I don’t mind washing my car. But I’m not obsessed with doing so. Usually, I’ll head over to the local spray booth and wash the car myself. Occasionally, I’ll hang a hose over the side of my patio wall and wash the car right outside of my garage. I’m always looking for things to make my life easier with respect to car cleaning though, because I’m a bit lazy and I like to find shortcuts.
My friend Larry Kosilla is the opposite. He’s the best kind of mental person. As the owner of Ammo NYC car washing products, Larry shares his car cleaning and detailing skills on his own YouTube channel. There you can see Larry explaining all sorts of car cleaning skills while he also works on all kinds of cars.
You should spend the time when you have it to watch Larry and a team of detailers get a McLaren F1 GTR Longtail.
How do you approach your car cleaning regime? Do you just run it through an automated stall? Do you break out the toothbrushes and scour for every spec of dirt? Or do you feel that dirt is a naturally protectant against rust?
Sound off below!
Hooniverse Asks: How serious are you about washing your car?
By Jeff Glucker
Aug 8, 2018
By Jeff Glucker
Jeff Glucker is the co-founder and Executive Editor of Hooniverse.com. He’s often seen getting passed as he hustles a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero up the 405 Freeway. IG: @HooniverseJeff
The appliance/daily driver Volt gets dragged through the touchless wash every now and then as needed. It may not see anything from May until Thanksgiving if I stay off of the dirt roads. The interior is clean, but usually a little dusty.
The SS gets a touchless wash just about every time I fill up to help keep the dead bugs accumulation at bay. Because I don’t drive it all that much it gets covered when it sits to keep the dust off and lets me relax more when the kids bring their bikes in and out of the garage. But at least once a year I’ll dedicate a nice weather Saturday to washing it at home then a clay bar/wax of the outside and detailing the interior – usually after I’m done with the last track day of the year and before winter storage.
I will say for sure that a wall mounted vacuum in the garage with a long hose that reaches the cars has made the excuses for not wanting to deal with a muddy/sandy/grassy floor mat go away and a quick vacuum when I get home is a lot easier than dragging the shop vac out of the basement.
I spend the colder months not worrying about keeping my cars clean, and the warmer months meticulously planning to, but still not, washing them. If the weather is nice enough this weekend, I again probably won’t wash them.
Rarely. Maybe once a year.
I prioritize mechanical repair over washing; hence they never get washed.
We’re similar, but I do a touch more often than never.
pretty much weekly, in the driveway, bucket and sponge. i can’t stand dirty cars.
That sounds like me pre-kids. I still try to keep our cars reasonably clean, but don’t always succeed.
I drove nearly 850 miles this weekend, so when I got home my car was coated with bugs and dirt. I thought I might actually have to put some actual effort into cleaning it for once. Then it rained! Problem solved
Sometimes I wonder if the clearcoat on my decade-old Civic is intact, where it has failed on so many sisters, due to a fine layer of dirt never washed away.
We’ve got two e60 M5s in the garage, both rarely get washed. It’s next to impossible to find a touch less or DIY car wash these days and I’d rather keep them dirty than put swirls into the clear coat.
Rust is more or less a non-issue these days, between cosmoline, galvanized steel, all the rubberized undercoating and plastic panels over all of it.
Our old car was rarely washed because of the bike rack on the roof. The newer car get run through the automatic wash when it looks filthy and I can take the time to remove the bike rack from the hitch. I still have to be a little picky about which car wash since they sometimes don’t get the rear hatch clean. on the CX-5, which accumulates a lot of schmutz on dirt roads.