Sorry for the dumb question but it’s my first winter with snow, salt and a nice car.
Should I be washing more regularly to get the salt and road grime shit off?
It’s not a huge concern on a newer car, but it is good practice to keep the salt off. The issue comes when the car is wet, because the moisture+oxygen+salt is what causes the bad corrosion.
That said, I wash my car maybe once every 10 days at a local DIY car wash. $3 in quarters gets the salt off. I try my best to get by the brakes/suspension/undercarriage
I buy a 3 month wash pass from a major gas station. Works great.
$180 and I use it on my car weekly and on my other car weekly and then on whoever car I am in randomly once in a while (friends or family).
Their wash right by my house has a glide floor so you don’t get tour wheels torched in the track. They also have touch less or cloth clean options.
The outdoor wash I do every couple weeks but only for my wheels because they have a pressure washer. Don’t want to turn my driveway into a skating rink.
If you are looking to really clean the undercarriage, then a pressure washer (at home or in a wash bay) is a good option. I would do this every 2-3 weeks in the winter. Road salt is pretty harsh but the chill of winter generally keeps the chemical reaction slow. Water accelerates things, as mentioned already.
If you are looking to keep the body of the car looking good, you should really do some research on Optimum No Rinse. With 1-2 gallons of hot water in a bucket, you can wash your car in <15 minutes in your garage. Doesn’t get easier than that and the results are great, especially if you use good wash technique. Optimum now has an ONR variant that has their car wax in it (which is awesome, BTW). Definitely try a rinseless wash out. This is modern technology at its finest, and may take some getting used to.
I would try to avoid automated washes if possible. The ones that use mechanical agitation WILL DEFINITELY swirl your paint. No doubt about it. The touchless washes use very harsh chemicals and will dull exterior rubber/plastic pretty easily. If you have a permanent sealant like Opti-Coat on the car, touchless washes are a good option.
Summary – if it were me, get a pressure washer and hose the nooks/crannies/undercarriage of the car off every 2-3 weeks. Do an ONR wash on a weekly to every 2 week cycle. Make sure you have a good sealant or wax on your paint. If you want something easy, use ONR with wax or buy some Optimum spray wax (it is great stuff) and spray it on monthly as your are “drying” the car after an ONR wash.
Another +1 on the PetroCanada 90 day season pass. Great value. The one we have here is touchless and the water/soap jets move around the car while the car stays put in one place. Never seen one like that before.
And like saki I’ll take anyone’s car for a wash.
eShine seems to be the only distributor of Optimum products in Ontario.
Unfortunately, when living in a condo, the Opti-Coat option isn’t really an option as the car needs to be super clean before applying it which means I would need to spend 5+ hours of detailing at a car wash bay in the middle of winter. Not happening.
However, the Optimum No Rinse seems to be perfect for condos as it doesn’t look like it needs a pressure washer. Just a bucket with water and a dry towel. May have to call eShine next week.
The DIY wash bays around here just use hot water. That gets most of the salt off the car. I bring a bucket with my own soap if I really want to get it clean. Heated garage with drains would be so nice.
This is what I do ^
The local wash by me has under clean and winter additives. Now sure how great they are but I wash every other fill up.
I have a DYI option for you - buy some of these and you can wash yourself in the garage provided your garage stays above 40 degrees F
P21s total wash and warm water in the sprayer - spray the entire car
2 buckets with grit guards
Tile grout sponge - use 2 or more ( they are cheap at Home Depot)
Optimum no rinse / warm water dilution
10 or more microfiber 12x 12 to wipe down.
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Check out this video on YouTube:
Quick tip if you are looking for a good sprayer – while Kwazar and others are available, you can also use a 1-gallon (or larger if you want) garden sprayer. I was just washing the wife’s SUV yesterday in may garage and used a mix of water and Optimum No Rinse in my garden sprayer to pre-soak and clean the wheels. Works awesome and uses very little water/product.
$7 garden hand sprayer at lowes does the trick.
That’s not so useful if you get proper winters…unless this is your goal
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If the garage is above 40 degrees - I generally use the hand sprayer with p21s and warm water to spray the car down and wait 20 min before using 2 bucket wash with ONR all indoors. I then squeegee the garage floor spill outside. If I have ton of salt on the car s self service pressure wash first and then finalize the ONR at home.
However if its 10 below and 2 feet of snow I just keep the car as is.
I just wait until we get a warm spell, like the 45*F day yesterday, and wash as normal
First, if your garage is truly cold enough for water to freeze like that you should consider some better insulation! Even when 0F out, my garage never gets below 35 or so, and that is with no heater.
You can ONR wash your car in pretty much any condition (except outside if it is freezing). Just use warm water. Garden sprayers don’t flood the car at all so they work particularly well. And using a rinseless wash means very little water on the floor so it shouldn’t get too slick.
My garage is not a wash bay. It’s a drywalled, painted room that two cars happen to park in. I am not running a hose in my garage, so that’s irrelevant in my case since I am not going to wash a car in there.
Further, about 70% of garages I see are full of sofas and furniture and sports equipment, a.k.a. aren’t suitable for washing your car with a hose and a garden sprayer, so again not applicable.
So if you’re one of the few people who has a garage that has a drain, and has water resistant coatings on the walls etc., the temperature of your garage is relevant.
If you’re like just about everyone, you are going to have to wash the car on the driveway, which will turn into an ice rink if it’s a typical winter day (well…unless it was this weekend when someone flicked the Al Gore switch, but that too is irrelevant because the thread is about washing in winter weather).
I am going to sound like a salesman but you really have to investigate/try Optimum No Rinse (ONR) or one of its rinseless cousins. It will change the way you think about washing your car.
My garage is far from a washbay. Fully drywalled (without waterproof paint) and VCT tiled floors. Certainly not ideal for getting wet. I did have a hot/cold spigot put in when I built the house but no drain. I would never ever think of (or recommend) doing a traditional hose wash in the garage. But EVERYONE can do a rinseless wash in their garage. Even the guys with people with sofas in them.
Using a garden sprayer and a small bucket filled with 2 gallons warm water (from the kitchen sink) and 1-1.5 oz of ONR will get your car looking awesome, allow you to complete a wash in <10 minutes (add another 5-10 for wheels), and have a sparkling car without inducing swirls or creating significant water runoff on your floor. When I ONR, I usually start with about 2 gallons of water and finish with 1.25-1.5 in the bucket and the end of it all.
Ive tried those,. they’re amazing. Saw it on Dragon’s Den, then a friend gave me a bottle after the company gave him a case to give out. It worked and was kinda amazing. Great for condo-owners and the like.
As I mentioned though in the third post of this thread, I just go to the toiuchless car wash with my 3 month all you can eat pass. I’m not as maniacal about my paint as most forum folks are. I like driving the car but I’m not as fond of washing it. Washing the car myself while very effective, is like priority 937 on my list, so it rarely gets my attention. I also buy silver cars so this is less of a concern for me overall 
So for those of you who ONR, or whatever you do in your garage, how do you clean under the car, and in the wheel wells where all the salt accumulates? To me, that area is as important if not more than the paint, and without a proper wand wash, you can’t get to that area.