Cleaning car without rinsing?

Armonster

Looks good, but careful with the touchless car washes. They use strong soap that strips the wax off your car. Optimum no-rinse will leave your wax intact. But if you must do the touchless wash, then make sure to put some wax on afterwards.

semtex

I'm kinda skeptical of this, because in my experience, the touchless washes don't even remove all the dirt off my car. How's it going to strip the wax off my car if it can't even strip the dirt off that's sitting on top of the wax?

__________________
"There are no small accidents on this circuit." -- Ayrton Senna
316.8whp & 248 ft/lbs (Dyno Dynamics) | 319whp & 256 ft/lbs (DynoJet) (04/23/10)
Stillen G3 CAI, CBE, Pulley / F.I. LTH / GTSpec Ladder Brace / Setrab Oil Cooler / UpRev-tuned by Forged Perf.

Cmike2780

The problem is, you really don't know what type of shampoo they use. For the most part, a lot of these places do use some type of automotive shampoo. If dirt is still on your car after washing, it just means you probably didn't aggitate the dirt loose. If you did, it would have taken away the dirt along with the wax if a strong detergent was used. Strong detergents like dish soap easily strips wax off the car. That's why you should never use it unless removing wax was your intention.

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[09][MB][6-Spd MT][Touring][Stillen Gen III][K&N][Borla CBE][Evo-R]

Armonster

Well, maybe touchless washes vary. Or maybe you didn't have much wax on there and the dirt stuck harder for that reason. I'm no expert, but you can find out basically everything you want to know about detailing on this forum:

Is there anything wrong with a completely "touchless" car wash?

semtex

Hmm....thanks for providing that link and warning about the touchless washes. The pics in that thread were a bit of an eye opener! I'll definitely be keeping my visits to them to a minimum. I guess I'm just weary about using ONR without first doing some sort of pre-rinse when I've got a really thick coat of grime on, because I don't want to scratch my clear coat by rubbing the dirt into it, you know? And in the winters here (Canada), you can go from spotless to thick coat of grime in just 1 or 2 days. But maybe I'm underestimating the capabilities of ONR? I guess if I had to I could always go and spray it down with a pressure wand at one of those self-serve car washes prior to coming home and using ONR.

__________________
"There are no small accidents on this circuit." -- Ayrton Senna
316.8whp & 248 ft/lbs (Dyno Dynamics) | 319whp & 256 ft/lbs (DynoJet) (04/23/10)
Stillen G3 CAI, CBE, Pulley / F.I. LTH / GTSpec Ladder Brace / Setrab Oil Cooler / UpRev-tuned by Forged Perf.