A spray bottle and a micro fiber cloth. Several times a week. Carnuba wax at least twice a year.
I go to the local Chevron station where a good wash, fully automated, is $10. The only problem is the line. Living in California I don’t want to waste water by doing it in the driveway.
Funny. When I was growing up in SoCal it was socially unacceptable to not wash your car at least weekly. Nowadays I guess it’s becoming socially unacceptable to wash it at all.
I grab a broom from the kitchen (nylon push type), put a squirt of car detergent/wax in a plastic basin with hot water. Park the car on the lawn, wet it all over with a hose then wash it with the broom dipped regularly in the basin. Do it in about 6 sections hosing each down before the suds dry. Don’t do it in direct sun on a hot day. Use a sponge on the wheels and glass cleaner to finish on the windows if you are really fussy.
These days I can’t be on my feet long enough to do it myself, so my husband washes my car in the driveway, along with his own. That’s what husbands are for.
I’ve never heard of anything more ridiculous than washing a car. That’s like washing a tree. It lives outside. It’s supposed to be dirty. I’ll scrape bugs off the windshield if the wipers can’t get rid of them, but that’s it.
Your profile says that you’re in Chicago. Don’t they put salt on the roads there?
Tons of it. But I haven’t washed my car once in eleven years and it’s just fine.
Same here but with a soft mitten instead of brush. Once it is clean but still wet I spray it with Eagle 1 Wax-as-you-Dry and dry it off with a couple of old terry cloth bath towels. It is a dark blue, so if I don’t dry it there are water spots.
Once a year I do a complete clay bar treatment which strips the wax off and pulls out particles and tar that get stuck into the clear coat. Then I wax with Maguire’s NXT Tech Wax.
14 years old, driven every day and as beautiful as new. (Well, almost).
I have taken it through a touchless car wash before but the high pressure spray found a small rock chip in the paint and blew a couple of inches of clear coat off, so I avoid that option now.
Not only does dirt bond with the paint, keeping the paint on the car, it forms a protective shield that can repel small-arms fire. At least that’s what I tell myself when people start writing “WASH ME” in the crud. I go through the auto wash when the wife tells me to.
I wash the cars myself once a year so I can put on that once-a-year polish. The rest of the time I wait for the local high school or church to do a fundraiser where the high school girls wash your car for a ten dollar donation. They don’t always do a perfect job, but who the hell cares?
Regards,
Shodan
About twice a year I take it to a local car wash where they hand wash and wax the exterior and clean/vacuum/Armor All the interior. That costs $55 including tip and takes them about 30 minutes. They do a great job. For touch ups in between I use the drive through (soft cloth, not spinning bristles of death) at $4 a pop.
Mr. Car Wash. $39.95 monthly subscription for exterior wash and vacuuming inside, unlimited times per month. I get it cleaned at least weekly.
I don’t. Although this is the first white car I’ve ever owned (I bought it this past January) and it’s noticeably more dirty looking than any of my previous non-white cars were. I would wash it, or at least hose it off, but at this point I’m a little curious just how dirty I can get this thing just by normal driving.
You could pull off a bank heist, wash your getaway car, and no one would be able to ID the vehicle–ingenious!
Yet another “wait for it to rain” vote.
If the windows get really grotty I’ll wash them with a homemade version of window cleaner, but that’s about it.
I usually do a major wax job on the car in the coolness of spring or fall. I used to really love doing the whole shebang once or twice a month, but these days its “Yup, gimme the $32 interior/exterior job with shiny wheel and pretty smelly spray. Here’s the key!”
Yes, you can send pickup trucks through the automatic washer but some folks worry about water getting pooled under a bed liner and rusting. Our soft-top Jeep goes through the autowash without any problems.
I put in a vote for my deep burgundy truck and black car as being show-all-the-dirt mobiles. Oddly, it seemed that my little white Suzuki SUV thingy never showed the dirt.
Somewhat tangentially: when I was 4 or 5-years-old, my mom took Chrysler through the automatic wash and told me the mophead-twirly things were ladies with really long hair tossing their heads around.
This absolutely terrified me for years and I had to get out of the car and stand at the other end when she drove through the autowash. This all got mixed up in a particularly traumatic event wherein I accidentally vacuumed up mom’s very long, luxurious hair down to the roots with our ca. 1960 Electrolux beater brush extension and it took hours to extricate. I thought I’d killed her.
I got 15 of 'em and don’t wash any of them. Might hose one down now and then, just to knock the dust off it.
My wife makes the kid wash hers now and them. Maybe I’ll try that.