acura911

DO YOU USE A CAR WASH OR DO YOU DO IT YOURSELF

w1n78

i wash it by hand coz the feeling of ownership and the fact that i live in the corner of my street where everyone passes by and sees my beautiful baby. i get very possessive with my stuff so i don't feel right having someone/something else touch/wash her. i may decide to take it to a detailer after a couple of months but other than that, it will be me. besides i already spent over $60 on car washing stuff from micro fibre towels, meguires products, CA duster, invisible glass, lexol, etc. plus it's fun for me every weekend, interior on saturday, exterior on sunday.

caball88

it's a sin to driive the car through a car wash. might as well drive it through a forest of pine trees.

BlackSunshine

Until I get a place with an outside hose... carwash.

w1n78

ya that sucks, i'd offer you my hose but my hose won't reach you all the way in texas

zeezz

anybody in LA have any suggestions to a car wash? the only one i know of is the chevron one on figueroa, they're okay but i don't know if i want to take my TL there. (no driveway, no space to wash car )

PetesTL

For us Northerners, we have no choice but to use a car wash during winter. ....but I'm glad I got SSM....hides swirl marks and other light scratches incredibly well .

pearltl

Either Was It By Hand Myself Or Take It To The Local Hand Car Wash Where U Pay 25$ And They Hand Wash It

TLGator

Umm...should I confess this?...I just had my 1-month old TL professionally detailed.

pearltl

Whoever Car Washes There Car Us Crazzzyyyy I Didnt Pay This Kind Of Money To Just Drive It Through A Wash

caball88

i'm so anal about swirl marks that i don't go to the hand wash places anymore. i will brave the cold weather and wash the car.i only do it like once a month in the winter. if there is a snow storm i just rinse the car after i get home. i wash it after most the snow has cleared off the roads.

wonderboy

Haven't had any problems with soft cloth washes.

RetAF

I use the self-serve hi-pressure car wash, then dry it with Absorber. No swirls or scratches yet.

rets

I don't see my choice here...

Used to go hand-wash shop, but since I found out they used the brush in the cold days, I stopped going there now...

Now, I pay $10 for handwash/cleaning/vacuum (no brush and rough cloth)...

tq2k

I personally hand wash our cars...

BlackSunshine

In that case, you mind running a hose from your place to mine? I prefer to hand wash mine myself but... that whole need an outside hose thing.

jazzpicker

Screw car washes...The one here takes so long to get through the line that you can wash, wax and detail the interior of your car at home before you can get through the vaccum station at the car wash. After reading about swirls and scratches on the wheels, I will wash my own TL... :smokin:

Ted Johnson

That depends on the car wash. I use a "no-touch" car wash in the Winter time. Nothing touches the car but water, chemicals and hot air. While most are pretty inneffectual, even those are better than nothing in that they get the salt and crud off the car. Luckily for me, we have a brand new one locally that is amazingly effective. It uses huge amounts of water, though -- perhaps 10 times the amount of any other car wash in the area. (The water is recycled, though, so it is not an enviromental hazzard.)

<TED>

BrandHdriver

I would wash mine at a touchless car wash, or with a wand, if I knew the soap wouldn't remove my car's Zaino polish.

I'm amazed how easily my car cleans by hand with Zaino, and how killer the gloss is after numerous hand washes (with Z-6 gloss enhancer applied afterward). I don't want to screw that up!

marquis

I do the same thing. In the winter I'll go to one of those touchless car washes every once in a while to get the salt and dirt off. Now that the nicer weather is here, I'll start washing it myself.

TLGator

RetAF - what is Absorber?

TJ - does your touchless car wash have tracks? If so, you may be damaging your rims!

avs007

Eh? The chemicals are harsh on your paint. But don't kid yourself, you aren't getting the salt off your car, you are actually bathing your car in it. The recycled water, is just filtered water. Salt is not held in water through suspension, it is in solution. So the water is loaded with salt. I don't know of any carwashes that run their water through reverse-osmosis to remove the salt from the water.

NathanSilver

When I no longer care about the finish of the car (if I own it after 6 years...),
then I might consider the carwash.

If my microfiber-towels even touch the ground during a wash, they're placed in the dirty TL carwash towel pile.

The people at the carwash drop them all day long, and pick up all kinds of particulate matter (FOD), in the towels.

Furck that...

criss

Handwash at least once a week in the summer, I can't stand a dirty car. I still wash my cars by hand in the winter just not as often. I ran the MDX through a "high end" car wash one weekend last winter and got to scratches. never again

Luckily I have the CL which I could care less about and run it when the weather is bad/ roads are wet.

maecrispy

Absorber: It's a type of drying towel that's good to the finish of your car and soaks up a lot of water for it's size. Think: swimmer's towel.

Used to be in favor by detailers for a bit but it's losing popularity now that microfiber towels are everywhere.

In my experience, MF's are better and easier to use than the Absorber towels.

Randall_TL

You must wash your car by hand. Even if you have to use a bucket instead of a hose. If you love your car you'll never bring it to a car wash. I'm from NYC and I still wash my car in the winter myself in the freezing cold.

mattlana

You really need a reality check. Life is passing you by! I hope you and your TL are happy and grow old together.
:tflamer:

SmokeTL

I guess I am lucky, my girls uncle has a detail shop, he dries the car using a blower. He gets my winter money.

Majorhouse

I wish I could do it myself more often. Until I buy a place again, I'm stuck at the "touchless" place.

jzinckgra

After washing your car, what are you guys drying it with? I heard only use 100% cotton towels. Where's the best place to get those? I think I've seen them at autozone.

criss

100% cotton towels made in the USA but they are getting harder to find.

avs007

I bought an electric leaf blower at Home Depot If your wax is still good, (or if you just waxed), the water just flies off the car If your paint doesn't have any wax on it, it'll just take longer. You can use this method to determine if your car needs to be waxed too :clown:

criss

I've used my leaf blower as well when I am in a hurry. The nieghbors thought I was crazy. :toothless

The look on their face was priceless

Ted Johnson

Nope, no tracks! That's one of the reason that I go there. I avoid the carwashes that "transport" the car down the lane like the plague...

<TED>

jdriver

Some of us prefer to own our cars, rather than have our cars own us.

I've used car washes for years and never had a problem. If there were tiny scratches I never saw 'em, and it was never an issue when selling or trading in the car.

Diff'rent strokes.

rynpamn21

I will never ever bring my TL to any car wash...there are just too many risks...risks of getting swirl marks, risk of scraping wheel, risk of scraping the underside of the body etc...so NO NO and NO to carwash....

TLGator

Damn, wish there was a wash like that near me.

maecrispy

Great alternative to car washes: wash at home with QEW (Quick & Easy Wash by Protect All.)

QEW is marketed to RV owners who often find themselves at places where water restriciton is a problem. Detailers use it for jobs where they have to travel to the client.

QEW leaves no residue. Put an ounce into a gallon of water. With a wash mitt, you can do your whole car with just that gallon of water. Use a second gallon of water for rinsing your mitts.

You wash a section with QEW water water, then dry it immediately. Move on to the next section. With practice, you can wash the car in about 30 min. in your garage at any time.

TLGator

Huh. This QEW stuff sounds interesting. Could be the thing for me.

Now we wait for the negative comments. Does it strip the wax? Ruin the paint? Something has to be wrong with it, right?

maecrispy

Not really. If you read the autopia boards, all the detailers swear by it. QEW won't strip the wax. Deteregents with high alkaline content (like Dawn) will strip waxes but QEW won't.

The biggest thing with QEW isn't the product itself but the technique. The important thing is to make sure your mitt is always as clean as possible. That's why you want to use 2 buckets and 2 mitts, if possible. Where QEW is different from other car washes is the fact that it doesn't leave a residue.

Also, contrary to the advice some have given, terry cloth towels aren't the best to use for drying (although they're still pretty good) as they can leave microswirls (especially noticeable with dark colors.) You want to use MF towels, if possible.