Winter Car Washing

   Truth be told, it is best to not live where there are things like snow, ice, and the salt that goes with them, but many of us do.  The best solution to winter car care is to always hand wash, and to do it often.  Then reality rears its ugly head.

    Unless you have access to a warm garage with a drain and inside plumbing, you won't be able to hand wash your car for a large portion of real winter weather.  So what is the next best thing?

    I recommend that you keep the car clean, even if that means using high pressure wand-type washes, where you do it yourself, or good quality full automatic or "full-service" car washes.  It is more important to get salt and muck off your car than to worry about the few minor scratches or haze marks that will get on a car during a wash that is less than perfect.  Some people might gasp and yell "traitor" at me for recommending this, but if you are driving a car in real winter weather, you have already done damage to the finish.   It is impossible to avoid.  So I ask, which is better, a few minor haze/scratch marks, that should come out with a full detail in the spring, (use my glaze) or the chance of letting rust get a foothold on your precious metal/paint?

    If you have followed good advice, and given your ride a coat of quallity wax like our Collinite 915 Carnauba before winter, then the layer of wax should protect your paint from minor scratches at car washes for most, if not all of a typical winter.  Then the challenge is to keep the car clean.

    I use all methods to keep my cars clean. I try to hand wash when possible. I use wand type washes when necessary and I use full-service washes from time to time.  I try to keep the wheel wells and body seams sprayed out with clean water, and try not to wash when temps are well below freezing.  When below freezing and you must have a clean car (for that hot date or a wedding etc) then use a good full service car wash.  OR take your car to a full detail shop which is always an (expensive) option.  Make sure the detail shop does not use high speed buffers!   Go where they had wash/wax only.  Search out newer or proven full-service wash locations.

    I always try to keep some paper towels or cloths available, and I always have my Hydra-Wipe Pro in the car, ready for use.  While it may freeze in some weather, if you keep it in the passenger compartment, interior heat should thaw it out after a short drive.   Always dry off the weather seals on all doors and the trunk, and roll down the windows about an inch and dry off the seals there.  Leave the windows down and drive the car with the heat on full for a while to dry out the seals in the windows before rolling them back up, to prevent them from freezing shut.

    I usually never have problems with door locks freezing, but a spray of door lock anti-freeze doesn't hurt before and after any wash.

    Get that crud off your vehicle as soon as possible and worry about the minor haze marks in the spring.  I have proven that paint will rebound from an Illinois winter and let you win trophies in the spring if you prepare properly, keep the vehicle clean when possible, use glaze to remove minor problems at regular intervals, and do a full detail in the spring.

    P.S. the car at the top of this article probably has never seen a real winter, but my 89 SHO has seen many of them and it still shines fine.