TIL most people in my town don't know how to properly wash a car after body work

I keep seeing fresh paint jobs from our shop in Rockford get ruined because folks go through the automatic wash with the hard brushes. It leaves micro-scratches that show up in the sun after about two weeks. I started telling every customer to hand wash only for the first 90 days, but they never listen. What's the best way you guys explain this so it actually sticks?

3 comments

3 Comments

wrenh793mo ago

My neighbor's new truck got swirl marks in three weeks.

vera_roberts3mo ago

That's brutal, @wrenh79. Read an article a while back saying a lot of those automatic car washes are the main culprit for swirls. The brushes just drag all the dirt around in circles on the paint. Makes sense if your neighbor is using one of those places every week. A hand wash with the two-bucket method is supposed to be way safer, but who has the time, lol. Three weeks on a new truck would seriously bum me out.

thomas_johnson3519d ago

Two bucket method is the way to go for sure, but even a single bucket with a good grit guard works if you're careful. I learned the hard way after a detailer friend showed me the scratches under a flashlight on my old car (ugh). For the neighbor's truck, a clay bar and some light polish might fix it, but that paint is probably too thin now to mess with much. Honestly, a ceramic coating would have helped prevent some of that, but it's too late for that now.