I don’t expect an automatic car wash to clean my car particularly well. As long as it takes the bird shit and obvious dirt off and doesn’t scratch my paint, I’m happy enough. I’ll do the wheels myself. But if the machine’s going to leave water drops all over the surface, so that I have to chammy [ED: Chamois?] every damn square inch of the Beast’s sheet metal, what’s the friggin’ point? I might as well have washed it myself. I’ve never been in an automatic car wash that A) washed all the dirt off the back end of an SUV and B) dried a car properly. I’m sure there’s an association somewhere that’s already got an e-mail teed-up for this one; something about the 85th percentile of automotive shapes and hi-tech blowers. Never made the tech guys. If car wash owners weren’t trying to save a few pennies on electricity costs, the line would proceed slowly enough to let a couple of hair dryers finish the job. And what happens if I complain? They offer me a free wash. I’ve got an idea! How about YOU come out here and dry my car by hand, instead of peddling refined sugar, corn syrup, starch, fat, salt and nicotine whilst waiting for the day you have to say, “I can’t open the till, I swear!” Just sayin’.
Are you sure Andy Rooney didn’t write this?
Two mitts two buckets a couple of well used chamois and two Labbats. A nice September evening,makes for a perfect time to wash and chammy a black car.
Does it not stand to reason,that if the auto car wash does a lousy job. WTF to you expect of the drying process?
I feel your pain. I thought it was just So Cal where you couldn’t get your car washed right. I remember as a kid in NJ the car washes would get off all the snow, salt grime and crud leaving a sparkling beauty. That was in a bad weather climate. Out here you get dust and water spots. How hard could it be?
One car wash here after I complained, his answer was, hey they’re minimum wage guys, somedays they do good work somedays they don’t.
Lemme ask this….what do you think is a reasonable amount to pay for a car wash? $2..$4? the one I use is a mile from GM’s Tech Center and costs a buck and it includes everything except the towel drying.
I started using automatic car washes and stopped using wand washes when I realized I was spending more time (and endless detailing spray) drying the car than washing it.
I’ve had to shop around for a decent drying system. Here in Canada I’ve been quite happy with the Simonize car washes in the Canadian Tire gas bars, they put a 60 second timer to let you know how much drying time is left. The private car machines leave you guessing.
I’ve also noticed that the deluxe and extra-deluxe upsells clean the car better.
I agree with everything said, this things are the automotive version of those stupid electric hand-dryers they put in bathrooms instead of paper towels.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one Mr. Farago. I always wash my car by hand, but the one time I didn’t get a chance this summer I went through an automatic wash, reasoning that the convenience was worth the price just this once. The brushes really did a number on my paint job, as well as the many water spots I found later. I learned my lesson.
JEEEZZ RF…..This is what REALLY grinds your gears?
Not GM’s death leap
Not Chrysler’s pistol to the head
Not the “Not Yours” attached to the Euro diesels
Not the “Red light cameras make you safer” BS
Not the……….
Must be a slow “grind your gears” day
(No flames intended, just humor)
THEN…it occurs to me, that I totally missed RF’s sarcasm and humor………Right?
There are several of the type of car washes WaftableTorque is talking about in the Detroit area. The all just use water and soap, so no scratches from those stupid brushes, and the aforementioned timer for the drier. I have become good at using the full 60 seconds, and get a dry car at the end. I use them in the winter, when it’s too cold for spray bays, and am happy with everything except the $7 it costs.
Be careful what you wish for.
Last month I borrowed a friend’s Volvo for a day. Before I returned it, I stopped to fill up the tank and give it a quick wash. So I drove it through the automatic car wash at the fuel station.
The damn dryer blew off the headlight lens. It went flying out to the street where it was promptly run over and destroyed. Replacement was $250 for a whole brand new headlight kit. Fortunately I found a website for a car lens company in New Jersey who sold me just the missing lens for $50. Ouch!
I don’t bother with automatic washes. Thankfully here salt has never touched the roads, so I don’t have to do mine too often, but I try to take mine to a hand wash place once a month or two.
For $40 (including tip) I get a full hand wash and dry exterior (and more importantly to me) interior, cleaning inside and out of all windows, and armor-alling the hell out of every interior surface of the car, plus adding a nice scent. The last time I went they even cleaned out the semi-dried sweet tea sludge from one of my cup holders and organized my loose change, way beyond the call of duty IMO.
I wouldn’t put anything I own through a car wash. Ever. A pressure wand to rinse salt is ok, but that is about it…
It’s a Slow day peeve … erhm, whine. Go to the places that cost double the automats, but have people willing to dry your whitebread car while you listen to Rage against the Machine, while suffering the indignity of staring at people of color and crappy tatoos making your volvo look nice.
Funny post… I love the grinds my gears bit…
Maybe someone should open a “car dry” next to a popular “car wash”. $5 a dry.. Go thru as many times as you want until you are happy that your ride is dry!
Dyson needs to make a version of their airblade hand dryers that can be used in an automatic car wash. Those things work great!
Who cares!! You knew it would do a lousy wash before you got in. What’s with the nit pick? If you want it washed, wash it. If you want the salt rinsed off, the blow-dry on the way home won’t make it any worse than what you paid for, which hardly removed any dirt, anyway. Just the blatantly obvious stuff.
I use the Hamilton Car Wash in Hamilton NJ.
The guys develop their own brushes out of neoprene rubber.
http://www.originalneoglide.com/aboutus.html
They charge about $12.00 for inside and outside cleaning. They wipe down the dash and console, clean the windows, and vacuum the car and rinse off your mats if they are the rubber/winter type.
Finally, the biggest reason I go to these guys. They towel dry the car and clean the wheels. They use clean towels on each car (they throw the dirty ones in a huge laundry basket after each car).
I’ve been going there for years, and have yet to have any of my car’s paint get scratched.
Apart from being a customer, I am not affiliated with these guys at all. I’m just trying to give a one of the good guys an “atta boy”.
-ted
Actually, though, I have a funnier story. Several winters ago I took my pickup through a (brushless) car wash. You see, there was a lot of mud in the back, and I wanted to go cut a CHristmas tree.
The expected torrent of wash water arrived, although I was soon to appreciate that almost all of the water comes from the sides, not from above.
Then came the dryer.
As it oil-canned the hood and cab roof, I realized what I had done. All the mud was still in the back.
Dry or not, I emerged from that car wash looking as though I had just returned from an African safari.
And you are complaining that it didn’t DRY??!!
No THIS is my Andy Rooney:
Ever look at a doorknob? I mean really look at a doorknob. It’s a simple thing, a doorknob. You turn it clockwise and you open the door. I like that, although sometimes I turn it counterclockwise. I don’t why I do that. I just do. With most door knobs that’s not a problem. With some it is. Some door knobs aren’t knobs at all. They’re levers. I never know whether to push the lever down or pull it up. I push it down. That seems to make sense.
Some doors don’t have doorknobs OR levers. The old Star Trek TV show had doors that opened when you approached them. Only sometimes they didn’t open. There’s a blooper reel that shows the cast running straight into the door. When I watch it, my wife asks me why I’m laughing at a bunch of men in tight shirts crashing into a door without a dooknob. I try to explain but she doesn’t get it. She thinks I’m drunk. I usually am.
My local gas station has a door that opens when you get near it. That freaks me right the fuck out. It makes me wish they had a door with a doorknob. I know it would be too slow. But what’s the hurry? Unless you’re going through their car wash. In that case, you want to go as fast as you can. Well, the gas station owner wants you to go fast. Saves them money when the hair dryers aren’t on for too long.
I had trouble opening a doorknob the other day. I must be getting old.
Brilliant Andy Rooney!
When I moved to Chicagoland, I found the Nirvana of “automatic” car wahes. Fullers (and the cheaper imitators). They run your car through a good automatic and then a team goes at it with towels and vacuums. They even run your mats (assuming you have rubber/plastic) through a scrubber device. Fuller’s make their own equipment and a lot of the independent places up here use it also. So, for between 14 and 20 dollars you get one of the best hybrid hand/automatic washes out there.
They run your car through a good automatic and then a team goes at it with towels and vacuums.
We have something like this in HNL, but the problem (?) is they are TOO busy and unless you’re first in line expect to wait a minimum of 30 minutes. The line is so long that it can sometimes take up one lane of a busy main drag.
Robert’s “What Really Grinds My Gears” rants are now being used for educational purposes in the DSM-IV.
Ever look at a doorknob? I mean really look at a doorknob. It’s a simple thing, a doorknob. You turn it clockwise and you open the door.
I once bought the 15$ doorknob from Home Depot. It only opens when you turn it to the left, not the right.
You would think a doorknob would open when turned either way.
Apparently thats only the $20+ models. Damn Chinese made doorknobs.
As a teenager I worked at a car wash for about 6 weeks one summer. Never before in my life had I ever experienced such grueling work that I can attribute the experience with convincing me to finish college without a doubt.
Average people just don’t know how to wash their cars efficiently, effectively and pain-free. Cleaning the front windshield is an especially difficult task to complete with good results–so I’d like to extend this small tip to all my fellow TTAC readers:
Bending forward (while sitting up in either driver or passenger side of the car) while cleaning the windshield is a good way to just swirl the grimy film around on the inside of your windshield. Not only does it not work well, it makes you cringe with back/wrist pain the next time you think about doing it.
The way I learned to do it at my minimum wage job makes this task not only effective but actually fulfilling (btw, window cleaners have no contact with customers therefore get no tips).
Step 1: Sit either on the driver or passenger side depending upon which arm you’d like to use to clean your windshield and place a clean folded towel in that hand. Use your right hand if you’re sitting in the passenger side and your left if sitting on the driver side.
Step 2: Liberally spray window cleaner all over your windshield. Use more along the edges as this is usually where the grime ends up while wiping the windshield.
Step 3: Assuming you are on the passenger side with the folded towel in your right hand, lean over the center console onto the driver seat using your left hand to support yourself. Now your body position is parallel to the windshield. Take your right hand and twist it towards the center of your torso with the towel facing the windshield-and your elbow up in the air and (dare I say it) in sort of a wax-on/wax-off posture–now wipe. Wipe straight across the length of the windshield from top to bottom. Then wipe around the edges of the windshield as if drawing a picture frame. This will wipe up all the dust/grime you wiped away from the middle of the windshield with the first wiping. Flip the towel to the clean side and repeat the wipe one more time.
Voila! You now have a clean windshield using the least amount of energy and without contorting your back muscles into a position not known since the homecoming dance of ’88–and try to tip the “other” car wash guys you don’t actually have contact with but did a good job vacuuming your carpet or cleaning your windows.
My oh my. What problems one has. Here’s a solution, obviously not for everybody. Only go to the car wash on a rainy day — it’s better for the paint, the dirt will be pre-softened, and the waiting lines will be short. Pick the program (the place will preferably have selectable programs) where they cut the drying and you save money. And then meditate about the shortness of life and the concept of anal retentiveness. Oh BTW, we are talking about an SUV that’s being washed, right? They look best muddy, anyhow. A squeaky-clean SUV is (in my totally unimportant opinion) totally useless.
I used to live in Waltham MA and they have a really great automatic wash there. It has the cloth strips zinging the car of course but the Dodge paint stood up to it just fine. The dryers were the up and over kind that ride on the wave of air just inches from the car, and then there were two dryers blowing crosswise at the exit. A car was virtually dry coming out of there. $11 including the wheels which wasn’t bad.
I tried the car wash in Belmont MA but the whole process barely washed the car, in fact the rinse was so meager there was always soap left. They didn’t have dryers but employed young girls to swirl up your paint with damp towels. And they charge $12+ for the same level of wash.
Now that I have moved from Waltham to Arlington, there are less options. I can now pay $16 for the same wash, with meager rinse and free swirl-mark dry.
At least now I have a driveway where I can wash it myself, just don’t always have the time, and the winter is tough. Hmm glad I wrote this down, seems like the ride to Waltham is worth it for a good wash.
BTW the “other british car show” Fifth gear did a paint damage comparison between hand washing and machine washing and found that hand washing was the hardest on the paint. Not scientific at all but interesting.
Power6 :
What’s the name of the car wash in Waltham? I live in Waltham, I’d be interested to know
Robert – keep a California Dry Blade in your car. That has always been the best way IMHO to quickly remove water from the car after a wash. Then just take the car for a quick spin on the highway to air dry any remaining droplets.
I don’t know about the rest of the country, but in
southeast Michigan, most of the car washes recycle their water. Did you ever wonder what those fountains in front were for? They aereate the water to keep the smell down. In the winter when you run your car through a car wash to “Get the salt off” all you did was give one Hell of a salt water bath. Next time you go through a car wash, breath only through your nose, see how good it smells.