My Car Is Dirty

trooper00 · October 18, 2007

This is my first black car and I knew that it would need more attention to keep it clean as the paintwork shows up every mark.

It's pretty grubby now and could do with a good old clean. I'm not allowed to wash my car on the street but I'm worried about taking it to one of those wash places with the spinning brushes. Will the brushes make swirls in the paint or is there no need to worry?

I've seen some black cars that are covered in swirls and it looks awful.

Gord · October 18, 2007

This is my first black car and I knew that it would need more attention to keep it clean as the paintwork shows up every mark.
It's pretty grubby now and could do with a good old clean. I'm not allowed to wash my car on the street but I'm worried about taking it to one of those wash places with the spinning brushes. Will the brushes make swirls in the paint or is there no need to worry?

I've seen some black cars that are covered in swirls and it looks awful.

Dont do it mate.

sparkzilla · October 18, 2007

On rare occasions i have used the car washes, and i haven't noticed any marks (although i have only used them about six times last year and my car is metalic grey). However my girlfriends previous car, a black Civic Type-R, was full of those circular scratches and she used the car wash every week.

If you have to use them for an emergency ie an important meeting or event, then you should be OK, but i think they do scratch the car.

I tend to use the jet spray at Tesco. The brush is very soft and you can even take your own sponge to clean the car. However the jet spray is crap at removing brake dust from wheels, so you will need to give these a once over when you've finished with the jet wash.

Advice: stay away from car washes with bristles. That also goes for ARC car washes. I used to take my car for a valet there, but they run it through the car wash!