What (preferably widely available) car washes are good, or are they all much of a muchness?
What sort of programme is useful? Cost (7 Euros, about £5.50 has been mentioned)?
Do you have to stay in the thing whilst it's being washed?
Do these washes clean the underneath (e.g. inside wheelarches)?
|
I would never put a car I had paid good money for through any form of car wash or use any kind of pressure lance either. The brushes scratch paintwork and don't get the car properly clean. When I had company cars though, they were of course immune to this kind of abuse and were put through a car wash near head office prior to my occasional visits.
;-)
|
|
In this thread and the one about the mysterious carnauba substance discovered in Aldi, you are winding us up, aren't you, FT?
I mean, considering the motoring knowledge implied in your other postings on this forum and your precise (one might say, even nit-picking) linguistic sense, you sound - shall we say - a trifle disingenuous here.
"Do you have to stay in the thing whilst it's being washed?" ...... really!
Too much time on your hands?
I'm off to do some decorating....or gardening...
|
In this thread and the one about the mysterious carnauba substance discovered in Aldi you are winding us up aren't you FT?
No, I'm not. I have never cleaned a car (at least, not since I was about 14, with a pail of water and some Fairy IIRC), and have never used a car wash. I have limited experience of polishing metal, de-rusting, and painting things, and lots of general fiddling about with mechanical things, but that's about it.
This carnauba stuff, I'm looking into it. I don't feel particularly enthusiastic about cleaning cars, though. Groans of enthusiasm resound.
I can though help with decorating questions, BTW (except ones like "what colour?"). Some gardening, too.
|
|
FT, are you talking about the car wash sites which have sprung up all over the pace, often in defunct petrol stations?
If so, I have used one locally occasionally - used to be £7 but recently gone down to £5 when opposition set up locally. Staffed by Eastern Europeans or Turks, they are speedy and efficient, even opening the doors and doing the paintwork inside. You can either stay in the car or decant and watch.
They do also offer to pick your car up from work/home and return it. Not a service I would use - I like to know who drives my cars.
|
I was thinking of those big tunnel things with revolving brushes - hadn't thought of Turks, etc. (although I have seen "Hand car wash" on boards at the roadside, are these the people?). I have also seen some outfit apparently washing cars in Tesco's car park (but I've stopped going to Tesco). I have no idea what they're like.
|
So WHO does wash your car, if you don't. Or is it caked in crud.
|
The rain does it. I don't normally drive along dirty roads, so the cars don't get very dirty. A bit dusty, that's all, and there's occasionally the odd birds job to ping off (or wipe if it's a rude one on the glass).
|
|
|
The machine will do no good to your paint work or any loose parts and will only clean where the brushes hit - and yes, you do stay in the car. I have not used one for years because of the damage they do and also after a friend was using one when the top brush unit collapsed on her car....
Try your local hand wash chaps (sorry Stunt but you are a bit far away) - ours have proper signs - and marvel at your sparkling car. Alternatively. find a youngster who needs to earn some pocket money.
|
|
|
|
|
FT, find a nice boy scout to do a hand job on it. ahem.
|
FT said:
I have never cleaned a car (at least, not since I was about 14, with a pail of water and some Fairy
Can't he find the nice fairy to clean the car for him?
|
FT said: I have never cleaned a car (at least not since I was about 14 with a pail of water and some Fairy Can't he find the nice fairy to clean the car for him?
Don't waste any more time on FT as I think that he is a nutter and just having us on, for those who wish to keep on replying (in their work's time) to his naive questions. However I must admit that I would like to know how old he/she is!
|
I must admit that I would like to know how old he/she is!
You'll have to guess - just as (considering your unhelpful response) I'm having to guess about car washes!
|
Sorry to be a bit tetchy, but *really*!
|
|
If I may give you a straight and helpful answer FT, I can recommend Morrisons and ARC car washes - any with the softer, thicker rubber brushes in fact. Yes, to use them with regularity will do your paint no good, but for occasional use, your paintwork will not suffer at all.
I can only assume 'oldgit' is as his name suggests.
Edited by Cheeky on 01/08/2008 at 16:19
|
I can only assume 'oldgit' is as his name suggests.
Definitely, as I have reached my 70th this year. However despite having been driving, since passing my test at 17, I was instinctively familiar with all things motoring and did not have to be taught how to wash a car!
|
|
..... for occasional use your paintwork will not suffer at all.
If you'd ever seen a car (as I have) which had gone through a car wash which had someone else's radio aerial caught in one of the brushes you wouldn't say that!
Edited by L'escargot on 02/08/2008 at 08:17
|
|
|
Don't worry about it FT - you've seen 'em come, you've seen 'em go...
As for automatic car washes, many of the ones around my area of France now have big signs saying things like 'non-scratch brushes' and 'no scratching'. If that isn't enough to put you off I don't know what is.
I also remember doing a story about 15 years ago in the UK on Saab 900s that constantly had their windscreens smashed by car wash rollers that couldn't sense the unusually vertical screen angle.
Best to go on letting Mother Nature do it for you. :-)
|
I'd go with the local boys. £10 to have the car done inside and out - bargain. Including blacking on the wheels (wow) and shiny alloys.
|
|
Perhaps FT has found, like Quentin Crisp (we're back in fairyland), that after a certain time, the dirt gets so thick that it falls off of it's own accord.
I wonder if he's recently lost his chauffeur, maybe he's had to pay him off to afford the petrol. ;>)
|
|
|
|
replying (in their work's time) to his naive questions.
Or trying to counteract his mischievous assertions...
Do trolls have an age? I thought they were evil spirits thousands of years old who lived under bridges.
|
Washing the cars is what passes for a social life chez Backbridge. Well, since marriage, children, mortgage etc. anyway ! At least you get to be out in the fresh air and often have a chance to chat to the other husks of their former selves as we preen and polish our practical transport solutions. Quite a Rock 'n Roll lifestyle actually.
;-)
|
I only wash one side of my car, no point wasting wishywashy doing the side I can't see out on my front window is there?
|
|
And to be controversial, on many threads here we worry why so many Eastern Eurpoeans etc are taking jobs away eg. truck drivers, but in the other hand we are happy to pay cash to ones at the side of the road to wash cars.
I am sure they issue receipts :)
|
A local one was raided. Seven illegal immigrants, plus two more working without necessary documentation.
A new purpose built hand car wash has just opened on a cleared industrial site. Freshly laid concrete, plastic roofed open sided constructions. There must be money in it!
|
Its a classic money laundering scam. Local drug dealer ran a "franchise" in a local multi storey staffed by his weasel faced henchman here a couple of years ago, disappeared once he was finally collared.
|
In take the opel to the local carwash, conveniently situated next to the boozer, let them do the car, and pick it up an hour or so later.
Wash, wax, vacuum, windows, dash polish etc all for the price of a few ales, and less aggravation.
Bit of a sunday lunchtime ritual...
|
I
but is a clean car a clue to the local breathalyser merchants?
JH
|
apart from the lights and number plates (they get the odd wipe with a damp paper towel) Nature does the washing. Buying the right colour helps disguise the mess).
a clean car is the sign of a dirty mind
and way too much time on the hands
|
>>a clean car is the sign of a dirty mind
Then I suspect you could be accused of maligning an awful lot of people. ;>)
|
I hasten to add that I meant that quote in humour. Apologies to anyone who fails to see it that way
|
Who?
Oh... them....
Non existent in this neck of the woods, squire!
In fact, Friday night, folk having just watched SA v England at Edgbaston, and sunk a few pints, the roads are FULL of motorists, and no sign of plod.
I despair, I really do.
|
I have heard of a high pressure washer catching a fault in a car's paint and removing a whole skin of colour off a car's door.
Or is that a myth like Lionel Ritchie telling his dog to lay down in a lift and the girl stood next to him hits the deck.
|
I once pressure washed the underside of the wing on a Rover 2000 (mine) The jet went right through the 'metal' and made a hole. The same car was passed by the MOT man with a white stick when the sills were pop riveted on with a liberal covering of pitch.
|
I have a lovely Saab droptop which Mrs Bananastand insists is kept lovely. I generally use a 1.4 car the make of which I will not name, for charging up and down between gigs. I have had it for 3 years. Number of times I have washed it..... 0. (that's a zero)
|
>>I have heard of a high pressure washer catching a fault in a car's paint and removing a whole skin of colour off a car's door
I've a car I use for off-road motor sport, which I pressure wash. Many under-arch places are down to primer!
|
I have heard of a high pressure washer catching a fault in a car's paint and removing a whole skin of colour off a car's door. Or is that a myth like Lionel Ritchie telling his dog to lay down in a lift and the girl stood next to him hits the deck.
Not a myth - I took the lacquer off the front of SWMBOs Laguna. She was NOT impressed. Never washed her car again for months until she begged me (OK, INSTRUCTED me!).
|
|
|
|
|
|