Winter maintenance

[Tieguy77]

Hi Folks,

I live in VT and when our road crews actually do plow, I'm fairly certain what they throw down is probably some sort of nuclear waste. I just got a new-to-me Lexus GX470 and due to health issues the best I could do before the snow comes was a good wash followed by Collonite 845.

The paint is nice but rough and definitely needs correcting, which will have to wait until Spring. My question is about those coin-operated washes. Do you recommend them and how often? Should I use the soap they have? I was always under the impression that the soap at those washes ate wax.

In a nutshell, what would you say is the best practice for someone in the heavy road-salted Northeast with no access to a garage and only the coin operated places?

Thanks so much for all that you do for the community!

Regards,

Bobby

[Me Time]

Hi Bobby, I'm sure you are probably getting that bad weather already.

I have heard good and bad about them. The bad is that the soap is so strong it starts to eat away at what ever wax/sealant you have on there. The reason it's strong is to do it's job since it's a touchless wash. Hopefully someone with a lot more knowledge about them will chime in. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do to get the salt off.

One thing you could do is get you a couple of buckets with the Gamma Seal lids (that way you won't soak your interior on the ride there) and a Boar hairs brush. That way you could use your own soap and have your own brush to scrub it with instead of using theirs with who knows what it was used for before you got there. My wife and daughter got me a brush for my birthday last December and it works out great.

[Tieguy77]

Thank you. I would never use the brush or broom the car wash has on the paint of my vehicle.

[DetailKitty]

Hi Bobby!
I also live in the NorthEast and winter care is always a challenge. I have to shut off the outside water due to the hose running underground and will freeze once the ground does.

So I will go once a week to the pressure washer and get the worst off the car.
If there is a warm-ish spell I will do this and then follow-up at home with a rinseless wash.

Once in a blue moon I might go through a touchless car wash but that is far and few in-between.

Do the best you can. But please, don't use those brushes at the coin-ops OR the Swirl-O-Matic car wash :xyxthumbs:

Good luck!

[Tieguy77]

Thank you DetailKitty! We have the same issues with having to shut the water off. I have seen people do some horrendous things to beautiful cars with those brushes and not even give it a second thought. To each their own, but it always makes my skin crawl.

[DetailKitty]

Thank you DetailKitty! We have the same issues with having to shut the water off. I have seen people do some horrendous things to beautiful cars with those brushes and not even give it a second thought. To each their own, but it always makes my skin crawl.

I'd rather have my car dirty for a month than take one of those brushes to it!

[SWETM]

Depending on the coin-op owners how they are with you useing your own products. And do you have one that you have the option to do a last rinse with DI water?

If they have an option with DI water. I would get me a foam pump pressure spray bottle or a pump pressure spray bottle. Get you the Gtechnic W4 Citrus Foam and dilute it to 1:25 in either bottle you decide to get. When you get into the coin-op wash bay directly apply the Citrus Foam and let it dwell for 5 minutes or so it don't dries on the paint. With no prerinse you get it more effective. Then you use the water pressure from the PW to clean with. You use the water pressure from the PW as wash mitt and start from the bottom and work your way up and then thoroughly rinse anything left off the paint with the DI water option. And you are done. Or you can if possible do a bucket wash with multible wash mitts or a rinseless wash or waterless wash after you have clean rinsed off the prewash. The benefit with the Citrus Foam is if the foaming draws unwanted attention. You can use it with great results from a pump pressure spray bottle or a spray bottle too. This will help you get off a little more with the PW. But use the PW to clean with and just not have it far away and rinse as you would rinse off a car soap solution with a hose. After the rinse you can drive home and do a rinseless wash or waterless wash if you want to and need to. This method you will not get it perfectly clean with doing it touchless. But not far from it is my experience with doing this both in the winter months here in Sweden and the all around the year.

You can even get you a spray on rinse off product like Gyeon Wet Coat or Carpro Hydro2 lite or Sonax Spray and Seal. Use the DI water or the water and spray on 1 panel and rinse it off very thoroughly and do the next and so on and start from the top and work your way down. And final rinse step with the DI water. This way you top up your protection easly too.

Remember if you have a very low temperature you want to do a contact wash of some kind so you can dry your vehical. You can get away with just doing a WW on the jambs and the seals and where you have water still left after you come home. So you don't get them to freeze on you. Or maybe get the cordless Flex blowdryer and dry at the coin-op wash bay.

Kwazar Mercury Pro + Double-Action Spray Bottles, high output sprayers, detail sprayers, chemical sprayers (https://www.autogeek.net/kwazar-sprayers.html)

IK Pressure Sprayers (https://www.autogeek.net/ik-pressure-sprayers.html)

GTechniq W4 Citrus Foam (https://www.autogeek.net/gtechniq-citrus-foam.html)

GYEON WetCoat - 500 ml (https://www.autogeek.net/gyeon-wetcoat.html)

CarPro Hydro2 Touchless Silica Sealant 1 Liter (https://www.autogeek.net/hydro2.html)

https://www.autogeek.net/sonax-spray-and-seal.html

https://www.autogeek.net/flex-cordless-blower-complete-set.html

/ Tony

[Tieguy77]

Tony, outstanding information. Thank you so much. I have to look into a couple of the local Coin-operated spots to see if any offer DI water as I suspect they do not.

[UncleDavy]

The coin op washes are good for blasting the crud off the vehicle. I would not use their soap for you don’t know how acidic it may be. After the initial blast of water, you can do a rinseless wash in your driveway. I also fill a couple of buckets and use a Worx Hydroshot to rinse the vehicle when it is too cold for the hose. Get yourself some Glacier Bay ice fishing gloves.

[Rrthomas78]

Last time I used a coin op wash there was a guy scrubbing his trailered bbq smoker with the brush....I thought to myself this is why you should not use the brush

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[Me Time]

That wouldn't be to bad if he would of gave you a few pounds of pork.:xyxthumbs:

[Rrthomas78]

That wouldn't be to bad if he would of gave you a few pounds of pork.:xyxthumbs:That would have been nice! It's crazy around here they will give you the boot if you bring a bucket with your own stuff...but its totally fine to destroy their equipment scrubbing grill grates

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[SWETM]

That would have been nice! It's crazy around here they will give you the boot if you bring a bucket with your own stuff...but its totally fine to destroy their equipment scrubbing grill grates

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That's one of the craziest I heard so far when it comes to the coin-op wash bays LOL. What I wonder if it's such of a healthy thing to clean those grill grates in a coin-op wash bay. But maybe not so much of a problem if you heated them up very thoroughly before use it again. Man that grease in the wash brushes is not easly going away. Have destroyed some brushes when getting the grease lube that's used in the cranes on tractors and stuff. Have used a lot of different potent degreasers with 1 brush in particualar and it's not going off LOL. Animal fat and such can be very hard to desolve and is mostly the aggitations that fix it.

Get me to thinking on getting afterwards when has cleaned up his bbq equipment and you have not seen it. Start to use the brush and cleaning. And notice the cool smell they have in their cleaners that smells like BBQ LOL. Then wondering why my car gets dirtier when I wash it LOL. Yeah I don't ever use the brushes in those coin-op wash bays. If though the combined PW with brush attachement would fit in the vehicals wheel wells I would use it or the parts I reach on the undercarriage. Which I think that has already done before or they are just so worn downed so they should have been replaced. So would not feeling bad about it. I have looked in to the price of such a wand from Kärcher and they are very expensive with combined PW nozzle tip and the brush that you move back and forth. As a not a business I would get it for a little over $700 for just the spray gun handle with the wand this is. When new though they are quite high quality and could be of use on like semi-trucks and tractors and such. Would not use it on the car paints though but those with the industrial paint on them.

[Tieguy77]

I also enjoy BBQ Pork.

[DetailKitty]

Best ever was I saw a guy pressure wash out his new Subaru right in front of me while I was waiting for the bay...

:bash: