JonMN

First, I have to say I have never run any of my sports cars thru a carwash. However, washing cars in a MN winter is a pain, so the SUV and truck have to bear with me.

For those that do use a car wash, do you go with the soft-touch type (and risk scratching) or the touchless type (and risk having your trim pealed by the high pressure spray?) PS: I am not thinking a detailer for my utility vehicles.

SULLY2013

bigcypress

i use ''adams'' or ''wolfgang'' rinseless wash in our garage and it works great . never thought i'd use a ''rinseless'' wash but finally tried one and cars have NEVER looked better . it also seems less work like than messing with a hose in the driveway . probably the last car we had that went through a car wash was a new 1969 pontiac gto never let a car go through one since . . peace

JonMN

Yup, winters always suck here, at least from a car's perspective. This winter sucks worse than normal. Another snow incoming!

Bajaholic

Wife and I use car wash's on a daily basis. Quite honestly, the more you use them, the better it seems to be on the car. I say this because the chemical waxes etc they use to protect build up a micro layer and after a while theoretically you wont even have to dry the vehicle off after it is washed and there is no spots. (I say in theory, because we generally dry it off anyway.)

I use the touchless (I have a duelly), It works well, but sometimes if you have been running in the rain etc, a pre-wash is needed to get the light haze off before it is ran through the touchless. I always dry my truck after words and people are amazed how new it looks even though it is not...

Wife uses soft touch. We have a a place in town where for $35/month she can run her car through unlimited times. I have never seen an issue with her car as far as scratching etc, and it does give a nice finish afterwords. She dries off her car most of the time, but when she does not, you rarely see water spots.

As far as the Corvette, I use the touchless on a regular basis, almost every time we take the car on any sort of real drive. I then dry it off, and hit it with a quick detail. People can say what the will, but I like the fact the underneath gets cleaned as well as the top surfaces.

It works for me and I have never... had anyone say there has ever been an issue, in fact, people have often stated they have no idea how I have the time to keep my cars/vehicles looking so clean and pristine all the time.

SULLY2013

N227GB

I sold a 12 year old Ford Super Duty that I kept up north with ~150k miles for full KBB Dealer Values on Craig's List in just a few days. The buyer brought cash.

It was a PITA to wash by hand because I needed a ladder. Most of the time it would go through the touchless for a $5 wash when filling up with diesel. What really preserved it was that most of the time it was parked in a climate controlled hangar, not outside

WIC7Diver

Winters just plain suck up here in the Midwest, no doubt about it and I use the touchless just to blast off the dirt and salt.

Did something different though at the end of last season- used Adams Ceramic Boost on my Truck and wife’s car for a winter sealant. It seams to have held up pretty good and kept a lot of the crap that would normally stick to the surface off until I could wash it. It also seemed to clean up through the touchless wash a lot better and I’ve only ran it through 3 times the whole winter on the truck and the wife car only once. Granted, we didn’t have the amount of storms MN had this and winter has been fairly mild in comparison, but the salt is still everywhere and for the limited number of times these vehicles have been washed, they look pretty good.

In either case, the touchless is going to be safer but neither will get your car clean but the mild scrub will scratch the hell out your paint.