Most of the vehicles I work on are are cared for by discerning owners. Owners that know the horror of a touch car wash. Salt and sand is a necessary evil in Minnesota winters. These contaminants quickly bond to the paint, that should not be a surprise, we spray it on the roads before a snow storm because it has holding power. Moreover, few people have the facilities at their home to perform a hand wash in the winter. Many people are tempted to use a brush car wash in the winter in the hopes of getting all the junk off their vehicle. But as we'll see, even a single trip to the tunnel can spell disaster for your paint.
I worked on this brilliant black Audi A4 in November of 2016. below you'll see the initial condition and the corrected condition as of November 6th, 2016. It was not perfect, but it was a drastic improvement and done within the clients budget.
The owner's significant other thought she would do him a favor and get the car clean, becuase she knows how much he likes his car clean. And if you want a clean car, you take it to the car wash. In this case, no good deed goes unpunished. This is the condition 4 months later after a single tunnel car wash. The vehicle had seen several touchless washes, but this was the first time anything had touched the paint.
A single car wash has undone hours of labor correcting the paint.Fortunately there was plenty of paint left to get the car back to where it was, and the owner learned a expensive, but valuable lesson.
So how can we approach maintenance in the winter here? There are several methods I'll outline below. All do take some commitment and more time than what one might otherwise allow for a traditional hand wash in the driveway.
1. Outfit your garage as necessary to perform hand washes in the winter. This can be an expensive proposition. Insulating, heating, providing a drain, running a water line, providing adequate lighting, GFI outlets, water resistant wall surfaces. The bonus here is that you can wash your car anytime you want.
2. Utilize a coin-operated wash for hand washing. There's a little investment in a travel kit for washing. I recommend getting some gamma seal lids for your wash and rinse buckets. Most coin-op washes are OK with hand washing as long as you are not holding up a line. It's best to go at off-peak times, like late at night or very early in the morning. It's also nice to have a battery powered leaf blower for touchless drying. Use a quick detailer or spray wax for the final dry/wipe. The upside is that this is relatively in expensive, but it does take more time, and it's likely your car will be dirty again by the time it gets back home.
3. Utilize a touchless wash to remove the bulk of the containants, then finish at home with a rinseless wash. This can be very economical if you have a wash pass and finishing with a rinseless wash at home means that your car will be very clean in the garage. The downside is that you may be a little cold in the garage and a rinseless wash just isn't quite as thorough as a traditional wash. Additionally, touchless washes will struggle to get wheels and tight areas fully clean and you will have to spend extra time here and risk inflicting some minor swirls tdue to the remaining contaminants.
4. Similar to the touchless wash, use the coin-op wash to remove the bulk of contaminants, then finish at home with a rinseless wash. The benefit here is that you can do a thorough cleaning of the wheels and tight areas at the coin-op wash and only have minor contaminants to deal with at home. Your wheels and tight areas will turn out better and you won't be putting your paint at as much risk.