Talk:2815: Car Wash

You know, I've never been in a carwash. Not even through a hand-wash (these days set up in just about every other ex-petrol(/'gas') station forecourt not redeveloped otherwise. Driven (or walked) right past them on the ways to places (my walk to the supermarket goes past a hand-car-wash, grocery store and tyre business in an ex-petrol station - then I wander past the autocarwash 'booth' at the supermarket-aligned fuelstop, perhaps through the jetwash lanes if nobody's using them), but never took a car to one. There's buckets and sponges/etc at home. Am I missing something? 172.71.242.11 20:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

The bucket and sponge method takes time and effort. Automatic car washes are quick and easy. I'm mostly indifferent to car washes, but I like them more than doing it by hand because I'm lazy. Barmar (talk) 20:46, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm indifferent to car washes too. Five years later you just have to do it all over again Boatster (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Time and money for the carwash: Driving there (risking incidents), possible queuing to get into retail park, queuing to pay (£££s!), possible queuing for car wash, waiting for it to do its thing (risk of damage!), possible queuing to get out drive back (risking incidents, also normal road-grime)...

I've never gone out specifically to get my car washed. I'm usually out doing other things, I notice the car wash, and realize that my car is dirty, so I go in. And I can't recall ever having to wait more than 5 minutes on the line, usually there isn't any line at all. It's probably not a coincidence that several of the carwashes in my area are near supermarkets. Barmar (talk) 17:03, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Time and money for home-wash: Don't need to leave home. Buckets are older than me, sponges/cloths/brushes may in some cases by younger than 50 years old (but all pre-millenium), car-wax/-shampoo bottle (used sparingly) is 5-10yo and nowhere near empty, water (with a water meter, so does cost) is perhaps equivalent to two days of (hand-!)dishwashing [possibly buying a home jet-washer could bring that down, if it "does a lot more with a fastly moving lesser amount", but I might then also be tempted to jetwash the drive/windows/rooftiles as well and I'm not even sure it'd be less water through the nozzle as the tap] and (depending on time of year) may involve various mixes of hot and cold (so heating, though practically individible from other hot-water uses other than the kettle for drinks). Time taken: maybe 15 minutes (±5), at leisure while I appreciate all the distracting luxuries of home, or a highly abbreviated (one-bucket) washover/rinse at significantly less than 5 minutes (I'd still be trying to get into the supermarket, even with no queueueuing; perhaps I'd have been handwashed if they have no queue, but I wouldn't be back again...) and done. Maybe occasionally get the vacuum out and self-valet the insides, for another <5 minutes and probably entirely covered in electricity by what the solar panels have been feeding in during carwashing-friendly daytime conditions.

Of course, it'll typically rain shortly afterwards (the rain-gods perhaps even being hopefully invoked by the very act of de-mudding the wheel-arches), but that's not going to differ between either (or neither) efforts to wash. :P 172.70.85.45 21:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

What is the point of 172.70.85.45's comment above? Is it trying to suggest that the time to self-wash is low? Or is it trying to suggest that it is high? (It is hard for me to tell, and definitely not clear!) I am under the general impression that hand-washing of cars, like hand-washing of dishes in the kitchen sink, consumes more water than automatic washing, in addition to the questions about pollutants that are raised below. JohnHawkinson (talk) 20:37, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Less time, I'd say. A bit of personal effort, but can be done at leisure rather than having to take time out (even 'in passing') from other activities.

I also don't trust the "hand washed dishes takes more water than dishwasher-washed" claim. It's quoted as something like 20 gallons of water for hand-washing. Couldn't work out if that's US gallons (75 litres) or imperial (90 litres), but a washing up bowl holds 8-10 litres full and you never really need to fill it to the brim (and it rarely needs to be above ⅓rd full) to do a good job even for a family meal's-worth of crockery and cutlery. Certainly not 7 to 10 bowls'-worth. (I'm guessing it assumes a continuously running tap for rinsing. If you need any rinsing, you just need a short spurt as necessary or being pre-rinsed under the tap as it third-fills up the bowl, at least in my experience. But only far more profligate methods can possibly reach 70-90 litres, mostly straight down the drain.)

Typically quoted UK usage for dishwasher, however, seems to be around 9.5 litres (a full bowl's-worth, i.e. definitely more than a handwash as described). You also can't easily then use the 'grey' water, not-in-a-bowl, directly on some garden plants if you want. So getting double-duty out of it is trickier.

Not sure how much the car-washing bucket would be, but 20 litres seems to be capacity. Car-wash usages seem to be 120 litres (or greater), apparently less than home hosepipe/jetwash amounts, but (IME) I'd never use more than three (not full) buckets to wash even the dirtiest car. Perhaps two (wash and rinse, but the rinse being less full even than the not-full one that has the 'soap' in) or even just the one (rinsing it all, in one go, getting the top and windows nice with the 'fresh' water before working all the way round each level of possibly more mud-splashed bodywork, then hubcaps and wheel(-arches) last). 5 minutes? Yeah, if the car didn't need more than that rinse'n'shine. I'd set aside 10 minutes (non-continuous, if necessary, a bit at a time during TV ad-breaks perhaps) for a decent roof-to-wheels of a typical-sized family car. Can't speak for SUVs or other over-sized models. Much as I can't speak for wasteful hosepipe use or whatavyer... 172.71.178.166 22:46, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

In Germany, you are discouraged and in many localities it's directly forbidden to wash your car on your premises; it is completely forbidden to wash your car on the street. This because of oil that will enter the sewer system. Automated car washes will recycle water and seperate oil from it. 172.69.150.92 21:14, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Oil? If I notice oil in(/on) the water, I know there's a problem. Maybe a little residue from cleaning inside the fuel-port hatch. The way some people (over)use detergent, I could see that being an issue, but if you've an oil-leak then that's happening on or off your premises (and mostly off), I'd have thought and you might never even know... if you don't even wash your own car. 172.70.85.45 21:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. You wash your car because it is dirty, right? What exatly is that dirt, that is being washed off into the gutters? Some mud or earth, sure. But most of it is actually asphalt particles, tyre particles, oil (yes, most probably not from your own car, but from that vintage Cadillac that you were stuck behind all the way home from work), lubricants and grease from heavy trucks and machinery, soot particles and pollutants from industries and old/poorly maintained vehicles. The list goes on and on and most of the stuff is not very friendly to the environment and/or the runoff water treatment systems. Stuff that really should be disposed off properly, like in a dedicated carwash facility as stated above. 162.158.111.184 (talk) 09:05, 16 August 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

If it rains whilst your car is in the driveway(/at the kerbside), the same stuff potentially gets washed off. The fraction of particulates/contaminants that you can deliberately keep on your car until you go to a (presumably particulate-filtering and safe-disposing?) car wash is minimal. Assuming it does filter, at all. The environment (and civil drainage infrastructure) cannot be considered that much better just because you take your practically clean car to the autowash occasionally just so that you could eat your dinner off of it. Perhaps a special exception when you've been off-road/driving through quarry tailings/whatever and are particularly caked with muddy grime/grimy mud, but not when dealing with the latest 'saharan sand' dustings/etc. There's scope for judgement, at least.

I'd worry more about surfactant over-use, but looking at the "one size fits all" foam-fest of a typical carwash/jetwash soaping (and unsure how you'd filter that from water, without effort, the whole point being the (half-)hydrophillic nature of the substance) I'm sure that adds more water-treatment effort at the ultimate end of the drains from either the home, street or nearby carwash (which, given we don't have separated rainwater and wastewater drainage systems is already potentially taking away everything that was left to settle on the roads, oil and dirt and mud and leaves and everything else that gets washed/dumped down there). Local laws/situations aside, I'm more comfortable with home-carwashing than it seems some are. Without wasting resources on running a home jet-wash. 141.101.99.73 10:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Am I the only one who actually tried to find out whether baleen really used to be used in car washes or not?

I added a quote on its use in the manufacture of brush bristles, although editing is needed. Next might be to figure out what vehicles were used in the 1800s and how they were washed. EDIT: https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/43282/chapter-abstract/363026681?redirectedFrom=fulltext has a paragraph in google's cache that mentions that we can tell there was heavy use of baleen for brushes throughout the 1800s because of the heavy presence in museums. Maybe Randall's comment was inspired by a museum display. This seems possible because there's not much mention of this on the internet. 162.158.154.185 01:34, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

No mention of the fact that baleen is in whale mouths, so that's where Randall got the idea that the brushes are "licking" the car? Barmar (talk) 17:03, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Do people actually like car washes? It always seemed like an uncomfortable and at times terrifying experience to me. Maybe some people like it, but I would be very surprised if it's just me, Cueball and now Ponytail who don't like it. 198.41.238.31 18:30, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I always thought they were fun and cozy, like being in a car during a rainstorm. 172.70.100.107 20:04, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Apart from queueing, I am not against car washes - happy to stay inside but not always I am allowed to. Kids do not like it. However, most times the only time I wash my car is when I have to take a flight: the parking lot where I usually leave the car provides optional car wash plus interior cleaning during the stop. Vdm (talk) 19:42, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I like car washes. I love the feeling of being enclosed like that; it feels rather like our spring and summer rainstorms in the Pacific Northwest. I also have to do it more often than most; my car is painted in pearl white (not my choice, I got it used like that 3 years ago and it's 20 years old so no point in changing it now), which is a trilayer paint that shimmers and has slight bluish undertones. It shows every speck of dirt and mud, so I need to clean it or it looks really bad. (Tricoat 062 is the color code). Darkwolf0218 (talk) 23:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

The final line of the current explanation text is "Are there car washes without brushes?" There are. They use high-pressure streams of water, detergent, and possibly other chemicals. The following links distinguish (sort of) between 'brushless' and 'touchless' car washes. I don't know if this information has a place in the public-facing text. https://www.wikimotors.org/what-is-a-touchless-car-wash.htm https://www.wikimotors.org/what-is-a-brushless-car-wash.htm Nekoninda (talk) 02:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I removed that question (in amongst other edits I made) as either being rhetorical or a misplaced genuine query more properly voiced in here. As you've answered it, as well, I think there's no point deciding to transplant it, verbatim, any more than your quote of it. And, yes, useful additional info, but not really relevent to main explanation (if I'm any judge), just an interesting "not even Trivia" note that is welcome enough here in the Talk page/transclusion. 141.101.99.73 10:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)