3 Reasons to Skip the Automated Car Wash

Automated car washes have their place in regular vehicle maintenance, especially in January in the Wood River Valley. Today we’ll look at a few reasons why you might skip the automated car wash and call a detailer instead.

1. Car wash results look good from far away, but not close up.

Some of our clients will take to their vehicle through the car wash before an appointment with us. While the gesture is appreciated, we almost always end up needing to wash the vehicle again by hand, because upon closer inspection, there’s still substantial dirt, bird droppings, bugs, etc. on the paint.  As detailers we quickly take care of that in all of our complete detail packages, but for the average vehicle that only sees an automated car wash, those left-over contaminants build up, slowly etching themselves into the paint, becoming permanent fixtures on the vehicle.   

2. Car washes do scratch your paint, slowly. 

Some people will say that keeping your vehicle in a garage is the best way to preserve a vehicle.  While this may protect it from the elements you can still put scratches in the paint over time just by taking it through an automated car wash.   We’ve seen some garage kept vehicles that when put out in direct sunlight look are covered in a vast network of spiderweb scratches.  Why? Because they were vehicles that had only ever been washed at an automated car wash. 

3. Car washes soaps can strip away most conventional forms of paint protection, quickly. 

Car washes use powerful soaps to get your vehicle clean as quickly as possible.  They also strip away traditional waxes and sealants, some in only a single wash.

 We know because we also use the same types of soaps in our standard auto details, but afterwards we reapply a fresh coat of paint protection.  We also install ceramic coatings, long lasting paint protection that can withstand many trips to the car wash.

 If you’ve opted for the cheapest car wash option you’ve likely just stripped away any protection that may have been on the vehicle without replacing it.

Want your vehicle to look clean, not just far away but close up as well? Need to polish out some of those car wash scratches? Give us a call and we’d be happy to help.