For the V I only have a detail guy wash and maintain it for me if I don’t do it myself. I just can’t trust auto car wash places to not damage something
Anyone with CF use car washes?
Yeah I know they're awful for your paint but sometimes I am too busy to pull out the foam cannon and microfiber mitt. I use an automated carwash near my house here and there and always had good results. The ownership recently changed and I got a postcard for a free car wash so I checked it out. It seemed the same as last time but at some point I heard a loud noise from the front end. I walked around my car before vacuuming but didn't see anything. Then lo and behold I was adding some air to my front left tire a few days later and I saw a small scratch down to black plastic on my bumper. It was in the bottom corner on the drivers side edge near the splitter and was very small but I don't remember seeing it before so I looked closer, and it looks like something caught the splitter because the mounting point for the torx screw on the bumper was pretty much ripped out. I had to remove some 3m tape, reapply and drill a new hole to secure the edge of the splitter. Pretty lame. I have the EOS splitter, which is pretty much disposable, but damaging the bottom of my bumper is no good. Anyone experience this? I guess its hand wash only for me. I've tried touchless washes in the past and they seem to never get all the dirt off.
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For my Denali I only use touchless and do a little prep work before hand, touch up the wheels and chrome with some sterling acid, and then hand dry whatever water the blow dryer doesn’t get. That’s mostly in the winter, it gets a sponge bath whenever possible. Ideally it would be nice to have a heated garage with a drain to do indoor washing.
For the V, I’ve got a guy local to me who I trust completely. I’ll wait on him and let the car sit however dirty (Garaged) until he can get to it because while I can do it myself, I hate the time it takes.
Buy my daily and the wife’s car? Car washes are fine.
Buy my daily and the wife’s car? Car washes are fine.
Daily ATS-V gets a tunnel wash. My CTS-V only a hand job!
Fuck it. It's a car. I run it through every 1-2 weeks. They're not gonna fuck it up HALF as bad as the dealer does.
I always hand wash to prevent scratches and damage to carbon fiber and paint.Yeah I know they're awful for your paint but sometimes I am too busy to pull out the foam cannon and microfiber mitt. I use an automated carwash near my house here and there and always had good results. The ownership recently changed and I got a postcard for a free car wash so I checked it out. It seemed the same as last time but at some point I heard a loud noise from the front end. I walked around my car before vacuuming but didn't see anything. Then lo and behold I was adding some air to my front left tire a few days later and I saw a small scratch down to black plastic on my bumper. It was in the bottom corner on the drivers side edge near the splitter and was very small but I don't remember seeing it before so I looked closer, and it looks like something caught the splitter because the mounting point for the torx screw on the bumper was pretty much ripped out. I had to remove some 3m tape, reapply and drill a new hole to secure the edge of the splitter. Pretty lame. I have the EOS splitter, which is pretty much disposable, but damaging the bottom of my bumper is no good. Anyone experience this? I guess its hand wash only for me. I've tried touchless washes in the past and they seem to never get all the dirt off.
I have a 2011 V Coupe and took all the precautions, front end wrap, Opti-coat, CR Spotless water conditioner, Chemical Guys, foam cannon, only dried with a leaf blower, car looked amazing for 2 years. I got lazy and went to an automatic car wash with an unlimited plan, took 3 trips for the paint to look like ass. I might as well have taken water from my drainage ditch and used a dish towel to wash it, the swirl marks and water stains are ridiculous. Not just on the paint but on the chrome and glass as well, maybe it is just worse on the Raven black.
I’d take it in to a detail shop to fix and not go to those car washes. Your V will thank you! Lol.I have a 2011 V Coupe and took all the precautions, front end wrap, Opti-coat, CR Spotless water conditioner, Chemical Guys, foam cannon, only dried with a leaf blower, car looked amazing for 2 years. I got lazy and went to an automatic car wash with an unlimited plan, took 3 trips for the paint to look like ass. I might as well have taken water from my drainage ditch and used a dish towel to wash it, the swirl marks and water stains are ridiculous. Not just on the paint but on the chrome and glass as well, maybe it is just worse on the Raven black.
I've had black cars in the past and kick myself for buying another one and more so because I live in the desert with a lot of wind that covers the paint with dust within hours after washing it. Bought the CR spotless system and foam cannon to do the two bucket method to take really good care of the black paint but hurt my back and needed to find another solution. I had it vinyl wrapped to a color that better hides dirt and ceramic coated which together significantly helped with the dust problem. But now I had a new problem to deal with that I didn't read up on. It's recommended to not use drive through car washes due to potential chips, scratches or the seams of the wrap pulling up. To deal with this one, I found a touchless drive through car wash which has been great but doesn't handle accumulation very well. With my back better, I still use the touchless car wash every other week but do the two bucket method every couple of months. The car stays looking great with much lower risk to surface damage or pulling apart things like my CF splitters or side skirts. @djdonte, you may consider this method which may help give you the time that you need to work around how busy you are.
If I use a car wash I use a touchless one. Not a great job but gets big stuff off
You made the right choice for repair, might want to add a large diameter flat washer to keep from pulling out from the plastic. It's a cheap bumper, park into a few high curbs no big deal.
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