Stupid question.. - car wash?

[BrandonSi]

Can you take the soft-top through a regular car wash.. how do you guys do that? Hand wash? Touchless?

[Alienz]

I do touchless with the water gun and sometimes by hand. I heard you can scratch your rims if you take it through the car wash.

[Pilot2519j]

I asked the same question before. The answer is hand wash. The place I go to does it all with the guys. They use gloves and there is no rail to damage the rim. Make sure to check the rail in relation to your tire if its being pulled, that is the important thing!

[QporscheQ]

There was a pretty good size thread about this a while back.

http://www.986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=742&highlight=carwash

I hand wash mine with the Mr. Clean Autodry Carwash, a sponge, a bucket of suds and the Techquipment wheel cleaning kit. Personally, I find washing the car very therapeutic and I rather enjoy it.

[Ad Sach]

I have used a 'touchless' car wash twice - It does an amazingly bad job at cleaning the car. The self-service spray machines do a much better job.

Usually I wash with a bucket in the driveway, but in mid-winter I visit the self-service car washes rather than drag my hose out of storage and through the snow to the car.

If I don't have time to hand wash, I just let her stay dirty!

[donv]

Mr Clean Auto-Dry: how has that been working for you? The commercial looks fantastic, but things that look soooo easy usually have some undesired warts... does it?

[aesir]

Originally posted by donv
Mr Clean Auto-Dry: how has that been working for you? The commercial looks fantastic, but things that look soooo easy usually have some undesired warts... does it?

I want to know too, I've been thinking about picking this up, but would rather not waste my money or my time if it's a gimmick.

[QporscheQ]

Surprisingly, the Mr. Clean Auto-Dry works very well.

However, the commercials where the guy just hoses off his car and walks away are obviously BS. I guess if you really don’t care how your car looks and "good enough is good enough" than it will do. However, if you want your car spotless than you will probably still need to hand dry the car. I feel what the Mr. Clean really buys you is time, especially if you have a black car and try to wash it in the sun. The main problem I have had with spots while using it is that pollen in the air will still collect in the water on the car and spot if you don’t get it dry in time.

You can select between a normal spray (unfiltered), a soapy spray, or the filtered spray. It also has an on/off switch to control the water. I feel the soap spray part is not terribly useful. The unfiltered spay comes out pretty hard depending on how high you have your facet cranked, and the filtered spray is more of a strong mist since the water is being pushed through a filter.

I guess the bottom line here is whether or not I would recommend it and for that I would definitely answer YES. I was the first person I knew to get one and I felt like you guys before I purchased it. The next weekend after I bought mine and used it, two of my car buddies (SLK AMG and RX8) went out and bought their own. I think it was $20 at Wal-Mart.

[aesir]

Originally posted by QporscheQ
Surprisingly, the Mr. Clean Auto-Dry works very well.

However, the commercials where the guy just hoses off his car and walks away are obviously BS. I guess if you really don’t care how your car looks and "good enough is good enough" than it will do. However, if you want your car spotless than you will probably still need to hand dry the car. I feel what the Mr. Clean really buys you is time, especially if you have a black car and try to wash it in the sun. The main problem I have had with spots while using it is that pollen in the air will still collect in the water on the car and spot if you don’t get it dry in time.

You can select between a normal spray (unfiltered), a soapy spray, or the filtered spray. It also has an on/off switch to control the water. I feel the soap spray part is not terribly useful. The unfiltered spay comes out pretty hard depending on how high you have your facet cranked, and the filtered spray is more of a strong mist since the water is being pushed through a filter.

I guess the bottom line here is whether or not I would recommend it and for that I would definitely answer YES. I was the first person I knew to get one and I felt like you guys before I purchased it. The next weekend after I bought mine and used it, two of my car buddies (SLK AMG and RX8) went out and bought their own. I think it was $20 at Wal-Mart.

Well for $20, I'll give it a shot, but I was under the impression it was $50 for some reason...

[thompson1020]

I have the Mr Clean as well, works great - just gotta keep refilling it, the filtered water "mist" does a good job helping with the spotless dry - if you're in a hurry it's awesome - if you want 0 spots, you gotta do a little work on your own, but it definitely speeds up the process having no bucket to fumble with. you just switch between the 3 modes of the unit attached to the hose in your hand.

[ehljags]

Hand wash only, PLEASE!!!

I use Zymol products to wash. After drying (microfiber only) I spray Raggtop protectant on the top. The water beads off like crazy.

Also, use a tape-gizmo to get any lint or hairs off of the top (black).