Z through car washes
 

I love auto carwashes. Dont hate, my G (with scrach sheild paint) has been through hundreds of times and looks great!

At any rate, any problems with running a Z through because of ground clearance?

I'm talking to you Kenchan! You know which one I go to.

Mike S.

If I really, really had to do it, I would run it through a touchless carwash. I would be scared about my rim being scratched though. There was a warning stick on my car warning me not to take it through the carwash because it will damage the spoiler. So, if I did not want to wash it myself, I just pay extra to get it hand washed.

:shakes head: it's hard not to when you're considering running a Z THROUGH A CARWASH...

Just sayin'

I clean my own car... it always looks awesome because no slouch in a car wash is going to pay as much attention to detail as me.:tup:

ill never go through a auto car wash. Had one blow up and sent metal flying at my hood and windshield with my cobalt. Scratched the hood up real bad to.

Whoa! Wrong door.....:wtf2:

You could NOT pay me to bring this car through a carwash!!!

If you absolutely have to, go touchless. But I'd love to see pictures of your G looking "great" after hundreds of express car washes.

Touchless is fine depending on the bump stop things that keep you in place while inside the machine.

I would just walk over to it before driving through just to make sure.

Drive-Thru Car Wash??? You mean Drive-Thru-Sheet-Metal-Destroyer, right?

LOL

:icon17:

I'm too low to make it in one of those so I don't even bother.

I drive a roadster, so unless I want to experience Niagara Falls inside my Z.....

:ughdance:

For me the Z is spooky low and its rims are WAY too exposed to risk even a touchless car wash. All of the car washes that I've seen lately have some sort of guide or track on the floor and no way am I risking my sport package rims in that environment. But a touchless wash without a track or guide would probably be ok.

I only wash the car every few weeks but I clean it with detail spray a couple of times a week. It only takes 10 minutes and the car always looks great.

I bring my Z throught a car wash, but not for long. As soon as its is repainted and new wing goes on it will not go in again. I have the sport wing on now and have no problems. The nismo wing does have a warning about no going throught a car wash. Any wing biger than the sport wing I would not suggest it. I have had no issues with the Z in the car wash in about 60 washes.

:tup: :icon17:

Have you been drinking?

We Z drivers always keep things legal, but I think HE WAS IN THE CAR WASH!!!

:happydance:

:tup:

I always make sure I hand wash the Z, but off late with the cold weather when I have been getting lazy and have taken it to the touchless automatic. But I get my washes for free there since the managers daughter is my friend. :tup:

+1 here in Germany we do have winter. The car washes at the newest stations are great and you see all kinds of power using them. R8, C4S etc. I hand wash summer, spring and fall. Winter if I can, machine wash(cloth etc) when needed. Plus those machine systems at the stations have a nice under-body wash to counteract the salt etc. There is nothing wrong with that when its necessary and to use a good machine soft tech sytem.

In fact it was washed in a machine at my fave Aral station near Stuttgart yesterday after a nice little road trip! These here also dry automatically. NO hand drying at all. I hand dry after on the site of course. Zero issues thus far and in the winter its nice to have an option rather than by hand when its very bad weather out.

Haha, the first thing that would rub is the deflector forward of the front tires. I would just take those off during the winter (3bolts and just put some tape over the screw holes to prevent rust or screw them back in if the bolts don't bottom out) and run it through if that was my only choice. :)

I luv my G (dd) but she will be going through the car wash next wk if temps are too low to wash at home.

Hand wash only for me. If absolutely necessary I MIGHT consider not taking it to a touchless wash system, and go grab a bucket! :)

Btw, those screws fall out by vibration if you don't torque them in snug.

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.

I used a touchless car wash yesterday, and dried it down and waxed it afterwords. When its 30 degrees outside, it seems to be the best option in my eyes.

:tup: :tup: :tup:

I'll do touchless on a very RARE occasion,but only with a good coat of Wax protecting the paint. Most touchless car washes use acid based soaps in order to do a thorough job at removing dirt. Too much exposure to the touchless eats up at the clearcoat.
Meguiars gold class soap or turtle wax ice and a bucket works excellent. A high quality non abrasive microfiber sponge, a nice shade, lukewarm filtered water, high end detail drying cloths, quik detailer, clay, polish, wax and buff the car off with a detailers buffing cloth. Every evening after the wash I dust off the car. Every 5 days, give or take a day or 2, I quik detail and quik wax. After the quik wax, I buff the car out with a detailiers, buffing cloth, done
If regular maintenence keeps the car clean for a long period of time? I may only water wash every 5 weeks give or take 1 week. If I notice I'm getting build-up from having to quik detail or quik wax too often? I will wash sooner.
The interior I vaccuum weekly. I use cleaners on the plastics about every 3-4 weeks. The leather area I use a leather clean cond. Every 6wks.

My car almost always looks showroom or better than showroom. It costs about $180 for the supplies. And I get about thousands of $$$$ in in detailings and washing done when I do it myself.

This is exactly what I do on cold days. Lol.

:tup:

i would rather wait and hand wash my car than risk taking it to an auto wash.

just fill some buckets with hot water and wash in your driveway. Put on a winter hat.

either kind of car wash is bad IMO. Touchless uses harsher chemicals to eat through dirt without having to actually rub it away, and conventional car washes are abrasive and swirl up your paint.

the harsh chemicals used to clean off your car in a touchless wash are probably worse for your paint than the road salt and dirt they are supposed to remove and cause more damage than actually just letting them sit there until you can hand wash it.

I use to use a touchless without guide rails. There are no rags in the car wash, just high pressure hoses and I've never experienced even so much as a scratch on my clear coat.

Only problem I have now is that I can't use it due to the under carriage wash and my injen intakes.

I've only taken my Z through a touch-less once. And that was because there was fresh bird **** on it and thus was declared a state of emergency. When I wash my car I like to be very thorough and clean inside the hatches/engine bay/wheels. A touch-less is risky and only gets MOST of the exterior surfaces clean, it is a waste of money compared to hand washing.

I am curious nobody mention coin wash, you drive into the space, inset coin, spray your car, rub it with their brush or your own sponge, rinse it and dry it. Then drive it.

Simple and easy, this is what I do in Winter.

:tup:

That's all I use. I live in an apartment complex. No hose/enough space to wash my car if I wanted to. I have a garage at least though.

fixed! :icon17:

for me, i dont just take it to any auto-wash. it's one of the better ones in my area that do a fairly good job cleaning the car and do under-carriage washing that dont damage the car other than some minor swirlage. in the winter it's more about preservation of the chassis and its components than its paint.

this is one of the main reasons why i dont drive my Z in the winter cause i can't wash salt off of it completely. yah, you can bucket wash at those silly booths but hey, you got salt again on the way home. :D

:icon18: oh yea, i forgot, i usually spread out some deicing salt once i'm done, and usually only wash it on days in which the weather is above freezing

:tup: hahaha.

Short answer: Yes you can take it through the car wash.

---

I use the touchless carwash 2-3 times a week on my Z. It flushes out the salt off. I love hand washing my car but I'm just not going to do it when it is 0-30 degrees out.

Last year I took my car through an autowash many times, nearly everyday. The Z developed light swirls that could be seen at certain angles in light. I was driving my car 110mi per day so I needed to do it. I've accepted the fact the my car will not be show room quality. However, my car looks VERY good for a DD. ... Just not perfect though.

Early spring through late fall I scrub my car by hand like it used a bad word talking back to me.

Doesn't anyone have garages where it's cold? Waterless wash, or rinse less wash in the garage FTW! :tup:

I've used touchless but really prefer to do it myself. I enjoy taking the time, and it still hasn't got boring for me to wash my car for a good hour yet. Love going over the Z's lines

I think the one time I used touchless last summer was before a meet and then I used Turtle Wax detailer then headed out cause I was out till 4am the night before lol