Finally gave in to washing it myself this AM. Here is a shot from within the older Punto going through our local hand wash/valet.
www.oilrag.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/sixpoundsvalet.jpg
What has become a fatiguing challenge at times - was done with care and in a fraction of the time I take.
It seems almost all the local cars go through here - at the point in the pic the Punto has had it`s soapy pressure spray and is waiting for the Gentlemen in the picture (washing the car in front) to hand wash it - then around the bend are a team of three - two men and a woman, who leathered it off with smiles and courtesy.
I`ve convinced myself - save effort for more worthy tasks such as actual servicing.
Two points then.
1) Have you given up yet - doing it yourself.
2) Car wash memories - tell what you`ve seen.
I wish I could remember car wash prices in past decades because the last time I really used them was to put the Old Mans (white) Victor 101 - through one of those revolving brush washes in the mid to late 60`s.
I remember it actually rocking the car if you were not `square on` to the track - talk about a soft touch!
Another time I saw a cars wiper complete with arm caught in the overhead brush and being pounded against the roof at around one bang per second... Some of us pulled out of the queue and drove off at that..
What have you seen?
Just a note. Some of you will remember I tried to write about car washes a few days back.
This time can we keep certain comments about the actual workers out of it?
I try to create interesting upbeat threads but if they end up deleted i might as well just read a book!
All the best, to you all, this sunny bank Holiday
oilrag ;-)
Edited by oilrag on 22/05/2009 at 17:01
|
1) I haven't given up doing it myself, I quite enjoy doing it and find it quite therapeutic. Paying someone else to do it feels a bit like paying someone to give your wife a rubdown ;-)
2)Car wash memories. Back in the seventies a mate of mine took his Mk.3 Cortina through an automatic car wash. Fortunately he had his wits about him as the brush caught under his back bumper and started to lift his car. He just had enough traction to drive out. Damaged the rubber insert on the bumper. Went in to complain to the cashier who promptly pointed to a disclaimer notice. Managed to get his 50p back though...
Another friend worked as a cashier at a petrol station. A lady came in for a car wash token. Comes back 5 minutes later to complain it hadn't done a very good job. He gives her another token to have another go. Comes back again 5 minutes later "still only done half a job, I'm not happy." Goes out with her armed with another token while I hold the fort.
Comes back in shaking his head. Watched her drive in, front wheel straight over the stop bar and comes to a rest with the back wheel on the stop bar and the front half of the car out of the car wash. Half a job. No wonder...
|
I still wash our two cars, roughly once every 3-4 weeks. I do the full job - good spray under the arches, clean all sills and door shuts, polish windows and a full vacuum and wipe down. Takes about an hour and a half tops.
I've never used an automated car wash but I have used a coin operated jetwash when i was a student so still DIY I guess. I wouldn't want to pay anyone or anything else to wash my cars. I know I'm doing a proper job.
|
Now I'm no longer able to do the car wash for myself - what's happened to all those kids who used to come round offering to do it?
|
|
Kids don't need to earn money washing cars these days. They're kept in clover by over-indulgent parents so they can sit on their lardy backsides playing computer games.
|
There was a programme on Channel 5 - may have been 5th gear where they took 3 brand new black Astra's. One went through a car wash, other was a coin operated jetwash/brush and the 3rd was hand wash.
The results were quite amazing. The jet/brush produced the most scratches - mainly due to the brush being chucked on the floor or having grit on it after use.
The hand wash produced the least scratches with the auto car wash doing quite well. I think it was one of their new soft brush washes.
I always wash my car by hand. Although the girlfriend did put her new TT through an automated wash the other day and I was thinking poor paintwork !
|
"The jet/brush produced the most scratches - mainly due to the brush being chucked on the floor or having grit on it after use."
Luckily I didn't have a brand new Astra, only an eight year old Volvo 340. Those long brushes were unwieldy to use though and it always used to 'time out' before you'd finished - even on a relatively small car like the Volvo I had at the time.
You then had to rush on to the next stage - power rinse, steam wax or whatever as the clock was ticking on those lances.
Happy days.
|
|
|
There was a programme on Channel 5 - may have been 5th gear where they took 3 brand new black Astra's.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZjWkB_q2lE
|
|
|
|
|
Now I'm no longer able to do the car wash for myself - what's happened to all those kids who used to come round offering to do it?
'ome on the 'puter innit!
Bob a Job anyone? MD
|
|
Dang - can`t bear to let go of a fiver after all - where`s the bucket?
|
Dang - can`t bear to let go of a fiver after all - where`s the bucket?
Thank goodness a resurgence of sense when all was lost, i'd thought about offering to do your cars for a fiver OR and sending the donation to one of our poor MP's down to his last validated claim..;)
|
I remember blowing high pressure foam and water over the Punto at a car wash just outside Albert, last year. I had taken a wrong turn just before going up to High Wood and the road petered out into a dirt surfaced track - which I went up for a further half mile exploring.
Stopped the van, then.
Silence... and surrounded on all sides by fields of newly turned red soil - High Wood on the nearby horizon.
Managed to turn around and clouds of red battlefield soil particles settled over the van.
No `ordinary` dust, or particles of course and there was an `awareness` as the pressure lance cut great swathes into the essential redness of it revealing bone white paint.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment and a shiver ran through me - then the heat of the day returned and life seemed to go on around as normal - a few cars motored past children playing ball.
I put the pressure lance in it`s holster - and below the forecourt the red dust began it`s journey. A journey that would lead inexorably further towards the Atlantic Ocean and the
West winds and ocean currents - towards the white cliffs of England and home.
Or so it seemed - in the mental image generated by such surrounding tranquility - as though hell itself had somehow, momentarily, become a green rolling landscape carpeted with wild flowers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I've just been looking for your earlier thread on car washing. I put a post on it, asking for advice on cleaning a leather, maybe cleaning leather is a controversial subject these days. :) BTW, I'm still seeking advice on how to clean a chamois leather. It seems like Nature is just about to wash the cars here in cloudy Twickenham, it is a bank holiday after all!
loonykev.
|
BTW I'm still seeking advice on how to clean a chamoisleather.
I don't clean the chamois, just rinse it and i don't let it go dry, after use i fold it up and pop inside a plastic bag and put in the fridge..that way they usually last me a couple of years of weeklyish use.
By the way following HJ's cleaning routine thats put most of us to shame by the sounds of it.
I bought some Meguires Quick Detailer (spray and wipe) a few weeks back, gold brand or something, i use it like a sort of Mr Sheen for the car body...the paint comes up lovely, well worth the money.
I did both vehicles today in about 20 minutes, so expect torrential rain in Northants by morning..;)
|
|
|
|
