Nobody said the paint would be "gone by now" - except you. We didn't even imply it.

I polished out our minivan a couple of years ago. My wife took it through the brush wash ONE TIME and the swirls were apparent.

As we've said - pepper white makes them less apparent than darker colors.

I'm glad that you're happy with how your car looks. That's what matters.

 

There's a nice touch-less car wash near where I live (in Illinois), and I take it there after mine goes through the slop and salt. No blow drying at this one, and it gets a bit icy on the trip home but warms up in my garage. Works great... only $5.

One big problem is that the salt kicks up and makes it impossible to see out the rear window in winter. Just learned something of a tip... Rain-X on the rear window, and the salt-mixture runs off nicely and keeps that rear window clean. It's a must-have for winter-driving Cabrio owners, I think!

 

Nice tip!

 

Don't got to a wash do it by hand!!! I read somewhere that there are new products that allow you to wash your car without water, supposed to be good in snow areas!! Either that or wait until you can wash it by hand when the weather warms!!

 

You NEVER go thru ANY (touchless or not) auto wash in a convertible.

You are gonna destroy that top and the weatherstrip.

You can use a quarter wash, but dont use high pressure on the top.

 

Then I guess you shouldn't drive at freeway speeds in the rain either.

I have used high pressure coin wash on my top regularly for the past 3 years (rinse only, no soap). I think the spray is less damaging than physically rubbing the fabric surface with soft brush or cloth.

 

Don't use a brush on it either. You should be using a top cleaner and garden hose, and scrubbing with a towel or cloth. You can also use a Magic Eraser. They work well on tops.


Rain on the freeway comes nowhere near close to the 500Gph or 1000psi water that a car wash produces. Touchless washes are higher pressure due to the fact that they are using water pressure only to clean off the filth.

 

I think I'll live with whatever small damage a touchless wash is doing to my top. Not getting out with the garden hose in the middle of winter. If I eventually have to replace the top, so be it.

 

We had 3 convertibles and never had a problem with the top .. athought I 've got them replaced three times for other issues.. (all the times under warranty)
the Cool Blue '05 is still getting wash thru carwash after 5 years ( new owner is very very ****) and the paint looks good.
Don't know the conditions of the Dark Silver and the current one - the '08 Pepper White - gets washed very rarely and it's thru the carwash... or she stays dirty ..

In winter time, I prefer to go thru a car wash than leave salt on the MINI.

 

Up here in the great white north we tend to change the oil and wash the cars ourselves. When we get hit with all this snow, there are self service car washes - just bring some quarters! $.75 on tuesdays but I hate waiting in line! It doesn't take long and I usually towel dry before I pop out of the stalls. Every once in awhile you hear stories about the stall doors freezing and trapping people but they are just stories. The local hand wash charges $12 and a typical gas station starts at $6.

 

All good information, thanks for everyones opinions! But I have a question that hasn't been brought up yet about car washes, touchless or otherwise... I have a clear bra on my MINI, IF I should decide to go through a car wash, would the high pressure take the bra off in areas?
Has anyone experienced any issues with this?

I have only washed by hand at this point but it is 16 degrees out and my poor MINI is so dirty, I cringe looking at her!

thanks for any suggestions....

 

My previous MINI had a clear bra and it went thru a high pressure touchless quite a few times and never had any lifting of the bra.

 

Thank you, i was hoping for that answer, because the wind chill here is -12 degrees today and I can't stand how dirty she is... tomorrow it is supposed to warm up to 32 degees so maybe i will try it!

 

Since reading the answers to my original post, I took the "plunge" and brought my baby to a local car wash. It has been through twice with no ill-effects.

The carwash I am using is not touchless, although it simply drags material across the roof instead of using spinning brushes. I had good luck with this place with my former car but was worried about the convertible.

I also saw the post from Cub Fan about Rain-x on the back window. I also can't stand the buildup on the rear window, and use Rain-x to help reduce it. I also went to my local Bath store and purchased a squeegee designed for drying your shower door. I keep it in my boot, and run it over the window as soon as I get out (I am usually getting something out of the boot then anyway), and before the mess can dry.

Can anyone remind me again why we live in cities with such wonderful climates? It could turn 80 degrees today, and I would still have a white X-mas with all that is on the ground. Oh well... makes top down time I do get that much sweeter.

 

Ok i'm convinced, I'm not going to do it all the time but i need to get the salt and black off the boot. I'm going tomorrow to the car wash.
Great idea about the squeegy and Rainx guys/gals, thanks.

 

ok, this comment is pretty retarded.

when you're driving at high speeds, the wind is hitting the front of your car and is deflected by how aerodynamic the car is.

in a carwash, the dryer is blowing strong air at your car from many directions and the strong air finds its way under convertible flaps and bubbles them up. over time this would obviously cause stress on the seams, stitch points, etc. was your car designed to drive sideways? b/c the carwash dryer is pulverizing the top from the side too.

if you leave your convertible in a hurricane, would the wind not be bad for your top? how about getting hit with a 1 minute hurricane once a week for 5 years?

and have you ever stood in front of a commercial high pressure washer? rainfall is not even close to the same force even with the car moving fast.

proof? the seams that are glued & stitched under my rear glass has come off due to using an auto carwash.

 

I've been using the pressure sprayer at a coin-op self wash, on average every two weeks for the past 3 years. No problems at all for the convertible top or rest of the car.

 

that's not an automatic carwash. there's no high powered wind machine blowing at the conv. top from all sides neither. and you're spraying the water yourself. are you spraying it straight into the paint at full force or are you discriminantly spraying it at an angle?

and as I'd stated, a high pressure water hose will drive the dirt into your paint. however, this would depend on how dirty your car was. if your car is washed often, there obviously wouldn't be much dirt being driven into the paint.

if there were many small pieces gravel mixed with road tar and lodged into the paint, would it be too unbelievable to imagine that a high pressure sprayer would be able to drive it further in? whether a little or a lot? how about specs of dirt? not all would go into the paint, but how about just some.

other factors would be, how good your eyesight is and do you inspect every inch of your car for such damage regularly? and if you had paint chips or areas that are weakened (that you don't know about), how would a high pressure washer not be a risk?

i'm not saying that there would be catastrophic paint damage immediately, just that there is a much higher risk vs. hand washing. i go through the carwash once a week for the past 8 years. there is no doubt that this is much harsher than hand washing with a garden hose on low pressure. how can it not be?

you say no problem at all, well that just depends on how **** a person is. a person with a new $10k paintjob or someone with a $100k car might feel differently.

 

if something bad did happen after 2 washes, then this would be the worse car ever built known to man. we're talking about many years through the carwash. it just depends on how **** you are.

 

There. I think you nailed it. You take the prize, my friend.

 

and here's one of the reason why commercial detailers and car dealerships use high pressure washers.....same reason that they use air impact wrenches to loosen & tighten nuts & bolts that should only hand tightened (due to risk of damage).....b/c it's *convenient*.

it's not their personal car, they don't care about it nearly as much as you do. they wash and work on dozens of cars per week. they don't put a torque wrench on every bolt to torque it to the exact spec as the manual says.

they know that when they are prepping a new and/or relatively new car.....no one is going to spend a full hour inspecting every square inch of the paintjob for specs of dirt that may have been driven into the pain due to a high pressure water hose. plus, it's a new car. it shouldn't have too much dirt on it to begin with.

and even if they did drive the dirt into your paint, you really can't see it...especially after the detail shop put wax on it. do people with $250k Ferraris take their cars to auto carwashes?

 

I do have to agree with ca11 about the damage to the paint. my car that I traded for the Mini was washed a few times using the power washer wand at the local wash and I removed a baseball sized clear coating on a fender. But like others have said I do take the mini through the brushless carwash once in a while to get it clean. when its too cold out to wash it by hand.

 

I really don’t understand this when there are many hand car washes all over the country. Just look in your phone book for car washes or detailers. As I have mentioned before in this thread, in my area of NJ there are 3 or 4 hand washes within a 4 miles radius of my house. While it does cost more than a regular (lousy) car wash, it does not kill the surface of your car. My hand wash place finishes the wash with Prima Hydro (to extend the wax). I really can’t see an excuse for using commercial (any type) or self serve washes (high pressure). Just my opinion, but the paint on my cabrio is flawless.

Steve

 

To resurrect an old thread (or beat a pretty well dead horse, lol).

Steve, some of us don't have the options you mentioned. I live in a small town and work 45miles away. There are NO hand wash carwashes open when the temps hit -14F or so, believe me. It's also not an option to handwash yourself, unless you want frostbite. So, for some of us, an automatic carwash is the only reasonable option.

As to paint damage due to high pressure washes. Blue lightning, is it possible your tradein was domestic? A lot of domestic cars (and some foreign, but not many) suffer from improperly cured clearcoats, Chrysler being historically the worst. In that case, yes, a high pressure wash will accelerate the clearcoat separation. Hopefully though, our MINIs don't have those paint issues. Ours (an 05 and 07) have been through numerous high pressure washes with no ill effects.

As to the cabrio top suffering from chemical washes and blow driers. Ca11, the comment about driving wind and blowdrier wind being retarded, that's a bit harsh. You've obviously not lived in windy places, like Nebraska. Bowdrier wind speeds are nowhere near the speed and force of a car driving 70mph with a 40mph head wind... that's 110mph, well into hurricane category. Same with a side wind at 40mph, you should hear what my top sounds like with those wind gusts. Or a semi passing the other way on a two lane, blowing all that air sideways into you. Same with rain, ever hear the words driving rain? Our tops suffer a lot worse the 99.99% of the time they don't spend 5minutes in a car wash.

As to longevity, I have been driving convertibles for over 20 years, both domestic and foreign, old and new, cloth and vinyl. With basic care (condition them a few times a year, wash them regularly) they will outlast your car, barring other issues (mechanical, accidental, etc). I had a black cloth top once that after 10+ years was still as black as the day it was made. And I am not **** about how I clean my cars either.

So go out and enjoy your cabrio, give it a little tlc and stop worrying.

Now, when's top down weather again?

 

110mph is not a big deal b/c the car's aerodynamics is splitting the wind and reducing the full effect of it.

yea, and now you're adding to the damage by sticking the convertible into an auto carwash blow dryer.

i never said the top is going to immediately explode and **** if you put it into an auto car wash. i've already stated that i put my own convertible Trans Am in auto carwash about once a week for the past 8 years. it's the original top too and with 104k miles....many 100-145mph runs also. i'm sure this top is a lot better than the Mini's but recently some of the stitching of the flaps at the bottom of the rear glass window has come off and violently flap when i go through this same 8-year carwash.

don't tell me there's no effects. there is. certainly more than handwashing.

now you're trying to compare a brief moment when a semi passes you vs. an auto carwash blow dryer slowly pacing your car from the sides and blowing strong air at the top? some dryers moves from the sides then over the top of the car to hit every spot directly. this forces air into any loose part of the convertible and puffs it up.

again, most of the force of the rain is hitting the windshield and there's an air bubble formed on the top of the car. ever drove in the rain with the top down at speeds over 50mph? you hardly get wet until you slow down.

a high powered washer is pulverizing the car at concentrated points. how is this less safe than handwashing with a garden hose on low?

OBVIOUSLY, sudden rainstorms are unavoidable but auto carwashes are not.

really? no ****. why do people with $200,000 cars never bring them to auto car washes? how about those with antique cars or new $10,000 paintjobs?

it's retarded as hell to say that there's no ill effects at all from auto carwashes.