Wash car or not ?

Supercell

When I lived in Dublin suburb's I kept my car spotless. It was pretty low maintenance, wash every couple of weeks and polish and spot clean in between.

How ever since moving to a rural area am struggling. Wash and polish - one drive later is caked in mud

Recently have just given up and decided to wait for summer. This leaves my car embarrassingly dirty when parked in any shopping centre or at work.

Is it ok to leave it caked in mud until the spring/summer when the roads dry out quickly after a shower and rural mud caking is reduced, or is the mud bad for the car?

peasant

As long as the mud is not too thick and DRY ...it's really purely cosmetic.
If it's a thick layer of moist goo, things will start to fester underneath.

Should it contain salt (from either salted roads or proximity to sea) then your f....d

And keep your lights (front and rear) and number plates clean-ish

Supercell

peasant wrote:

And keep your lights (front and rear) and number plates clean-ish

Yeah, the lights I keep clean, the plates are lower priority (Wishbone Ash thinks I drive too slowly that's why I get tailgater's shining their lights 2 inches from my back bumper on the way home) ..I beg to differ!!

Hey Alun,you mentioned before that you often drive the roads around here - how often do you clean your motor?

Max_Damage

I haven't washed my car in about 2 months (no point really, it's just going to get dirty the next day). The car is now pretty much brown in colour (it's originally grey ). I'm going to give it it's first full valet of the spring on Sunday, hopefully the weather will hold up.

maidhc

I drive 250 miles a week in a black car in the bowels of east cork.

I normally wash it when i fill it with diesel which is once every 2 weeks or so. It looks clean for about 2 days, but I don't mind. Cleaning only takes about 15 mins anyway when you have the most powerful hose that can be run on single phase electricty You just have to keep well back from the paint or you WILL strip it.

Our man in Havana

I washed my black escort estate last night, I drove home from work and is filthy again. :mad: I give up.

littlejukka

i'm from cork so i spend a lot of time down there, live in dublin so i spend a lot of time in traffic, and do a lot of jobs in meath, cavan, monghana and other mucky counties. i have muck up to the windows every day from january til december.

Max_Damage

Even driving on the M50 on a rainy day, the back of the Micra gets covered in dirt (spray from the road). I can't wait for summer to arrive.

conical

Haven't washed mine since I bought it on boards 10months ago :eek:
Was just thinking about it this week though!

-C

Mojito

I'm up at 9am to wash my car tomorrow for the first time in 2 months now.

Got to arrive in a clean car for my new date!

Max_Damage

Mojito wrote:

Got to arrive in a clean car for my new date!

Good luck!

I'm going to fully clean out the inside of the car, there is a weird 'old' smell in it that needs to be removed. I used to be valeter so I guess I should have a clean car anyway.

TomMc

If you don't wash a car that often, at least if you clay your paint once a year and apply a durable sealant every 6 months or so, you will at least prevent the build up of dirt from doing real harm. Too much washing, usually results in more and more swirl marks - for most people anyway, as they do not know how to do so properly.

Having said that bird droppings & tree sap, should be removed asap.

_Kaiser_

I live in Dublin but do a lot of my driving around Meath.. like the OP says, in Dublin it's not hard to keep the car clean, but a quick spin down the N3 later and she's filthy (especially if you get stuck behind a dump truck as often happens).

That said though I still wash her every weekend. Metallic black looks great but is a curse to keep clean alright

dubtom

I drive a black metallic car, a taxi too so a bitch to keep clean.I'm nearly sure I saw a product on TV a few years ago that claimed to clean and wax the car in one go without water, applied like a wax and rubbed off. Anyone hear of this stuff?

TomMc

It's called no-wet waterless but the owner of SCC told me it is only suitable for very light soiling. The people who make it & their marketing types say otherwise - any amount of dirt ............ but the experts know best.;)

http://www.smartcarcare.ie/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=51&products_id=154

fletch

I'm an obsessive about keeping my car clean. Bought a second hand car about 4 months ago and the paintwork was immaculate. However in the 4 months I've owned the car I have noticed the paintwork getting a lot of chips in it. It has me wondering did the previous owner not keep the car as clean and as such the paint was protected from stones by the layer of dirt. I have washed the car at least once a week in the 4 months I've had it, save for one weekend when the weather was just too bad. Has anyone else noticed this?
The previous owner was from Meath, whereas I use better road as I trundle up and down the M50 every day.

Andrewf20

This country pains me for wet, muddy roads. I love my car when its clean, so I tend to wash only if the forecast is good. Ive had rental cars in the US, that after 2 weeks of driving can be only considered a little dusty by comparison, with a few flys squashed up front.

Andrewf20

One more thing - what really boils my boat is "scattered showers". You look out your window seeing not much cloud around. Looks dry. Grand, Ill wash the car now. 3 hours later you are out in the motor when it then decides to lash, effectively ensuring you've wasted a solid 30 mins if cleaning earlier. Nearly every day, when I check the weather forecast on RTE text 160, it mentions "scattered showers". Arrrgghhh!!!

MadsL

...never mind the car, when were the roads last washed???

Hardly ever see a cleaning truck when there's construction nearby

iremex

went to wash the car tonight in the esso on the n11 and there was a queue of 6 cars waiting to get washed and they werent even dirty for christ sake..

i give up! usually my motor is pretty clean but one trip to carlow on the odd weekend just DESTROYS it.

CtrlSource

MadsL wrote:

...never mind the car, when were the roads last washed???

Hardly ever see a cleaning truck when there's construction nearby

There's a lot of construction going on in the area I live and a couple of weeks ago, just a few doors down from me, the neighbours started building a small apartment block to the front and side of their house! (It's a large site) The road it's constantly filthy with muck and grit, as are the roads in the area generally.

The County Council sends out the odd road cleaning truck now and again, but I've seen them at work and they don't do much of a job :mad:

I still wash or get the car washed every couple of weeks at this time of year. If you wax it occasionally, some of the dirt just slides right off too

It BeeMee

I wash it every couple of weeks, even this time of year. Especially the wheels : if the wheels look clean, so does the car.
The longer you leave it, the harder it gets to remove some dirt.

NeMiSiS

Washed on Sunday last .. a quick trip down the N81 Monday.. and ye'd think I'd taken a trip through a Malaysian Jungle.. in a **** storm.
TK

peasant

Another reason to drive a 4x4 ...dirt doesn't make it "dirty" but "authentic"