Sabre

You mean you get all the grime and brake dust from your wheels on the brush before scrubbing it on your paint???

Another alternative is to go to a wash bay (wand type) and take a bucket/mitt with you and use it to fill the bucket. The nice thing about this is that the water is heated to prevent the lines from freezing during the winter, so you save your hands that way. Also, most wash bays have signs saying you cant do this if there are people waiting, but if it's fairly empty, you should be fine.

You can then coat the car with soapy water using the wand to help lift the dirt like a foam gun would do. Then wash the car with your mitt/bucket, then use the wand to rinse.

No worries about the dirty brush touching your car (people use them to clean heavy grime off their car, and the dirt doesnt just disappear). You can also blast the brush with the wand first if you insist on using it, to help get the dirt out.

Saki GT

Well, its a lesser of two evils kind of thing to me - the brush is dry and the soap needs to get worked into the brush, so it needs to rub against something. Since the soap keeps coming out of the brush, I figure wheels are the safest bet, since one the soap is worked into the brush, dirt is suspended anyway. During normal washing, the wheels would be last or separate, but quarter washes are a different game, so to speak.

Shooting the brush is a good idea - never thought of that...

afwfjustin

Just let the car be dirty for a week or three. You can always wash it again when it's nice out and get some hand polish to touch up any light scratches and rewax.

JWN6264

I use the self-serve (wand-type) washes. Go there when it's not busy and take your bucket. Keep the water pressure on the low setting, rinse the car well, fill your bucket and go at it. I use rubber dishwashing gloves to keep from freezing my hands and the water is heated, so it's not too bad. Dry her off and you're good to go.

Lionheart

NO car wash on softtops

Onehots2k

I'm ashamed to say i've done it maybe 3 times in 3 years.. I never got wet.

Jo2

i'm more afraid of the rail that guides the car scratching my wheels. I stay away from the auto washes.

CBR2200

I take my S to the drive-thru car wash all the time. It's brushless, not touchless. I hand wax the car about 6 times a year, I treat the canvas that often too, car still looks new.

I think with the automatic car wash, you get what you pay for to some extent. I wouldn't go through one of those free with a tank of gas ones, but I think you're better off getting the car washed than not, especially if there's any salt on it.

Krenath

When I need to wash the car and can't just hand-wash it the nice two-bucket, two-mitt way endorsed by the Wash & Wax forum, I do sometimes go to a coin-op carwash. This happens often due to living in an apartment complex that doesn't have any faucets.

But NOT any of the automatic ones, touchless or not.

I go to the wand style where you get out and 'pressurewash' the car.

I go late at night so nobody's lined up behind me.

I take my own buckets and mitts and soap along if I can. I rinse down the car with the wand sprayer, keeping it on low pressure near the windows and high pressure only near the bottom of the car.

I use their sprayer to fill up my buckets, then hang the wand back up and wash the car out of the bucket.

If I don't have my buckets handy, I'll only use the sprayer, mostly on low pressure, and won't use anything at all that physically touches the car. In this case, I'm just trying to knock of the worst dirt and grit and the rest I'll get off at home with detail spray and towels.

I never use their soaps or waxes if I can help it. They're very hard on the car because they're overly-concentrated so most people can spray the car 'clean'. If I can't help it, I'll grit my teeth and use their soap, but try to get it off as soon as I can.

I never use their 'foaming brush' because its bristles are too coarse and always trap dirt from the last SUV that went through. Well, I do sometimes use it on the tires and wheels, but NEVER on paint.

When I'm done soaping the car down with my bucket, I'll use their sprayer to rinse the car down, again on low pressure near the top and high pressure at the bottom of the car. Then I'll rinse out my mitts and buckets and I'm done with their sprayer. Towel the car dry and drive home.

Once home, I'll use a new towel and detailer spray to get off any dirt I picked up on the way home, then work on applying polish in the safety of my garage.

Sunday, I used the buckets and mitts at the carwash stall, came home. detailed it and applied a coat of Zaino. That combined with a fairly recent professional polishing by afwfjustin makes the car look glassy. It actually looks like I laminated it or something. It seems to have a clear shell over the paint at the moment.

Chazmo

Moving to wash and wax to subject the OP to huge amounts of abuse.