palmpalm

I know many of you here don't winter-drive your cars but my Cayman S is a daily driver and, really, is my winter vehicle (in the summer I ride my Harley).

After just 300 kms of driving (picked it up Saturday) she is kinda dirty and I want to clean her.

Thing is, I don't have an indoor facility of my own to wash her in and it's -11 out here.

Thoughts on where/how to wash her?

Imo000

Wait till it gets a little warmer during the day. Now all the salt is frozen so there will be no damage, just looks bad. If you wash it below -10C, all kids of things can freeze up (door,window seals, locks if you have any and so on). The other option might be a touchless drive through wash where most of the water is blasted off with the driers.

palmpalm

thanks!

I am afraid of taking it through a touchless wash. Don't they use crappy stuff that is bad for the car?

zer026T

+1 on the touchless wash but I'd wait until it warms up. There are still spots that the blower can't reach with only a few seconds of exposure. I'm probably paranoid but would rather be cautious and deal with road grime for a few extra days. We live in Canada after all, kind of hard to avoid it as a DD

PbPedis

If it's above 0º, I'll hand wash it in the driveway (neighbours think I'm crazy) with a power washer to get rid of most of the grime first. If it's below freezing and I can't stand the dirt, I'll just go to a DIY power wash. It doesn't make it spotless but at least gets most of the dirt off. It's impossible to keep it clean for any length of time in the winter anyway.

jumper5836

There's a few guys on the forum that use a product that only requires a bucket of water to wash the car.
Not sure what it is called but you can easy do this is your garage.

zer026T

Optimum No Rinse... Always wanted to try it but garage is too tight. Reviews are very positive from what I've read.

Imo000

They must use pixie dust and unicorn tears. Thsre is no way one bucket can was a dirty car in Ontario, in the middle of the winter. I only use DIY car washes and only spray it. 90% of the "dirt" is only salt. You'll be amazed how clean it will be by only spraying it. Don't forget the bottom, most people miss it.

pongobaz

I've used Optimum No Rinse for the last 6 years on the Porsche. If the car is really grimy, I stop by the coin wash and blast the crud off it and then do the No Rinse in the garage. It really only takes a large pail to clean the whole car thoroughly...just use warm water!

Dan@SCB

esso drive thru touchless on the points collected over the summer when i was hand washing :P

9964runner

Esso at Yonge and Steels has an indoor DIY wash beside the tunnel wash. Take a ticket when you drive in, then pay for your time when your finished. Don't forget your microfiber, or what ever you dry with.

Onami

Excellent touchless at the Petro Canada at the 403 and Winston Churchill...it takes 7 minutes to do a car and it is great!!!

Turbodan

Saturday was 8 degrees so I washed the Touareg andA6 in the driveway...good thing I emptied the hose and powerwasher as -12 today would cause some issues.
I am dreaming of living a warm climate where we can drive our porsches all year with no road grime, winter tires etc.

fanny bay r1

-11 C --- -- just had the first hummingbirds of the season at my window on Sunday!!!

911 Crazy

Not at -11