Z through car washes

Jeffblue

just fill some buckets with hot water and wash in your driveway. Put on a winter hat.

either kind of car wash is bad IMO. Touchless uses harsher chemicals to eat through dirt without having to actually rub it away, and conventional car washes are abrasive and swirl up your paint.

the harsh chemicals used to clean off your car in a touchless wash are probably worse for your paint than the road salt and dirt they are supposed to remove and cause more damage than actually just letting them sit there until you can hand wash it.

AdobePhil

I use to use a touchless without guide rails. There are no rags in the car wash, just high pressure hoses and I've never experienced even so much as a scratch on my clear coat.

Only problem I have now is that I can't use it due to the under carriage wash and my injen intakes.

mantella87

I've only taken my Z through a touch-less once. And that was because there was fresh bird **** on it and thus was declared a state of emergency. When I wash my car I like to be very thorough and clean inside the hatches/engine bay/wheels. A touch-less is risky and only gets MOST of the exterior surfaces clean, it is a waste of money compared to hand washing.

kenchan

fixed!

for me, i dont just take it to any auto-wash. it's one of the better ones in my area that do a fairly good job cleaning the car and do under-carriage washing that dont damage the car other than some minor swirlage. in the winter it's more about preservation of the chassis and its components than its paint.

this is one of the main reasons why i dont drive my Z in the winter cause i can't wash salt off of it completely. yah, you can bucket wash at those silly booths but hey, you got salt again on the way home.

Jeffblue

oh yea, i forgot, i usually spread out some deicing salt once i'm done, and usually only wash it on days in which the weather is above freezing

kenchan

hahaha.