911dude41

CLIFFS: The bolded line at the bottom of this post.

I'm sure all of you agree that not only;

A. Time is the most valuable thing.
and
B. Time is money.


With that said, how many of you here found yourself needing a carwash when you're in a rut? Have a date to catch? An outing, car show, or maybe just setting out for a cruise but your ride is dirty? I know I have many times, and I just didn't have the time to bust out the foam cannon and microfiber towels.

Now lets say there's a touchless carwash nearby. One of those automated ones you pull up to, put in $10-$20 and park inside the bay... This is not one of those belt/chain driven ones. Just a wash bay you drive in and park. The machines pre soak your car, rinse, soak again with soap, rinse, then finish it off with filtered spot free rinse. Afterwards, you drive out and there are a few blowers that give you 90 seconds of air.

All soaps/chemicals used are non abrasive and ceramic coat/PPF safe... Then of course, the track is wide enough for your 991 (any variant Turbo/RS) to fit inside of without worrying about curbing your wheels.

Would you use this wash?

Wolpertinger

We have one in town that I use in a pinch, especially in the winter when I don't feel like standing outside with a pressure washer and foam cannon. I put winter tires on the car this year so I could drive it all year round. And that's exactly what I find myself doing. The downside is that it gets dirty a lot more often, and being a black car it shows the dirt. I've used the touchless wash probably about a dozen times. Always seems to do a decent job, and I've never had any damage of any sort to the clear coat. I'll keep using it until spring time.

Tier1Terrier

Never not a chance with my full body PPF’d Porsche. Any of my other vehicles fine.

911dude41

Curious as to why this is? It's essentially just water jets that are no stronger than your typical pressure washer.

asellus

Touchless washes use considerably more basic soap solutions than what you're using when hand washing your car, and as such will strip protective coatings such as wax much faster.

That said... don't worry about it. Just ran my .2 through a touchless today to get the salt off. Doesn't hurt the PPF.

Tier1Terrier

With PPF you need to be careful not to let water at high pressure near the edges of the film. Even though my PPF wraps around many edges, some edge are not.

911dude41

Aha, good to know.. Perhaps that's the reason why mine is peeling at the top edge of the headlight.

Bud Taylor

I only wish we had a decent one, but the only one in the entire city of tallahassee is 40 years old and half works.

Gary JR

"All soaps/chemicals used are non abrasive and ceramic coat/PPF safe... "

Examples of those not safe?

Carl Over

The ph levels of the chemicals in touch less washes is likely to be far from neutral. That is how they try to clean the car. I don’t wax. A few cars are coated and have been topped off with a spray sealant. You could contact the car wash and ask what brand chemicals they use so that you are comfortable knowing wha they use and compare to the ph range that your coating is resistant through.

CSK 911 C4S

I have one I go to quite often and love it.

I first do a little presoak in the manual bays and get the grime off the wheels using some good wheel cleaner and wooly and then do a good automatic wash to top it off.

subwoofer

I used to wash my car in the first summer I had the car by hand with a bucket and hose. Now it only sees auto touchless car washes. I have full frontal XPEL. No issues and this is my fourth year and fourth New England winter.
I do notice that soapy water collects in the wide lip (the sides) of the frunk from the high pressure wash. Have to dry that but no water gets in the frunk itself or the front part of the plastic covering.
I once made the mistake of using a car wash with soft brushes and it bent my rear wiper. The mechanism is a little wobbly now but the wiper works fine. Dealer wanted 800 bucks to fix it and I passed.

shammerman

All this paranoia!!!

Of course it's fine! And yes, you can use gas with ethanol. And you can even change your oil at manufacturer's recommended intervals and even drive in the rain or snow without your Porsche disintegrating in to smithereens (or having any negative effects). Drive and enjoy!

B Russ

NO effin way am I testing the PH of any car products, thats insane. Yes I use the Lazer wash in my area if I dont feel like spending an hour washing my car which is 90% of the time.

SConn

I would use a touchless in a pinch if I was unable to handwash in a reasonable time period for some reason and I had bugs or something caustic on my car. The front end of mine is PPF'd, so I don't need to worry about that too much, but they are still acidic if left too long.
Where most people really go wrong with touchless washes (and I cringe every time I see it!), is they dry the car after. These touchless washes DO NOT remove dirt and grime the same way a handwash does. So when you dry a car after this type of wash, you are grinding (aka swirling) the dirt into your paint.