If you've spent some time reading pretty much any enthusiast forum, you will undoubtedly come across posts about people who refuse to let the dealer wash their cars for fear they will somehow damage it. Well here's an example of why you don't let the dealer EVER wash your car.

I spent over 20 hours restoring the paint on this 2004 330CI. It went from this

to this




Unfortunately the next day it rained!! So I told the client to bring it back after it stopped raining and I would wash it for free. The rain didn't stop until a week later. He brought the car back and this is what I saw.











I couldn't understand it. The paint was nearly flawless when it left my shop, how could I have missed so many swirls?? Well turns out that he had taken it to the dealership for a day and let them wash the car. He thought since it was a BMW dealership, they would treat the car with respect. Boy was he wrong.

There was no time to buff out the damage the dealership caused, so I washed and masked the defects using Hydro. The results were pretty good, though not perfect, it was much improved.







But then I found this...seems the car got bird bombed at the dealership..might be a reason they washed the car in the first place.


Anyways, if you care about your paint, learn to wash and maintain it yourself, and don't make the mistake, not even once, of letting anyone but yourself wash it. It only takes one wash to do this kind of damage.

 

Wow that's the twin to my bros car.

Anyways, how does one get their car so swirled up by washing? Is it in the sponge they use or rag and by circular hand motion?

 

All of the above.

Scratches and marring comes from something abrasive rubbing against the car. This could be a contaminated sponge or wash mitt. It could be the mitt they dropped on the ground to dry then soaped up the car. It could be the cheap sea sponge they swear by because it lasts forever. It could be the dirt in the wash bucket from the wheels they last washed another car with. It could be the poor quality towels they are drying with. It could be any number of things. The direction of hand motion is irrelevant. If you rub your car and get marring or scratches...doing it in straight lines versus circular motions will produce marring and scratches too. You need to figure out why you are marring the paint, and stop/prevent it from happening!

 

That is EXACTLY how my wife's black Honda Accord looked after I told her not to let the dealer wash and wax her car. It looked like they just took a gritty buff pad and just buffed the car with it. There was wax build-up in all the creases and on the trim. She did not listen and it took me 2 days to get it to look decent again.

BTW, I am a chemist and you and your dad did an excellent job on the Black Wow. My only disappointment is I did not develop it first. I had used Mother's Back-to-Black and it worked on the wheel arches, but it did not last. It also could do nothing for the brown spots on the trim around the roof. The Black Wow took care of all of it. My colleagues at my job thought I had replaced my trim after they saw my MINI. Thanks again to you and your dad for a marvelous product.

 

You are very right about car washes in general, not just the dealership car washes. Whether they are hand or machine washed, you are getting the other guys sand and grit. Absolutely never, ever let a dealership touch your paint and never go through a car wash where the car is actually touched by any type of cloth. The only right way is to do it yourself with quality mitt, wash and bucket with grit guard.

This is for those who care though. I can't believe the number of MB, BMW etc...etc I see going through the car wash in the winter. I will actually wait until the opportunity presents itself and wash the car by hand. Only the die hard do this but it's what you do if you care and 90% of people don't care as much as you might think they should.