Chuck Z

Always hand wash ALL. None of them ever see the inside of a car wash. You cannot do anything worse for your paint except wash it the sun with dish soap not to mention the scratches from the car wash equipment.

GlenL

Usually hand wash. Better and cheaper.

Will use the spary wash, and even that brush (gasp!), at the DIY places when away from home especially after being at the track. Does pick up a lot of dirt stuff that way.
Special memory: Taking the parts car I got from JD through the DIY bay on the trailer. The kid was working me on how stupid that was until he spotted that the instructions clearly used a 928 as the example. Strange way world works in.

DonT

Porsche - hand wash ONLY!!!

Just looked out the window, damn it's snowing. Think it's time for me to move south.

Chuck Z

Don T,

South is good. Today in Charlotte it's going to be 58 degrees and I plan on washing my truck and SO's Audi! Of course we're going to have ice tomorrow morning....... Maybe not far enough south!

Brent 89-GT

I use the "touch free"washes all the time. I've never had a problem with those. The car needs to be hand washed to get it REALLY clean but heck, I just don't have time to hand wash all the cars, all the time. I would never take any car of mine through a brush type automatic wash though. Those things might as well be know as automatic car scratchers.

Chuck Z

I have in the past taken my company vehicle through the "touch free" car washes and inevitably the paint suffers due to the cleaners they use. It cannot be helped. I would even follow behind the car wash people and dry the door jams, hood and trunk rails. I just can't keep a car looking as nice as I like mine by taking them through any automatic type car wash. I would rather drive mine a little dirty for awhile until I find the time to hand wash them. I clean the backs of the wheels and the wheel wells each time I wash the car and dry the door jams, hood and rear window/hatch area. You would never guess my 02 Trailblazer has 47k miles thanks only to the way I take care of the exterior. I know what its like to try to hand wash a car in MN, I grew up there. You can't wash a car outside when its -10 degrees.

Susan K Thomas

If you take your 928 through a car wash you will grind away the lower part of the front sway bar drop link on the wheel that is going through the tracks. P/N 928.343.069.01 Guess I should make sure I have some of those in stock.

Susan Thomas
DEVEK

Joe Dyer

Murano YES
Porsche NO

The left rims can be easily scratched against the curb as it moves through...
Besides, you want a stranger climbing through the car and changing the seat position?

Bill 86.5 928s

I wash the 928 by hand only. I purchased one of those home electric pressure wash machines and use it for cleaning my 4 Runner and Caravan. I have used that machine on the Porsche but only to clean the road crap from the bottom of the car. I figure that 1500 lbs pressure is a little much for the Porsche application so I have to be very careful. I get more personal satisfaction as an owner when the job is done by hand, besides I need all the exercise I can get....Good topic ......Cheers

PatrickP

Used ther self serve wash down the street todayas well as in the past. Just need to make REAL sure the brush is clean (if you use it.) Haven't noticed any problems. As with everything else, caution would sem to be the guiding principle.

Don Carter

I've used the touch-free car washes many times when I get lazy, never a problem. Most of the ones around here do not pull the car through, so there's no track and nothing to scrape.

The only negative I've ever heard, and this is inside info from someone in the car wash dept. at Shell, is that since there are no brushes, they have to use some pretty strong solutions to get the dirt to release itself.

T_MaX

95% by hand.

5% by single car touchless car wash (without rails).

Flint

I feel that in cold weather when you absolutely HAVE to get the salt off, the car wash is better than nothing. I stopped using the closest touchless place because its sprays were waaaay to harsh, they would actually leave streaks of dirt and not actually clean the bottom half of the car. Course, being in Nebraska, there's the occasional 50+ degree weather in between the sub-zeros of january to do it myself.

steaditim

Usually the rear wheels are too wide to make it through a tracked carwash. It's scrape the rims. The touchless is ok but hand wash is the only way to do it right

hacker-pschorr

Up here the brushless auto washes work well. They do not have the little track that pulls your car (some do, most don't). You drive in, stop, and the machinge goes around the car. I've used them before on both of my Porsche's. They are terrible on the finish so I find myself waxing the car soon after. I use these when I have no other choice.

As for the self clean units. When I enjoyed apartment life, I would take a bucket, wash mit, whatever I needed to do the job right. I found a few places that didn't care.