There are approximately 3000 certified car washes in the UK. Between them, they carry out an estimated million vehicle washes a year. There are also specialist washes, which cater for buses and coaches, trains and trams and lorries too.
Some people worry that car washes may damage their cars or scratch the paintwork. Today’s modern machines are designed sensitively with care of the vehicle in mind and the brushes are technologically superior to minimise the opportunity for damage to arise.
Drivers of larger vehicles (typically 4x4 and other wider vehicles) have found that their cars are too wide for the typical car wash. Some forecourt owners are now building to a wider format (2.4m wide), which is adequate for these vehicles.
Also, car washes are designed precisely for the job which they do: for example, the pressure of the wheel washes is right for wheel arches: the dosage of chemical is right for the amount of water: the chemicals themselves are designed for maximum effect on the paintwork (many of today’s car finishes being water based).
- Automatic car washes scratch cars - Untrue
Todays modern washes use brushes that are so soft they can actually be used dry for polishing the car. It is impossible for a correctly set up and maintained machine to scratch paintwork. Automatic car washes damage cars - UntrueIn the past, simple bolt on wing mirrors and feeble wiper blades were vulnerable to car washes designed in the 1980’s. That was because motors turned the brushes only one way. Today, softer brushes that change direction to wash in the smoothest direction are used on all washes sold in the past 10 years.
- Soft tops must never be washes in automatic car washes - Untrue
The water sealing on modern cabriolets is so good that even high pressure jets will not penetrate the inside. The main concern however was that the chemicals used in the cleaning process would affect the gloss finish on the material top. With today’s environmentally friendly PH neutral chemicals there is no effect on the life of the soft top.
- Car aerials are always being ripped off by automatic car washes - Untrue
Because brushes revolve with the car extremities and not against them, they no longer get caught up with aerials. However the dryer of an automatic car wash still needs to be no more than a foot away from the car in order to dry it properly. Any aerial that is above this will need to be flexible not to be touched. For this reason all automatic car wash users are recommended to remove car aerials.
- Automatic car washes never clean the wheels properly - Untrue
Front wheels are often the dirtiest part of the car and therefore the most difficult to clean. Todays washes utilise not only efficient wheel brushes that revolve first in one and then another direction but also high pressure water jets to clean in the nooks and crannies. Some sites now provide a pre-wash facility to soften the wheel dirt before entering the wash. This makes a tremendous difference to the quality of wheel wash, and once clean if used regularly then can be kept perfect.
- The chemicals used in automatic washes will damage my paintwork - Untrue
All chemicals used today are vigorously tested by the chemists in conjunction with the wash manufacturers and most importantly with the car makers themselves. This ensures that todays modern paint finishes are kept at their optimum quality.
- My car always gets a lovely hand car wash when it goes in for a service - Untrue
Many main dealers have their own automatic car washes within the dealerships, indeed within the manufacturing process itself many car makers have automatic washes that wash and polish every car that exits the factory. So you may think that your car has been hand washed, in fact most of the time it has been automatically washed with a beautiful finish.
- The safest way to wash a car is to hand wash it - Untrue
Unless plenty of water is used and rubbing of dirt avoided hand washing a car could very easily result in scratches and marks to the paintwork. Many poorly invested, badly run hand car washes cause damage to cars in supermarket car parks and temporary unregulated sites.