So lately with starting work and school ive had trouble finding time to wash my car, let alone wanting to wash it. We have what seems to be a pretty nice one, they vaccumm it out drive it through, dry it off, and add little stuff here and there to make it look nice. But all I hear is auto car washes are the devil! They give swirls! How so? Is it the washing method? Their drying method? I guess I just wanna know why they are so bad.

 

Because they leave streaks and swirls..........badly. I used to run my daily driver through the wash during the winter, but since I had that car repainted, I won't subjet that one to the autowash either. I will either find a hand wash place or bear the cold myself.

Now car #1, that's different. It will NEVER see an automated car wash.

 

What about the touchless car washes? They don't use anything that touches the car except for the water and soap.

 

No offense to the car wash but they will never do as good of a job as you can do. I wax ed my car with a few layers of NXT wax. I just rinse it off once a week with water on jet stream and then wash it with NXT car shampoo, rinse the water off, and dry it by hand. I can do a good job in less than a half hour. I usually vacuum it once every few weeks and it works great. Car washes dont care about long term quality of your car, frequently break things, and never dry it good.

 

many automatic car washes are poorly maintained, and not of their equipment is working, or working properly. And those brushes will scratch your paint and break stuff. I've seen them bend antennas, take off GFX, pop tires when the car hops off the track, rip off emblems, break mirrors, scratch rims. I've also seen the chemicals go on to clean the wheels will eat the clearcoat off of certain types of aluminum wheels.

One time somebody's little Honda beater slipped off the track and nobody noticed. So this old Chevy pickup plowed right into the back of this Honda, and annihilated the rear trunklid and part of the bumper. All it did to the truck was put a 2" dent in the bumper and a few scratches. That happened at the carwash with brushes.

I used to work at two carwashes, one touchless, and one with brushes. Both of them will jack your car up, but the touchless won't be nearly as rough though.