Well, I had to do it today. Bought my truck brand new in July 05 and have never taken anywhere for a wash, not even the local do it yourself pressure washer place. It gets only the best "hand job" weekly if not more but when I left this morning the sun was out and the truck was literally white, covered w/salt and 15 degrees out. So I bite the bullet and took it too one of those touchless car washe places. I waved off the guys at the end with the scary looking drying towels and brought it home to check it out. Supprisingly I found it to be looking pretty clean, even underneath since I had to pay extra for a chassis bath. Normally I'll wash it as long as it's 30 or warmer out but this whole week it's suppose to be coooolllllddd and with all that damn salt sitting on there....well I had to do something.

 

In an emergency you gotta do what you gotta do but sometimes nothing is better than something when it comes to the auto carwash.

I would have waited until the wands in the "do it yourself pressure washer place" worked and rinsed it until I could wash it right.

Along with the dirty brushes/scrub pads in some places even the touchless ones have the strong stripper detergent that attacks plastic, rubber, seals and gaskets and you wont see the damage until much later.
It's less noticeable on other areas but I see cars, vans and trucks all the time with the head and tail light plastic ruined from them with tha foged look in the plastic.

 

Great!!!!!

 

I had to take mine through the touchless auto wash today too.....I use them several times during the winter with no problems.

Once it's warm enough in the spring, I wash 'er up by hand again, put on a few new coats of Zaino and she's as good as new

 

Yea I did mine last week. I could not stand all that sand and salt on my truck. I think it is the lesser of the 2 evils.

 

I try to avoid them because their soaps do strip wax. But you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. Just make sure you re-wax when it's possible.

 

With abnormally cold temps in KC, I have had to also go to the brushless car wash and admit that the Collinite 845 LSP is holding up pretty good!

 

My two-year-old son has become enthralled with the drive-thru car wash down at our local Shell station. The only problem is, I refuse to take any of my vehicles through such washes, regardless of whether they are "touchless" or not!

I'm thinking I'm going to have to do grandma a little favor next time visits -- maybe Will and I will take her car out and surprise her with a freshly washed vehicle when we get home!

Although, when I lived back in Minnesota I had no issues whatsoever in running my "winter beater" through the 99-cent brush was at Amoco -- ahhhh, the beauty of a winter beater!

 

When I had a winter beater I didn't even waste the 99 cents - I was afraid the brushes would tear things apart, the only thing holding it together was rust. The only "cleaning compound" I ever used was Windex so I could see out.