Rant: Carwashes and their "express" detailing

I choose to trust my paint to "pro"s and regret it.

I want to start with I know how to detail my own car. When I drove a Honda S2000, I got into a weekly/monthly/bi-annual ritual to keep the interior and exterior in about perfect condition. I have product (polishes, sealers, clays, waxes) tools (orbitals, microfiber towels, high efficiency vacuum, carpet steam cleaner, and lots of brushes/sponges and other things to get into nooks and crannies.

For the 12 years that was my daily driver, I kept it in outstanding condition. So much so that I got top $$$ when it was time to sell to buy my Acura RDX.

So, I know what a good job looks like. And, more importantly, I know that it is a lot of work. The bi-annual full strip/clay/polish/seal/wax of the exterior would take me about 12 hours over two days. So, when you go to a commercial detailer, and they quote you ~$500 for that service, it is not overpriced.

Since I sold the S2000 and bought the shiny new RDX almost 5 years ago, I have done the full exterior treatment twice (and it takes longer because there is far more surface area versus the Stewie¹.) Of course, I don’t drive as much as I did in 2019 since Covid has pretty much made me hang around home much more, so it is a garage queen, and has about 21K miles in the time I have owned it.

But, a few weeks ago, I drove into the office and it got muddy as it rained (a rarity in California). During the shutdown² at work I was planning on getting all my goodies and products out to do a full external detail, but we had just enough rain to make it impossible to have two days where it was dry enough to do the work³.

Ok, that’s a long lead in to me saying “fuck it” and going to a local car wash with their “detailing” offers. Frankly, spending $250 to get “good enough” was worth it to me to not have the headache, and sore muscles from the manual labor doing it myself would lead to.

I knew that there were water spots that would come off with the clay bar treatment, and then a good seal/hand wax, and I expected that to be the case.

Enter the Car Wash

First, I am not really a fan of them, but I live in California, and we have water restrictions pretty much always. It takes about 100 gallons to do a good three bucket wash (yeah, we have a meter that tracks consumption to the tenth of a gallon, so I have measured it), and probably 3 times that for the full treatment⁴ and the big commercial car washes capture most of the water, filter it, and reuse, so it is far more ecosystem friendly.

They have a detailing team, a swarm of skilled people who will do what ever you want, and they do it pretty quickly.

As I mentioned, I know I can do a better job, but I just wanted it done so I closed my eyes and paid the roughly two and a half c-notes, and sat down to read.

About an hour later it was done. I do a cursory once-over look, give them the receipt and a $20 tip, and drive away.

I got home, got it in the garage, and really looked at it.

Fuck an ‘A’. There is still some tree sap, and with a high brightness flashlight I can see that there still are some remnants of the water marks⁵.

Motherfuckers did a shite job of the clay bar, the one goddamn thing I paid that money for.

Then I see some globs of hardened tree-sap.

Double fuck fuckety-fuck. That stuff is EASY to remove with the clay bar. So the $120 extra they charged me for the clay bar didn’t deliver.

Yes, I could (and did) use a detailer spray (really it is a mild detergent with a little bit of wax so that it cleans, and protects the paint at the same time) to remove the sap remnants.

But their wax is sealing the remnants of the water marks. To fix that requires the strip/clay/polish/seal/wax process, and that will have to wait until it warms up.

The good news is that none of this is un-fixable, but I will not ever be taking my car back to this car wash.

The hard upsell

Another reason to avoid the car wash is the aggressive upsell they practice. I am an educated consumer, so I don’t get flustered. But many do. They tried to get me to uplift my service to a full exterior detail (for a mere $475).

Look, I understand that you are expected to try to get more $$$ from your customers, but once I demur, you need to back the fuck off.

Oh well. It looks great, even though I can see the flaws they left.

1. S2000 drivers all call their cars “Stewie” and the forums are abound with Stewie Griffin images.

2. This year, we were off work from Friday December 22, through Monday January 8

3. Why too wet? Two things, first in high humidity many of the products used take longer to cure, stretching the time to complete the work, and if it is cold (below 50F) that affects the quality of the finish.

4. I do a strip wash to get the old wax off, then use a detailing spray with the clay bar to remove bonded to the paint imperfections, followed with a polish then wash/dry to remove any abrasives

5. Water marks are the little rings left after water drops dry off and the hard minerals (mostly calcium carbonate) remain. Clay bar cleaning will remove this without damaging the paint or the clear coat.

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