds of cars before me. Not to mention that I’ve never seen a drive through wash effectively clean wheels or the back of any car.
I use a non-toxic biodegradable car soap in my driveway. I win?
I use so many different chemicals in my yard as it is.
Weed killer.
Chigger Killer stuff.
My house has been yellow taped by the EPA to warn off neighbors for 100 years.
Bleach smells of victory to me.
45 gallons / car…
what a waste…
I use a two or three bucket system.
max 10 gallons!
I suppose some people spray away over 100 gallons, but I use the two bucket system also at about 8 gallons.
Then again, I saw an article that here in Columbus, the average home’s water bill is $285 a quarter. Mine is $80.
John
I can relate to being a perfectionist and not wanting to wash the car at home, but I’d much rather wash it myself. The car wash cannot cover all the surfaces the way a hand wash does.
Besides with the Mr. Clean car wash doohickey there is no way I use that much water.
When I go to the car wash, I try to be there right as they open, so I can be the first in line…you know, kind of like being the first kid in the family to use the bath tub when you were little!
(C’mon….don’t act like it was just me who’s mom would save money by having all the kids use the same bathwather?)
Self-serving industry promotion group issues lame press release attempting to green wash its industry using bogus numbers. Hardly newsworthy.
Once in storm drain systems, toxic wastewater can enter local lakes, streams, rivers and oceans where it becomes a threat to aquatic life.
Many municipalities route all of their waste water to treatment plants.
At $10 bucks plus tip, regular car washes with actual people are too expensive. Automated washes like the ones at many Mobil stations, at $8 bucks, are still too expensive. And with both, by the time you get home, the car is loaded with soapy streaks from those aerodynamic mirrors and from all the nooks and crannies that didn’t get dried. Pressure washers like the Karcher units sold at Sam’s Club and Costco, use less water than the garden hose (1.6 GPM I think), and seem more effective. After rinse, a leaf blower, shop vac or compressed air are all effective at exposing hidden water so it doesn’t mess up that nice clean car. Of course if you’re among the unlucky masses with a car whose clearcoat is separating (Hondas, Toyotas and even a few BMW’s jump to mind), any effort to wash your car will likely result in something crappier looking than when you started.
An auto car wash I used to go to had a sign (before it was “cool” to be green) that they recycle the water – I asked one of the employees, and he said that city permit required them to reuse some of the water to put less stress on the sewer system, so they used some sort of screen and filters (and possibly a settlement tank?) to reuse the dirty water. I would think their biggest concern would be getting the gunk out so it wouldn’t foul up their nozzles and equipment, but my car was always good and clean – didn’t look like it was washed with dirty water.
I use automatic car washes for one reason: they blow dry the car as you’re pulling out. If I use a wand wash or bucket, I spend more time drying the car and using detailing spray than I do cleaning it, all for about the same end-result. It’s money well spent imho.
Superbad:
>So how long before the environmental whack jobs fight to make my bucket and sponge illegal to possess?
Already illegal in WA state (1-1-09, IIRC) to allow runoff into the street…although when a reporter pointed out that made driveway car-washing illegal the DOE put out a quick release pointing out they didn’t want the law enforced. (logic filter explodes).
1) I live in the desert and have to spray the whole car down every few minutes too prevent the water drying to water spots. Nevertheless, if I’m VERY liberal I may have about 10 minutes of spray time. It’s a low-pressure flower-shower nozzle…figure maybe 4 gpm max. Add another few gallons for the bucket, and that is LIBERALLY still less than the 45 gallons the carwash claims to use, and that’s my worst-case scenerio. I also dump my buckets and rinse and wring my sponges on my lawn, so that’s not even wasted water. It’s such a DAMN LIE to say “at home washing uses between 80-140 gallons”. Some here use as little as 8, so it should be between 8-140 (140 being if you’re a complete idiot)
2) The car gets 100% clean when I do it.
3) The dirt and grime on your car was ALREADY ON THE ROAD, except for the brake dust you rinse from your rims. How exactly does the car wash filter the soap and dirt from the water before discharging it? What do they do with the filter or sediment?
4) Some car washes recycle or reuse the water, turning them into sand-blasters. The ones with brushes don’t rinse the brushes. This’ll lead to fine scratches and swril marks, making your car look old before it’s time, motivating you to buy a new car sooner. How much water does it take to make a new car? I’ll bet it’s a LOT.
5) Some areas where water supply is a problem already forbid at-home car washes sometimes. Looks like they’re buying the BS, too.
To those who are about to save the earth by using automated car washes:
I salute you!
Oh – don’t forget to wash all those cars in Asia, Africa, and South America too OK?
Let me know how it goes…
mikey :
“You will have to pry the mitt and pail from my cold dead hands.”
Well put, and I agree completely.
In the past few years, a whole new industry seems to have cropped up in Southern California .. mobile car washers. They make their rounds with a pickup or trailer with a large tank of water and their washing paraphernalia to parking lots, where they wash peoples’ cars on a regular schedule. During a recent visit to the doctor, I watched them wash a black Mercedes, a black Jaguar, and a dark red BMW on an 85 degree day in bright sunlight. All three came out showroom clean in spite of the conditions. I think the key is that they use de-ionized water for rinse which results in a totally clean surface and no soap residue, something household water and probably carwash water, even softened, cannot do. BTW, this is not the way that Mr. Clean POS works. From the looks of most of these operations, it appears they operate on a cash only basis.
Sorry, but I’m not taking my convertable through an automated car wash. It would take too long to dry the interior.
I will occasionally use one of the hand held spray washes when it’s just too cold to hand wash, but I can avoid the seals and edges of the side windows, and do the glass at home by hand.
Paul
I wash my car at home to save money, have a clean car, and avoid damaging the cars finish; and I guarantee you that I do not use more than 50 gallons of water for two cars. 4 gallons of soapy water, approximately 10 minutes of spray time at 3 gpm, and at most 6 gallons to rinse the bucket and wash cloth. At my old house, I even parked the car on the lawn when I washed it (I wasn’t looking for perfection in detailing, just a clean car), thereby eliminating the need to water the whole lawn that day. How would that compare to the automated car wash for water usage? As far as water use restrictions against washing cars, they actually do work to reduce water usage because people end up washing their cars much less frequently.
John P:
I bet they could tell you exactly how much water they use to wash a car.
An automatic car wash is the worse thing you can do to your car’s paint. They filter the water (good for the water), but do not remove all the particulate (bad for the car). The high-pressure wash is like a sand blaster. The spinning brushes are worse. And, they use soap! Never use soap on your car (wheels and tires excepted) — it strips off that wax you worked so hard to apply.
I hose down my car, and use a cotton mitt in a bucket of clear water. After washing the car, I put in a bit of car wash soap in the bucket and switch to a sponge for the wheels and tires. Rinse and dry with an absorber synthetic shamios. The whole process takes 30 minutes tops and does not use more than 20 gallons of water.
Twice a year I clean the paint with Mother’s clay bar system and wax. My 12-year old 328i’s paint still looks factory fresh.
I recycle, conserve water, am ecologically friendly, but do not compromise when it come to washing my cars.
Twotone
I’m a huge fan of touch-less car washes. I build up my points throughout the summer and cash them during the winter to wash the salt off my car. The blow dryer is the best feature – given you’ll probably want to be able to open your doors.
I actually find it a nice break to hand wash the car in the lane during the warm months. I use a Karcher – I figure I’m helping out the environment as they don’t use that much water.
80 to 140 gallons? That seems really high.
The problem I have when I wash my car, is that the hose leaks where I screw it into the wall. So even if I’m not actively spraying, there is still water being used. I guess it at least waters all the weeds under the nozzle.
i use a gas station automatic one where the car does not move but the mechanism does. Aside from some suprising motion sickness the first few times, it has been successful. It costs about 6 bucks, takes about 5 minutes or so, does a pretty good job.I even get some spray wax on it. Car looks great.
I was perplexed by a strong odor, especailly in the summer. Taht launched the owner on a tale of mandidory recycling and all sorts of environmental regs. I was suprised, and pleased.
Also when i leave,i enter an expressway and go like 70mph,which completely removes any water that the blow drier missed.
I wash the car sometimes, but its hot out, i really dont want to. As it is, i vacuum the interior myself, and do the interior bits with a protector and the same for the tires.
Thats enough for me. And if i dont want to do that, there is a car wash where they will do all of that for you for about 11 or 12 bucks, sometimes i do that one instead.
PS, I also have a cleaning service for the house, a lawn service for the yards. No nasty chemicals. As a matter of fact, no chemicals at all.
I’m so spoiled.
Sastexan:
“An auto car wash I used to go to had a sign (before it was “cool” to be green) that they recycle the water..”
This was (and is?) an issue in Canada where the recycled water contains a build up of salt which cannot be removed by filters as it has disolved in the wash water. Nothing like washing your car in salt water. Car washes here often advertise the use of fresh water for the wash.
Agree with all the above who point out the highly exaggerated numbers for water used by home car-washers.
Plus, if you use 50 gallons of water to wash your car, do you even think that tiny amount of water will even make it all the way through the typical storm sewer system a couple of miles to the stream? Even if 100 people in your neighborhood all washed their cars at the same time, 5000 gallons would only fill up about 850 lineal feet of 12″-diameter storm drain. (Simplistic, but you get the idea.)
And yes, the amount of “toxic” chemicals from washing your car PALES in comparison to the crud that enters a typical small stream from just a typical small rainstorm. There’s a HELL of a lot more crap on the streets, in your lawns, etc. than is on your car.
texlovera: There’s a HELL of a lot more crap on the streets, in your lawns, etc. than is on your car.
Agree – we don’t use lawn fertilizer or pesticides because we don’t want either one washing into the water system. That is our big concern.
Automatic car washes are garbage. The last time went to an automatic car wash it cost me $500 to have the swirls removed from the paint. Never again. For quick washes I do a self service car wash. But to do it properly, I wash my own car with a foam gun and a clean bucket of water to rinse the sponge.
I hate auto washes too. They never get vehicles clean as they always leave dirty spot. Nothing like a good hand job (you might say).
^^Geeber, my neighbor won’t use any fertilizers or pesticides on his yard, which is nothing but crab grass and clover. He claims to put something organic on it that this other neighbor of ours sells. Works great, as together their bringing down our neighborhood.
All modern car washes use a water recycling system. If the system is working properly, it will not “sand blast” your car. But proper maintenance is the key (where have heard this before?).
Waste water from washing a car is a pollutant but as to the severity of it there is much debate. Nature is very good and cleaning things up naturally, but you will never hear the Sierra Club admit that. Bio-degradeble car wash does not bother me as much as wheel cleaner/tire cleaner though.
Mobile detailers/car washers are supposed to comply with the the Clean Water Act, which states that waste water must be collected and taken to a treatment center. That is why car washes have water treatment systems. The law is a federal one but the enforcement is left up to local officials and they (most of the time) don’t care or don’t have the resources to do it. So some mobile guys do not capture their waste water. If you wish to use their services insist they comply with the law. It’s part of the cost of doing business and the fixed washes have to do it. Mobile washes tend to use de-ionized water so they don’t have to deal with water spots. Too time consuming to take care of.
There are those who want to outlaw home washing for environmental reasons. If this is proposed in your area, get out and fight it. A drought is a different story. But even in a drought a mobile or fixed business is still allowed to use water.
Some storm water drains are connected to water treatment plants, but most are not. They dump straight into rivers or lakes.
Some storm water drains are connected to water treatment plants, but most are not. They dump straight into rivers or lakes.
They still have to meet waste discharge requirements, which is why some municipalities treat storm run-off; they were forced to.
I’m surprised more people have not mentioned the Mr. Clean Car Wash system. It completely changed the way I wash my car. No bucket, just flip a switch. No drying, the filtered water sheets right off the car.
I highly recommend it.
Mobile detailers/car washers are supposed to comply with the the Clean Water Act, which states that waste water must be collected and taken to a treatment center.
Considering that the byproducts of the car washing process, whether in one’s driveway or a parking lot, are soapy water, wheel and tire cleaners when used, and whatever was washed off the car’s finish, and that those byproducts wind up on the surface of the planet where said car happens to be parked, compliance with the Clean Water Act is impossible. Given this reality it’s difficult to envision how even the stupidest of politicians could vote for such a requirement.
There are those who want to outlaw home washing for environmental reasons. If this is proposed in your area, get out and fight it.
The day someone outlaws home washing is the day I retreat behind my closed garage door and start washing my car in private.
And by the way, they probably need to outlaw de-icing airplanes during the winter as the de-icing fluid is pretty nasty stuff. And of course, salting the roads during winter leads to groundwater contamination and potholes. Some cities have begun outlawing water softeners. Sorry, but America seems to be turning into Amerika!
A lot of you have lawns or driveways to wash your whips. Us condo dwellers aren’t so fortunate.
I live outside the city and have a septic field. My car wash water runs off the driveway and into the yard right where the septic field is. Someone mentioned that nature can clean up stuff. Well, if you have a yard park in the yard to wash your car. That way the runoff waters the yard, and the ground can filter the stuff out instead if it running strait to a lake down the storm drain. This has never hurt my grass and it gets a lot more concentrated stuff since I wash on the concrete. Oh, and this supposed runoff also assumes your driveway slopes to the street. Mine slopes to the backyard so would never see the storm drain regardless.
I haven’t washed my car in some time. It rains here, a lot, so the rain gets the big pieces. As for the rest, well it rains here, a lot. Scarcely worth the effort.
What about the amount of energy it takes to run those giant spinning brushes and slappy flap-curtains, not to mention the rollers that pull cars through? Have you seen the ones with light shows?
I wash by hand out of a bucket at a coin-op DIY place in Brooklyn. The only electricity used is the quarter machine making change, and the water is on a 4 minute timer so trust me none goes to waste. My own arm energy seems like the eco-friendliest.
puppyknuckles
Where in brooklyn is a DIY car wash? I’m in Manhattan and there’s nothing too close. Would love to have a place in the city to go.