Car Wash Stripped Product?

AirVenture

AirVenture

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I live in an apartment complex. I can get away with ONR washes but it's a pain since there's no water hookups I can use. Most of the time I take the car to a self-serve car wash with pressure washers. Usually I just use RINSE feature and ONR two bucket method. Today my car was filthy from a week of rain so I figured I'd try the SOAP pressure setting along with my regular process. As I got around drying it off I noticed that the water was just sitting on the car as a sheet and not beading up; almost like there was no product. My car has the Klasse Twins + Colonite 845 treatment. It's 3 months old, but was still beading up great through the rain this week.

Is it possible that the soap at the car wash stripped the products off my car? Does anybody know what kind of soap these places typically use?

On the plus side it gave me an excuse to try out my Pinnacle Liquid Souveran sample from Autogeek. :)
 
It is very possible that the soap did strip that protection off your car. Or that it left a residue behind that would take forever to rinse off.
 
Ive always been told that even the normal soap at the coin op places have heavy degreasers in them. I live in an apartment complex also and your best bet would be to go to the coin op and use the "Rinse" function only just to get the heavy stuff off and then drive back home still wet. I say drive home dripping since your still going to have a layer of dirt on your car regardless of the protection you have on your vehicle and you dont want to dry your car and drag all that nasty stuff over your paint and induce swirls.

After you get back to your complex just do your normal ONR wash and then spray wax afterwards to get your shine back. The ONR wash will get rid of any light water spots you made during the drive back. Its a pain in the rear to do but this has been my method for the past couple months and its worked out well so far.
 
I'll never use coin op soap . I do feel its too harsh and can strip off lsp . I'll use only the rinse and drive back home to do rinse less wash. most of the time I take my 2 buckets with me to wash bay and do everything right there. wash bay I use is heated and never have any problems with being rushed . so I 2 bucket wash with dg and dry right there .
 
I've been trying real hard to strip the Opti-Coat 2.0 that is on my car with the soap feature at the local coin-op and it's not working.:joking: I would think that the protection you had after 3 months was pretty much done anyway so it shouldn't have been to hard to strip at that point. The coin-op soap would do it if anything would. Most of the coin-ops use an alkaline based soap that works pretty well at stripping wax, funny thing is it doesn't remove the dirt very well though.
 
I've been using the soap at my coin op and the klasse twins are holding up fine for me. Doesn't do much to the dirt either way but I'm trying to see how long the twins will last against it.
 
I've read that for some people, using ONR prematurely killed off their coating of 845.
 
It could be the dirt that killed the beading. It's happened to me before, when I prerinse the car it looks as though there is no protection and after the wash the car beads again.

Just a thought
 
If your taking it to a machine car wash you must HATE your car. My cars NEVER see a machine car wash....and you will get mixed opinions here. BUT if you like your car, wash it by hand by yourself. Not with the recycled SH at the car wash.
 
Sorry car wash industry, but my job holds up for SIX full months UNLESS you machine beat the car. Then you are on your own. I did a BLACK Acura a couple of weeks ago. Job was over 275.00 the lady brought it to the local car killer came back and asked me what to do. I said you already did it. Now wait till Spring and pay again. Sorry.
 
I know this also sounds STRANGE but I USE MINIMAL SOAP when washing my OWN fully detailed cars. Why fight a cycle of waxing and stripping. Too much soap CUTS protection previously applied. Its a wasteful cycle. On my own impeccably detailed collection they have not seen soap in twenty years.
 
Thanks guys, it's an interesting lesson for sure. I can't wait to have a house with a garage.

Paintxpert said:
If your taking it to a machine car wash you must HATE your car. My cars NEVER see a machine car wash....and you will get mixed opinions here. BUT if you like your car, wash it by hand by yourself. Not with the recycled SH at the car wash.
Click to expand...

What do you mean exactly? Recycled SH at the car wash? I know those automatic car washes that use mechanical brushes are no-no's. Other than this little snafu I've never had any detrimental effects.

P.S. I don't hate my care :)
 
I've been told that the soap has a high alkaline level to help strip the dirt off in touchless washes. So maybe that's it?
And most car washes recycle and filter the water after it goes down the drain and then you spray it back on your car.
 
ThirdgenTa said:
I've been told that the soap has a high alkaline level to help strip the dirt off in touchless washes. So maybe that's it?
And most car washes recycle and filter the water after it goes down the drain and then you spray it back on your car.
Click to expand...

You heard correct.
 
Thanks guys!

I guess that makes sense. The average Joe washing off their car probably doesn't have any product on it whatsoever. Maybe I'll just stick with my ONR washes from now on.

Plus at this car wash it's not unusual to get beggers and bums either asking for money or picking through the trash. Yeah, it's a classy establishment, but one of the few that doesn't eat my quarters.

I haven't seen this yet...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_sl_bj4z0A]Dumb woman washing her car ... inside - YouTube[/video]
 
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