This is it? The most relevant and important question on the entire board and it gets 5 posts? lol. I want to know more, as I now don't have time to spend 4 hours hand washing my car every week. I was told by a guy that said touchless washes can be harsher because the soaps have to be harsher to dissolve dirt without physical agitation. So now should I be avoiding touchless car washes? I'm going to use collinite 476 this month.
To you and the OP.
Yes the touchless washes do use stronger chemicals to desolve the dirt you have on your vehicals. Then you have the different quality of the touchless wash or swirlomatic car wash them self. As long as it don't take so long between the different stages of the car wash so any chemicals has the chance to dry on your car. Many times it's not the paint that is the most sensitive surface on your vehical. But your lights and different trim material and the rubber trim. This is often damage before the paint. As you get a hazy headlights or the aluminum trim gets etched or streaking stains on the plastic trim and rubber seals. To mentioned some damage you can get by one wash or it's building up. So it's important to have a great protection to minimize that it damage your vehical.
Also it's important that the car wash rinse off the chemicals used in them. So they don't damage after the wash. And with everything else this is different qualities that separate a good touchless wash from a bad one. To see how the one you use if it's good or bad is to sit in the vehical through the wash and see how it works. If it's able to rinse thoroughly you can get a feel from how it looks like through the windows.
Sonax PNS is a great choice to protect your paint. A SiO2 spray protection or coating lite or even a coating would be a great protection. The problem with a coating is that to have the best performance from it in self cleaning ability from it. Is to have it very clean. And even with strong chemicals you don't get that with touchless washing only. But at least once a month or so do a Carpro Reset car soap wash to get the performance back and every 4-6 do a decon wash and use chemicals that desolves the kind of dirt and contaminants you have in your environment. Or use a mix of decon products as a tar remover and iron remover and maybe a water spot remover if you have problems with that.
Most coatings is very resistant against chemicals and a great one is Carpro CQUK v3. Maybe you will see a very little lower longevity from it. What useally happens is that's the coating gets clogged and many thinks it's done. But with a thorough decon wash you will revive it. If you have a aggressive wash media or drying towel the hydrophobic layer could be degraded faster than expected. But the protection is useally still there and a topper can restore the water behavior and self cleaning ability from it.
As for the swirlomatic car wash and you want to have your car looking great. And that's is about to have as little of swirls and scratches as possible. That I would say is impossible quest to be doing in the longrun. Find a touchless wash and a great protection is the way to go. Sure there are those that is better than other car washes that swirls less. But it still swirl up your paint sooner or later. Even with a great protection as a coating gives you. It's still gets swirls and I think they go through the coating layer rather fast and gets to your paint. A paint protection film PPF would be a way to don't swirl the paint. But the expensive PPF will be getting them anyway. Maybe a self healing PPF can get it to look better a little longer down the road. Just an option to go with. The best is to avoid the brush and cloth automatic car washes and use good touchless wash in combo with once and a while a touching hand car wash.
Don't know my self about this product. But have heared good about the light swirl protection it has. Remember that you still will get swirls if useing a swirlomatic car wash but maybe it can reduce the amount of them. It's Sonax Speed Protect and is a carnuaba based sealant. Use it after every third or fourth wash. If you see the water behavior degrades faster than that you apply it more often so you have a protection all the time.
SONAX Speed Protect
Also in both cases. Chose a program on the car wash that has no protection left behind or no faster drying product when it gets rinsed. This will clogg the LSP on your vehical and reduce the performance from it. In the longrun the build from these can look awefull and be a mess to clean up the paint from it.
/ Tony
