How do you wash/wax your car?

[LogDog75]

Me, I wash and wax my car by hand. I rarely take it to a do-it-yourself car wash with the high pressure hoses and I haven't used to a drive-through car wash in over 20 years. What i do is I dust the car off with a car duster. Then, I use distilled water in a spray bottle and do one section wiping the water off with a clean cloth and immediately drying it with another cloth. I repeat the process on the rest of the car. Doing it this way, I don't use a hose, a bucket, sponge, or detergent so there's never a mess to clean up. It takes me about 20 minutes to wash the car and I only use about a pint of water to wash my car.

As for waxing, I do that by hand about every two months. I have friends who take their car to an automated car wash to clean and wax but from what I've experienced in the past, more than 20 years ago, is the wax doesn't last very long meaning you have to reapply it in a week or two.

So, do you wash and wax you car yourself or do you take it to a car wash?

[some_of_us_are_sane]

1. I don't

I leave it to the rain. (The lazy man's carwash.)

[Eko]

2. I keep my car in my garage

so when I see its going to rain hard for a while I pull it outside then put it back in the garage after the rain stops.

[unblock]

3. I just wait for rain lol

[some_of_us_are_sane]

8. THAT'S THE SPIRIT, unblock!

God's own CAR WASH!

[Goonch]

4. ;-{) One free Veteran's Day car wash per year for my 30 year old Toyota Tercel

[cloudbase]

5. Hose rinse,

soapy wipedown, rinse, squeegee, cloth dry.
Hand wax.
Repeat as necessary.

The motorcycle gets two washes per year. Riding in the rain mostly takes care of things well enough.

[Niagara]

6. I take Sweet Dreams to the touch-less automated car wash

I'm not hand washing or waxing her by hand because I'm not risking jacking up my sacroiliac joint (ongoing issue if I'm not careful). This sacroiliac joint can cause mobility issues for me to the point where I can't walk.


I'm not jacking up my neck or the traps in my shoulder blades either.


Last June, I did something to my right shoulder blade trap and I was miserable for over a week. I just got done explaining to someone about my then painful trap and it loudly popped on it's own about 10 minutes later. They heard it loudly pop. Moving forward after that loud popping noise it started feeling so much better.


I'm not exactly "old" but my main career path is making sure that my senior clients are taken care of and if I can't work, I don't get paid. I have to be careful about things that I really can't do.

[Emile]

7. I wash, and wax my Chevrolet pickup, Ford Escape,

and my Lund Boat.

[justaprogressive]

9. many moons ago

when dinosaurs roamed the earth...

I'd hand wash using a wheel brush and a
wand attached to the hose w/a brush attached thru which the water flowed.

Dried thoroughly w/a real chamois cloth, then hand applied two coats
of Carnauba wax, working on 1/4 of the car at a time and hand polished
each coat.

This all took quite a while.

Now I do both home and, I support a friend who owns a pair of car washes...

[LuckyCharms]

10. I just let the birds shit all over it...

and the bird shit cleans the dirt away.

[unblock]

11. But the dirt covers up the bird poop!