First of all we need to pick a car wash. There are drive throughs with brushes, there are drive throughs without brushes, and there are the self service car washes. I’ve tried all three and I’ll have to go with the last one. When I was in the drive through with the brushes, it sounded so violent when I was in there. It seems that even the soft touch car washes are hard on the car. The brushless wash or laser was as they called it was interesting. First of all, it was ridiculously expensive. Also, when I got done my windows and mirrors were still dirty.

This leaves me with the self service hand washes. I love these, except for the foaming brush, but I’ll touch on that later.

1. BYOS - Bring Your Own Supplies

Don’t rely on engine degreaser and tire cleaner from the hose. First of all, they shoot mass quantities of it out from a hose, how effective can it be? You’re much better off grabbing some supplies over the counter at your local Auto Zone or my personal favorite, Walmart.

The other reason to avoid the stuff that comes out of the hose, is the switching time. You’re on High Pressure Rinse giving your car a good soak, then you decide to squirt some stuff on the tires while you wash; this is not an instant change in the hose. While the inner mechanisms shut off the High Pressure Rinse and get that green ooze for the tires, valuable time is ticking by. Time that you’re paying for. After you’re done, more time has to go by for the regular water to come out of the hose. If you don’t time it just right, you spray that green goop all over your car and who knows what that’s going to do to your finish? The same goes for the engine degreaser. Now imagine you bring your own stuff and before you even start the whole process, you spray your own tire cleaner on. Saves you time, which saves you money, and chances are it’s much more effective that the watered down stuff that comes out of the hose.

2. Brush Fast, Brush Soft, Don’t Miss The Gum Line

Before you even start with the brush, let me say that I hate it with a passion. I’ll never be fully comfortable with the idea. The brush may be abrasive and my scratch your finish. At the very least, there could be bits of stuff from the previous washer that may still be in the brush that may also damage your finish. So, how can you protect yourself? Use the High Pressure Rinse to rinse out the brush first. Then run your fingers through it and spray it out again, just to be sure.

Using the foaming brush is a fine art. You need to be quick and efficient with it. Go in full, long strokes and try not to cover the same portion of the car twice. Try to pretend that you’re vacuuming your rug. Go from top to bottom and you should be good.

3. Use A Credit Card (If You Can)

If your car wash has a credit card, use it if you can. Now there are pros and cons to this method. The main advantage I’ve found is that you pay for what you use. Don’t you just hate it when you need to squirt out that last little bit of soap from your bumper when the hose starts screaming for more money? Now you put a whole quarter (whole 1/4, lol :-) ) in there and got a an extra minute when you only really needed ten (10) more seconds. With a credit card, you get charged things like $6.03 and $4.47.

Of course, with a credit card, time counts upward instead of downward. It does not cut you off when you’re at your limit and it doesn’t warn you either. It will sit there and go for who knows how long (at my car wash I think it’s $10) before it shuts off.

It’s sort of the difference between a prepaid cell phone and one on a contract. If you can manage your minutes then by all means, get a contract. But if you need some external factor to help you limit yourself, get a prepaid.

Hey, if things are real bad, do as I do and set a timer on your cell phone to remind you when it’s time to wrap up.

4. BYOB - Bring Your Own Buddy

There’s only one brush and there’s only one spray hose, but switching between them can be a pain. You have to make sure the cables don’t get tangled. You have to return the brush to its rack and the hose to its little tube thing.

Bringing a friend can help save time. To ensure that you do get help, convince that person that they won’t be helping, much. Or try kidnapping them, that always works. All you need them for is to hold the hose, maybe spray sometimes, make sure things don’t get tangled, and quirt some wheel cleaner on while you’re busy with those subtle brush strokes.

5. Super Frugal Method

Now here we go a bit overboard. Yes, I’ve done this before when I was a poor college student. Just to be safe though, I’ve only done this after hours so that the management has no chance of complaining, which they might. Now you need to do this at a car wash with a very low starting cost. The one I used to use required $1.00 to get things going and $0.25 to add time. It goes back to bringing your own supplies, all your supplies. You bring a bucket, wash cloths, and soap. Yes, BYOS, Bring Your Own Soap. Now here is a step by step guide (these assume you use quarters and that time runs out):

  1. Hit High Pressure Rinse to fill your bucket up.
    Now you need to do this first, before you add the soap. “But why Baz, doesn’t adding soap first give you a better mix?”. Yeah, remember the water is under high pressure. This is just going to spray a bunch of suds everywhere, without actually filling the bucket. As soon as you have enough water, stick the nozzle into the water to reduce the turbulence.
  2. Add the soap and mix well.
  3. Use the remaining time on the rinse to soak your car well. If you have time, spray a little bit on the tires.
  4. Spray on the tire cleaner and let it soak real good or a long time.
  5. While that’s going, use your bucket and wash clean wash cloths to wash the car. Since you don’t have running water it’s important that you rinse the cloth frequently to avoid cleaning your car with dirty water. As a matter of fact, if you car is covered in mud, you might want to avoid this method. Also, use a lot of water from the bucket. Splash the car a lot to avoid having soap dry on the car.
  6. If the water isn’t too dirty why not dump the rest on the car when you’re done?
  7. Now, pop in another set of money for another High Pressure rinse and rinse off your car real well.
  8. Of course now, use a different cloth to wipe the car down while you’re rinsing.
  9. Finally another different cloth to dry and you’re good.

Why do I like this method?

  • You don’t have to use an abrasive brush on your car. You hand wash with a cloth at your own pace.
  • You only use the car wash for the water, nothing else. This keeps your cost to a minimum.

Now of course, where I am right now, I can’t use this method. Because that car wash requires $2.00 to start up.

Now off your go to cleaner, shinier cars.

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