Ahhhh...the Swirl-o-Matic!
Even 'touchless' can / will damage your paint. First of all, a lot of them aren't actually 'touchless' - they just don't have the big spinning brushes, but still use hang cloths or other methods to agitate.
If they are truly touchless, here's what happens: The 100 mph stream of water blasts the dirt off your paint, the dirt gets blasted back into the stream of water, and said dirt that just came off your paint gets blasted back into it at 100 mph. Over and over. And over.
You don't run into this with a garden hose becasue you don't have the velocity and volume that you do with a commercial wash.
Also, if it's hand dried after this, that's where you really increase your damage. I don't care how hard you blast soap and water at it, it won't be clean. Then some guy making $5.75 an hour picks up a towel that he's used on a dozen other cars, that's probably been dropped on the ground a few times, and proceeds to wipe not only the dirt and dust that's left on your car all over it, but the dirt from everyone else's too.
In the winter, I'll use a spray it yourself wash just to get salt & all off, but I'll never dry a car in the winter. Unless I'm 100% certain I can wipe down any area of the paint w/o picking up any dirt on my towel, it doesn't get dried.
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