The Downside of Automatic Car Washes

In some parts of the world, the car wash is a popular hangout. Guys gather over snacks and sometimes drinks as they wait for their cars to be cleaned. Hopefully, the car is washed quickly, allowing their owners to leave before they’ve had enough alcohol to impair their driving. Of course, it’s a successful business idea, so the establishments often serve roast meat and heavy meals to counteract the beer and car wash, otherwise they’d probably get closed down from all those drunk-driving incidents.

Ironically, this is probably the main downside of automatic car washes – you have to drive there. It doesn’t seem particularly convenient to shower, get dressed, and leave your house for a car wash that will only take 20 minutes. That’s way too much fuss for a half-hour errand. Plus, if you decide to lump your car wash with other out-of-home activities, your car will just get dirty again by the time you’re back in the house.

Wasted energy

Apart for the human-power required to get you out of bed and over to the car wash, the machines expend unnecessarily huge amounts of water and electricity. If you wash your car by hand, you’ll use about 200 litres of water. Alternatively, you could call a mobile detailing service. They bring their own water tank and power source, so it doesn’t dip into your home resources.

As part of their business licensing, these mobile car detailers have to maintain government sanctioned water restriction standards. Plus, you can only carry so much water in a detailing van, so they may use less water than you would if you were washing the car yourself. In contrast, an automated car wash claims to use a maximum of 50 litres per wash, but that’s a fine print. If you read carefully, it says 50 litres of fresh water.

The rest of the water is recycled, which sounds good. Except … do you want your car washed with the same water that washed hundreds of other cars? Will it even really get clean? Hopefully those 50 litres of ‘fresh water’ are used in the rinsing cycle, but you’ll never know, will you? You’re better off with a home wash, or a mobile detailer that will show you how clean the water is – if you ask them to.

The inside lane

Automation was invented to save us time, but in many cases, it doesn’t work as well as doing things by hand. For example, a washing machine shaves hours off your day, but it won’t get the stains off. You still need pre-wash spot cleaning for that – which few of us do – meaning that one small stain may get dispersed in the machine and end up soiling your whole garment, plus everything else in that load. So much for labour-saving.

In a similar way, an automated wash won’t get rid of specific stains. It just does a general wash. Also, some automated car washes let you stay in the car and drive it through yourself. You know what that means, right? Well, if you don’t close the doors and windows properly, some liquid will splash inside, and you know how hard it is to get rid of that wet car smell.

Also, the fact that you’re in the car reminds you that while the outside of your car is spotless and shiny, the inside is dank and untouched. Automated car washes don’t do interiors. When you do a home wash or mobile detail, you get a through clean inside and outside, and sometimes you can get an underbody wash as well. Mobile services will offer additional services like deodorising, defogging headlights, or a wax and polish.

Potential car damage

Machines aren’t known for their gentleness. The washing component in a washing machine is called an agitator, and it cleans your clothes by saturating them in soapy water and mashing them against each other in a spinning tub. Your car isn’t agitated – not quite – but it’s attacked by harsh detergents and mechanical brushes that may be fun to watch from behind safety glass but isn’t quite as kind on your body work.

Automated car washes can often leave scrapes and scratches in your paint work. And if you don’t drive the car through the wash yourself, you risk losing any property you may have left in the car. It doesn’t even have to be valuables. People have lost fire extinguishers, books, scarves, and cookies. Like the sign says, there’s no liability, so wash at your risk. Ultimately, the only convenience of automatic car washes is speed, but the downsides are far more.