AZINE,

It is only the beginning of the Winter here in New York. It is already too cold me to wash my car outside myself. I held out all the way through November and did it in the driveway but I know that is ending now.

When I had my AV6 accord, last winter, I took it to a drivethru every week pretty much all winter. It stayed clean, but by the time Spring 10 came around, my wheel finish had been scratched to shit from the carwashes brushes and the paint had nothing but swirls.

Ahhhh I hate the winter. What can I do with my TL? It is in such better condition than the Accord and I dread taking it through the drive in washes, those people are just careless with thire dirty brushes. I feel as though even if I request not to use the brushes they will still get used because of language barrier,etc.

Help me!

Does anyone know an exceptional carwash in the tri state area?

 

you. hand wash only if you don't want the car to be scratched. rubber kitchen gloves and a bucket of water....enjoy! i'm off to do mine.

 

Never ever ever EVER take your car through an automatic car wash with brushes. Its probably the worst thing you can do for your paint. Always touch free! In the summer your probably gonna have to do some major buffing and paint correction to fix what you've already done.

 

I go to coin washes with my own wash and wax materials. I only need to use their pressurized water gun and not for too long. The rest is just elbow grease in a heated garage

 

I know a spot in Manhattan that you can get it hand washed in a garage. They do a great job, PM me if you are interested.

 

I haven't tried the stuff, but Griot's Garage sell a spray-on car-washing liquid intended for use without water (so that if you live in an area with water restrictions, or in a cold location, you can still wash your car). Might be worth a look.

I won't use any commercial car wash unless it's the type where you pull in and the machine rotates around your car without touching it. The touch-free ones where the rails guide your car through are not an option because of the risk of scratched wheels. Ch33sE1 makes a good suggestion about the coin-op washes. Those are very good for cleaning the wheel wells and the undercarriage—use the high-pressure water gun to blast out the underside to clean out road salt, but never use the foaming brush if you can avoid it because the prior customers almost certainly didn't clean it off. I suppose you could use the high-pressure water gun to rinse the foaming brush, but I would never be satisfied as to whether it was sufficiently clean.

The big thing is that I think you almost have to find some sort of automated wash to allow you to clean the undercarriage sufficiently unless you have a really super setup in your home garage (I know I sure don't). The automated wash I use for that purpose is nice because there are no rails at all on the floor and when the dry cycle starts it displays a countdown timer showing how much time you have left (so I pull out as slowly as possible to use up all my time and I don't care if it pisses off the guy on line behind me....I paid for that drying time, dammit).

 

I have not yet taken it to the drive thru. Always done it by hand. Guess that it really is a losing battle in the winter time. Damn bs.

 

Can i drive to your house so you can wash mine too

 

I live on Long Island (suffolk) there is a hand wash right by my house. they have the rails but they are wide so trucks go threw no brushes.

 

I would just try and keep it decently clean with the touch less drive through then maybe every 3 weeks to a month take it somewhere and get it hand washed. Or better yet buy a winter beater!

 

I'm cheap and go to the $2 coin wash heheh.

Have my own pressure washer, but who wants to wash their car at home with a foot of snow in the driveway and -20 degrees celcius out?

My hands would probably freeze right off.

 

heh heh! you MD drivers coming over the river to VA....not sure, but you guys drive slow here...and drive a little nutty in MD.

you're still young...you can wash it yourself i could wash it, but i probably won't put as much effort into as much as mine (which is nice a clean now and resting under the car cover). hee hee. :P

 

I do fine in my driveway with the thick rubber gloves. Last year I also would get some warm water from my laundry room. Usually when it gets really cold, I'd go through a wash or use the coin-operated washes. For waxing, I'll usually do it inside my garage. I wish it was heated.

 

Give it a nice wash, clay and wax before winter really gets started (i.e. NOW), and then you'll pretty much have to suffer through the winter with that. The wax will keep the car protected from the worst of winter. If you want, suffer through one more handwash halfway through winter with another coat of wax, and go on through. The rubber gloves are a good idea, I want to try that.

 

I take mine through the car wash (not-touchless). Idgaf...that salt will do more harm to the paint than the car wash will. Mikes Express Carwash. Some of you might be familiar with them as they're a chain, they do a great job and have an underbody wash to clean out all the salt on the underside of the car too. Look for a good car wash like that. Chances are they'll do a better job and won't give as many swirls as say the local gas station's wash. I've heard your area also has hand washes...do that if possible.

If I had NBP, I would be much more cautious about car washes. But SSM is a godsend.

 

I dunno, as long as you keep your paint protected during the winter, you should be fine. Your underbody is an entirely different story.

 

Ok ... going to make a few points here.

1) Touchless car washes use very high alkaline soaps to do the cleaning ... a couple washes and your wax/sealant is gone . A few nore washes and your starting to see chemical hazing in the paint. It will come on slow so you won't see it pop out at you but come spring when you wash/wax your car all up then park next to a non hazed car your going to notice it.

2) Don't stress over the underside of the car ... unlike the old days they are well protected and aren't going to rust from that direction out.

3) Hand wash places work on volume and they don't use the best practices. Nor do they dry with good soft towels. I have had 2 cars swirled up in what looked like good high end hand wash places. Used them out of town.

4) Look up Optimum No Rinse ... works very well. If the car is really dirty tho its best to find a wand wash and get the heavy crud off by just using the rinse water. Usually 1 cycle does it. Then go to your gagrage and use the ONR.

5) When I had my Passat I faithfully took my own wash bucket/water/soap drying towels down to the local spray wash every Sat. morning at 7 am and did my own hand wash by wetting the car then usung my stuff .. then wand rinse and hand dry. But because you can't "flush" everything off the car your going to scratch it drying it.

6) Best option is the one I use now. Weekly go to the wand wash and use just the first rinse water and get off all the heavy crud and spray underneath the best you can. Second rinse cycle to flush the car off best you can then let it air dry. I found after doing this in the spring the paint was in far better shape than the weekly hand wash I was doing. If you get a day where its near 40F then wash it in front of the house and really let the hose flood everything out. Then dry it.


If you have a good sealant on your car the winter salt / chemicals aren't going to bother much unless you have chips down to metal then nothing helps. Just remember even a good sealant on a non garaged car in the winter isn't going to last all winter.

Key is to get the crud off .. you get a lot of marring from people just rubbing on the crud on the car or cleaning the snow off and pulling it over the crud.

When I clean the snow off I never go right down to paint .. leave an inch to melt on its own .. Dragging snow over crud is like sanding the car.

 

I can't say enough good things about ONRWS and can't believe it took so long to appear in this thread. This stuff is amazing, does as good a job as it if you washed the car outside. I use it religiously. It also does not matter how dirty your car is. I used it in the middle of winter with my car covered with dirt and salt and it took it all off without any scratches, swirls, etc.

 

Optimum No Rinse definitely a good option here.

Here is a thread from a while ago how I used it.

https://acurazine.com/forums/wash-wax-23/my-1st-experience-optimum-nrws-709266/

Here is a more detailed write up from SweetJazz. It's very helpful....I went over it a lot before I gave it a try.

https://acurazine.com/forums/wash-wax-23/optimum-no-rinse-wash-shine-review-pics-384012/


Also, for the people that have a garage I use one of those small portable room heaters in my garage. They are pretty cheap and works very well to heat up the garage a bit in the winter.

 

<---- no garage crew...Also Jesstzn, been using the same touchless car wash for a good while here along with wax and clay bar twice a year. No issues with any hazing on the paint. Car has 100,000 miles and the paint still looks new. They also use warm water during the winter which is nice.

 

Have you ever had the car buffed out in that 100K?

 

No I haven't I'm the second owner though. So maybe he did.

 

Even with the best intentions and wash methods, its still probably deserving of an annual polishing.....

 

I'm sure it would look great if I did it, just don't know how. I probably should do that though once a year. But one thing I never do is go through an automatic car wash with brushes. Might as well brillo pad your whole car..Did it to my RSX and never could get the fine scratches out of the roof..

 

Ok, so how exactly do you use this product?

I also live in NY and it's about 30F outside.... Keep in mind you I don't have a garage, I just park my car in a lot....

I have my own hose there but in these temperatures, the water literally freezes on the car....

Can somebody tell me the process they use with this product?