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  1. #11
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    Quote Originally Posted by tcope View Post
    When a vehicle is maintained and you have a decent set up, you should be able to hand wash in about 30 minutes.
    I agree with tcope with the time to do a RINSELESS wash. If you have enough time to drive to a car wash and wait in line then you can use that time for hand wash at home. On the road, yes you can still go thru the car wash tunnel of scratches.

    Your first question is correct, what product best will protect your car. There is no single best product and all are giving you great suggestions. The best product in your case will be to apply any of them more frequently. I suggest the spray products as part of the hand wash drying aid. They work and keep it protected for a few months or more. Seriously, full hand wash with Optimum ONR with the red sponge followed by a spray product as you dry and done in less than 45-minutes on that sedan (beautiful car).

    Product Suggestions (easiest to highest price, check out Mike Phillips reviews):
    Sonax Polymer Net Shield Sonax Polymer Net Shield 75 ml. (easy to use)
    McKee's Hydro Blue
    Pinnacle Souveran Liquid Spray Wax Pinnacle Souveran Liquid Spray Wax
    Pinnacle Black Label Diamond Surface Coating Pinnacle Black Label Diamond Surface Coating, paint coating, nano glass paint coating
    Optimum Spray Wax

    Liquid waxes are another option and I have used the following:
    Collinite 845 and 915(paste)
    Pinnacle Liquid Souveran Wax
    Griots Garage Polymer Wax

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  3. #12
    Mike Phillips
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    Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    Quote Originally Posted by buddiiee View Post

    This is it?

    The most relevant and important question on the entire board and it gets 5 posts? lol.
    I a agree - this is a good question for a lot of car owners interested in taking good care of there car. Interesting that the OP never came back after this singe first post.


    I try to chime in on as many question threads as I can - especially if they are directed towards me. But sometimes I can’t get to every thread and often times if they are posted later at night, after I’ve already invested time all day doing this - well sometimes I miss them.






    Luckily we gave some great and experienced forum members that are always willing to lend a cyber-hand.



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  5. #13
    Mike Phillips
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    I would offer up

    SONAX Polymer Net Shield

    See my article here


    SONAX Polymer Net Shield - Closest thing to a coating without being a coating



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  7. #14
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    Quote Originally Posted by buddiiee View Post
    This is it? The most relevant and important question on the entire board and it gets 5 posts? lol. I want to know more, as I now don't have time to spend 4 hours hand washing my car every week. I was told by a guy that said touchless washes can be harsher because the soaps have to be harsher to dissolve dirt without physical agitation. So now should I be avoiding touchless car washes? I'm going to use collinite 476 this month.
    To you and the OP.

    Yes the touchless washes do use stronger chemicals to desolve the dirt you have on your vehicals. Then you have the different quality of the touchless wash or swirlomatic car wash them self. As long as it don't take so long between the different stages of the car wash so any chemicals has the chance to dry on your car. Many times it's not the paint that is the most sensitive surface on your vehical. But your lights and different trim material and the rubber trim. This is often damage before the paint. As you get a hazy headlights or the aluminum trim gets etched or streaking stains on the plastic trim and rubber seals. To mentioned some damage you can get by one wash or it's building up. So it's important to have a great protection to minimize that it damage your vehical.

    Also it's important that the car wash rinse off the chemicals used in them. So they don't damage after the wash. And with everything else this is different qualities that separate a good touchless wash from a bad one. To see how the one you use if it's good or bad is to sit in the vehical through the wash and see how it works. If it's able to rinse thoroughly you can get a feel from how it looks like through the windows.

    Sonax PNS is a great choice to protect your paint. A SiO2 spray protection or coating lite or even a coating would be a great protection. The problem with a coating is that to have the best performance from it in self cleaning ability from it. Is to have it very clean. And even with strong chemicals you don't get that with touchless washing only. But at least once a month or so do a Carpro Reset car soap wash to get the performance back and every 4-6 do a decon wash and use chemicals that desolves the kind of dirt and contaminants you have in your environment. Or use a mix of decon products as a tar remover and iron remover and maybe a water spot remover if you have problems with that.

    Most coatings is very resistant against chemicals and a great one is Carpro CQUK v3. Maybe you will see a very little lower longevity from it. What useally happens is that's the coating gets clogged and many thinks it's done. But with a thorough decon wash you will revive it. If you have a aggressive wash media or drying towel the hydrophobic layer could be degraded faster than expected. But the protection is useally still there and a topper can restore the water behavior and self cleaning ability from it.

    As for the swirlomatic car wash and you want to have your car looking great. And that's is about to have as little of swirls and scratches as possible. That I would say is impossible quest to be doing in the longrun. Find a touchless wash and a great protection is the way to go. Sure there are those that is better than other car washes that swirls less. But it still swirl up your paint sooner or later. Even with a great protection as a coating gives you. It's still gets swirls and I think they go through the coating layer rather fast and gets to your paint. A paint protection film PPF would be a way to don't swirl the paint. But the expensive PPF will be getting them anyway. Maybe a self healing PPF can get it to look better a little longer down the road. Just an option to go with. The best is to avoid the brush and cloth automatic car washes and use good touchless wash in combo with once and a while a touching hand car wash.

    Don't know my self about this product. But have heared good about the light swirl protection it has. Remember that you still will get swirls if useing a swirlomatic car wash but maybe it can reduce the amount of them. It's Sonax Speed Protect and is a carnuaba based sealant. Use it after every third or fourth wash. If you see the water behavior degrades faster than that you apply it more often so you have a protection all the time.

    SONAX Speed Protect

    Also in both cases. Chose a program on the car wash that has no protection left behind or no faster drying product when it gets rinsed. This will clogg the LSP on your vehical and reduce the performance from it. In the longrun the build from these can look awefull and be a mess to clean up the paint from it.

    / Tony

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  9. #15
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    Quote Originally Posted by mikec35 View Post
    I have a newer silver colored Mercedes that
    goes through one of the automated soft rag
    type car washes about once a week.

    What wax product would you recommend to
    use and how frequently should it be applied?


    From its ad copy:
    ”Meguiar's Paint Protect provides 365 days
    worth of durability, delivering tenacious
    protection with easy application. No rubbing.
    No buffing.

    Even after a year's worth of weekly washes,
    it still beads water so you know its protecting!”


    Quote Originally Posted by mikec35 View Post
    I know that the automatic car washes
    are not the best idea...
    If you’re using modern-day Tunnel Wash
    facilities that use high quality equipment
    (that have proper preventative maintenance
    controls in place); and, where their chemicals
    undergo daily QC’ing; then, IMO: incidents of
    Car-wash damage(s) are rare; extremely rare.


    Sometimes you got to do, what you have to do.


    Bob
    "Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk."
    ~Joaquin de Setanti

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  11. #16
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    I'll second Mikes thoughts on PNS on the self cleaning aspect. I applied it to my Acura with super soft paint 2-3 weeks ago based on his recommendation. I washed the car last Sunday and subsequently it has rained every single day which I've driven through and the car still looked good up until Friday or Saturday. All of the horizontal panels (hood, trunk, top) still looked very good to most people's standards. The passenger and drivers door not so much as well as the back of the trunk. A quick wash this morning and all is well again!
    I hope this helps.

    Jay


    Sent from my iPad using Autogeekonline mobile app

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  13. #17
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    Quote Originally Posted by tcope View Post
    When a vehicle is maintained and you have a decent set up, you should be able to hand wash in about 30 minutes.
    Well since you cant wash in direct sunlight or rain, this means you have to have a foam cannon, over head cover, and it NEVER rains in your area sure, but that's not the case in Michigan. It rains at LEAST twice a week, EVERY week for starters, secondly, when it's not raining it's direct sunlight, so yea, you're out of your mind 30 minutes lol.

  14. #18
    Regular Member AaronE's Avatar
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    What are you looking to accomplish? If you just want clean, well keep on keeping on my man!

    If you want to keep the swirls and marring down after undergoing a paint correction, apply a paint sealant, "coating lite," or coating. Mike's suggestion of Sonex seems great! There's plenty of spray on SiO2 products for you to choose from so pick what seems right for you. I use Meguiars Hybrid Ceramic Wax which is good but there are better. If you do this, like previously suggested you can then quickly wash your car once a week because the dirt just falls off it seems.

    I have my system down to where I can wash my car in direct sun without spots (as soon as I finish rinsing into the garage I go to dry off) but I'm flying around the car cleaning. Another option instead of a two bucket wash is keep a five gallon bucket with Rinseless wash in your garage and a stack of microfibers in a tote ready and do a Rinseless wash. This or a Waterless wash will be fast and keep the car clean as a whistle!

    All these things have helped me break up with my local swirl o matic tunnel wash and spend less time cleaning my car and more time enjoying my clean car.

    Sent from my SM-G950U using Autogeekonline mobile app

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  16. #19
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    The soft cloth brushes remove many lsps not from the chemicals usually it’s the abrasion. I use one quite often

    So you either have to use one of the washes that applies the lsp at the end or apply your own after. Some don’t even last one wash in some areas it seems


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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  18. #20
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    Re: Best products for new cars that go through automatic car washes frequently?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Phillips View Post
    I a agree - this is a good question for a lot of car owners interested in taking good care of there car. Interesting that the OP never came back after this singe first post.

    Haha.. Ever post something and forget about it? I was reading a post on the FordGT500.com forum and it jarred my memory about asking the question here. When I bought my car the Mercedes dealer wanted to charge me an astronomical amount to protect my paint so I ended up doing it myself with Meguiar's Paint Protect. I still have quite a bit left. I really need to do something to get rid of the light scratches as well, but that'll be in the Spring, I've got a Porter Cable xp7424 and will just need to figure out what product cocktail I need to use. I use this car for work and sometimes I have no choice but to run it through the car wash. I have pretty bad arthritis and a right knee that needs a total replacement, I'm not lazy by no means but I am looking for simple and effective to make it easier on my body while trying to take care of my cars. I may try the Sonax Polymer Net Shield. I have seen a lot folks are using the Meguiar's Hybrid Ceramic as well. That's what I was leaning towards until I saw Mike's suggestion about the Sonax. Thanks for all the replies!

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