Winter washing?

[sakimano]

good point. that’s my real goal when I get car washes, is the shit underneath.

Not sure I’ve posted this story, but a friend of mine from here in Toronto moved to SanDiego California and brought his Lexus RX300 with him(with 200,000 Canadian kms/120,000 miles on it) .

The first time he took it to the Lexus dealer for service, he said he was in the waiting room, and noticed through a window that overlooked the service area that his truck was up on a lift with the whole service department was crowded around underneath it.

He asked his service advisor what was going on when he came out, and the guy said ‘it’s the rust…they’ve never seen anything like that before’

[TypeRx]

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.

Couple things – first, I let the car “warm up” in the garage so the slush and what not drops from the wheel wheels. I also make sure to kick/knock as much of this crap off before pulling into the garage. Second, it is pretty easy to use ONR to reach and and wipe down the wheel wells. But, if there is tons of crap under there, it usually makes sense to go to a touchless car wash. But since they never really get the car clean, destroy your wax with their harsh chemicals, etc, I sometimes end up doing an ONR wash AFTER a touchless car wash.

That is precisely what I did on my wife’s Pilot a couple weeks ago. Although her car has Opti-Coat on it, I cleaned it with ONR and then finished with some Optimum Spray Wax. Took me about 30 minutes from start to finish (after the touchless wash).

[Stevos]

Skip the wheel wells or go to DYI wash that has pressure wash coin operated. I generally do it once inside wheel wells after prolonged snow and salt. I pre-treat in the bay ( if I am not freezing) with P21s Total wash diluted 50:50.

The longer I own the car the wash frequency drops with every winter.