How many people:

Wash their trucks themselves vs. take them to the local carwash??

 

It all depends on the amount of time I have. When I have time, I take the truck down to the shop and use the pressure washer and detail it. When I don't have the time, or when washing it would be futile (mid-spring here) I take it down to a buddy at a local gas station and get a free touchless car wash with employee settings (extra soap, wash cycles, longer drying time)

 

By hand for the last 3 weekends in a row! It gives you new respect for the sheet metal. And you can baby it and not worry about the powerwash messing up your radiator fins.

Plus why should the carwash have all the fun?



-ii

 

Personally, I like to get her wet myself then soap her up, caressing every curve, getting into every little nook and crevice. Then I like to hose her down getting all the nasty off of her. Then with a nice soft terry towel ever so gently dry her off. Then after that if I have time I wash the truck.

 

Grayflare I worrie about you.......

 

Me too, cant get that car wash off my mind now.

 

Never never never take it to the carwash. Just got the Mr. Clean Auto Dry and it works great. No water spots on my True Blue.

 

These Mr Clean wash kits... How many spotless caar washes can you get from one filter?

 

I hand wash and hand wax. I don't want some unknown soap degrading my wax.

 

I handwash, too. Just seems better and safer to me. I don't want to deal with a lot of unknowns in the car wash places.

As for the Mr. Clean, supposedly, with the refills, they are good for 10 washes of a normal size car. So I would guess about 5 washes of our enormous trucks!

 

People always saw how bad auto car washed are because of the cheap detergent. It's gotta be better than a solid coat of road salt in the middle of winter, right?

 

While my wife and I were at our Ford dealer on 4/11, ordering our new F150, they had an "Owners Seminar" going on that is put on by the dealership for all the people who have recently purchased vehicles.
They cover a cariety of topics and I couldnt help but to overhear what was being said. I am pretty sure its the service manager who runs the program. One part that caught my ear was about taking your new vehicle to the car wash. Basically they reccomended not to use an automatic carwash but if you have no other choice but to use it, do not be an "early bird". Wait till later in the day to go.
The reasons given were that in the winter time, the brushes are ussually coated with ice first thing in the morning and that ice will wipe out your paint job. In the summertime, when the car wash first starts operation in the morning, the brushes will have a thick accumulation of dirt and grime caked into the brushes that takes time to get off of there. It made sense!!!

So, the bottom line was to avoid the carwash altogether but if thats not possible do not go first thing in the morning. I thought that was good sound advice!!

 

Hand wash and wax. I just finished using the clay bar on my truck and even though it is 4 months old, the clay still smoothed out the paint. The one time this winter that I took it to the automatic car wash, I left and the car in front of me kicked up a rock and cracked my windshield. I took that as a sign to not go to the auto wash or bad things can happen.

 

The point of washing the truck (at least for me) is to get everything including the wax off. That is why Dawn blue is so popular nice it removes the dirt AND wax from your truck so you may apply fresh wax to the surface.

 

Crick, Do you reapply your wax every time you wash your truck? That seems like a lot of work that could be avoided without compromising your finish.