Dirty Cars Winter 19/20

[JakeT]

We're all more bored with work.

I think they are dirtier this year though, car seems to always be dirty compared to last year. Different cars in the same colour.

[Muzzer79]

S100HP said:

This years thread seems to have more entries than normal. Are the roads dirtier?

There was a period the week before last that was just the right combination of:

A bit of moisture overnight
Cold weather (so salt on the roads)
Dry days (so as not to wash off the fresh dirt)

That meant mine and several others I saw got absolutely caked. I had to Flash-wipe the rear number plate two weekends running but caved in on Sunday and got it washed.

[Alex L]

FoxtrotOscar1 said:

75miles a day in a RS3 is impressive. What sort of range do they have? I always thought it was something like 300miles?

Yep, around 300 miles to a tank as she doesn’t drive it hard. Averages high 20’s to the gallon which is slightly better than the 22 she averaged over 60k miles in her C63

[Alex L]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

That will make a difference. My daily is 80 miles a day but the roads up here in Scotland have been strangely clean. Normally a right mess with tractors.

I must say the colour is epic. I will always pick silver, white or black but on the RS3 that looks amazing.,

I presume washing it isn't so much fun for you

Thanks, it’s Riviera Blue. Decided that if we’re going to buy it we might as well go all out and spec in an Audi Exclusive colour. Washing cars isn’t my forté so the best they get is a quick pressure wash.

[Small Car]

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

[TeaNoSugar]

Garett said:

As a bonus I have included a picture of my MX5 after an icy morning and salted track at Oulton Park back in February.

Just taking a look through this thread and noticed a familiar looking car!
Nice to see the MX-5 is still going

[WarrenB]

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

Excellent work sir.

[RoverP6B]

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

So some poor guy is out working in the teeth of a Welsh winter when some entitled wker rocks up in a rolling mudbath then begrudges him even a fiver just to wash it, let alone a tenner to wash and dry it?

You, sir, are a Grade-A tight-fisted twunt... and I'd bet what little I have that you're rather better-off than I am!

Edited by RoverP6B on Thursday 6th February 06:52

[Muddle238]

RoverP6B said:

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

So some poor guy is out working in the teeth of a Welsh winter when some entitled wker rocks up in a rolling mudbath then begrudges him even a fiver just to wash it, let alone a tenner to wash and dry it?

You, sir, are a Grade-A tight-fisted twunt... and I'd bet what little I have that you're rather better-off than I am!

Edited by RoverP6B on Thursday 6th February 06:52

In fairness, if a car cleaning service is advertised for £5 per car, then it's not unreasonable to expect to only pay £5 to have your car washed. The pricing policy has changed then the sign needs updating to reflect that. They shouldn't be retrospectively charging more than advertised because a dirty car in winter is brought to them in a particularly dirty state.

On a separate note, kudos for bothering to keep the lights/plate clean and talking of which, nice reg too.

[RoverP6B]

That's more than usually dirty. It's taken a fair old while to get that filthy.

Here, by comparison, is my mucky winter smoker, taken the other day... might have got muckier had I put it in the barn but it gets rained on regularly here in rural NW Devon. It hasn't been washed once since I bought it in June.

[Muzzer79]

RoverP6B said:

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

So some poor guy is out working in the teeth of a Welsh winter when some entitled wker rocks up in a rolling mudbath then begrudges him even a fiver just to wash it, let alone a tenner to wash and dry it?

You, sir, are a Grade-A tight-fisted twunt... and I'd bet what little I have that you're rather better-off than I am!

Edited by RoverP6B on Thursday 6th February 06:52

In fairness, it was advertised at £5. Why pay more just because your car is dirty? That's the point of it being there.

Would they charge you £2.50 if the car was only a little dirty? I think not.

If you went to the barber, would you expect to pay more than the chap sitting next to you for a short back and sides if your hair was longer than his?

[JakeT]

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

That's a really good effort, proper minging.

I wonder if it's actually that much more effort to clean it though? Don't they just cover the car in brick acid and jet it off with a 100,000 PSI pressure washer before they wash it anyway?

I'm too tight to pay someone to clean my car so I don't know what the hand car wash places do.

[E36Dan]

My daily A6. The roads I drive on regularly mean it looks like this within a week usually anyway. Have to clean the reg regularly and I don't think the mud flaps are doing much. Washed it back in June after changing the front wings from some rusty ones but since then it's had nothing but cake. Need to wash it today/tomorrow as it's my chariot for an ARDS test tomorrow! Will miss it looking so country.

[JD82]

Muzzer79 said:

RoverP6B said:

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

So some poor guy is out working in the teeth of a Welsh winter when some entitled wker rocks up in a rolling mudbath then begrudges him even a fiver just to wash it, let alone a tenner to wash and dry it?

You, sir, are a Grade-A tight-fisted twunt... and I'd bet what little I have that you're rather better-off than I am!

Edited by RoverP6B on Thursday 6th February 06:52

In fairness, it was advertised at £5. Why pay more just because your car is dirty? That's the point of it being there.

Would they charge you £2.50 if the car was only a little dirty? I think not.

If you went to the barber, would you expect to pay more than the chap sitting next to you for a short back and sides if your hair was longer than his?

I think this is just down to how you judge what is 'reasonable'. Personally, I'd just pay the tenner. Regardless of the £5 notice, a tenner for cleaning a filthy car seems a fair price. However, if you see life in black and white then I guess you walk away.

[xjay1337]

JakeT said:

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

That's a really good effort, proper minging.

I wonder if it's actually that much more effort to clean it though? Don't they just cover the car in brick acid and jet it off with a 100,000 PSI pressure washer before they wash it anyway?

I'm too tight to pay someone to clean my car so I don't know what the hand car wash places do.

It is quite a bit more effort to clean, yes.
My car is Ceramic coated, I washed it recently and was still much harder to clean than a less dirty car.
I think it's a bit tight to be honest, £10 is nothing really. If I wanted my car cleaned, £5 for a relatively undirty small car is fine. OP is probably the type to go to China and haggle 85% off the asking price of $20 watch.

Anyway. Did mine recently.
Sad to say the finger prints are from the BMW tech who was working on my car!


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[JakeT]

xjay1337 said:

It is quite a bit more effort to clean, yes.
My car is Ceramic coated, I washed it recently and was still much harder to clean than a less dirty car.

That's interesting. I found I'm normally running my wash mitt over the entire of the car no matter what. The Pressure washer tends to cut through the majority of the grime on the rear of the car. The wheels are much more work to me though no matter how I jet them off. Wheel cleaning is the worst.

[xjay1337]

JakeT said:

xjay1337 said:

It is quite a bit more effort to clean, yes.
My car is Ceramic coated, I washed it recently and was still much harder to clean than a less dirty car.

That's interesting. I found I'm normally running my wash mitt over the entire of the car no matter what. The Pressure washer tends to cut through the majority of the grime on the rear of the car. The wheels are much more work to me though no matter how I jet them off. Wheel cleaning is the worst.

It's much easier to clean than without, sure.
But 1000 miles of winter road salt and a days trackday, plus being sat about for a week while being constantly wet and then dried just bakes it on - the car was having water testing for ingress , only so much help coating the paint will do.
My pressure washer is broken as well, so I can't even use that or a pre-wash solution as I would have liked :'(

When I worked as a detailer I found only a couple of snow foams actually helped (Bilt Hamber Autofoam was best for cleaning), we got one of those diesel powered hot jet washes and a nice 70c stream of hot water from one of those bad boys cut through dirt better than any chemical ever could!

Unfortunately very expensive and unyielding for your average home user.

[thiscocks]

RoverP6B said:

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

So some poor guy is out working in the teeth of a Welsh winter when some entitled wker rocks up in a rolling mudbath then begrudges him even a fiver just to wash it, let alone a tenner to wash and dry it?

You, sir, are a Grade-A tight-fisted twunt... and I'd bet what little I have that you're rather better-off than I am!

Edited by RoverP6B on Thursday 6th February 06:52

You're the one who sounds like a wker mate. Do you employ a load of illegal eastern Europeans or something? Cash in hand I guess? Personally I find it a joke when places up the price if the car is dirty. That's the fking reason you're there in the first place.

[pingu393]

Muddle238 said:

RoverP6B said:

Small Car said:

I took this baby to a hand car wash in South Wales at the weekend; “£10 please sir” the Eastern European gentleman said. “It says £5 there” pointing, I said. “It’s an old sign, and have you seen how dirty your car is?”. I said, no way, and he offered to wash but not dry it, for the £5.

As a point of principle (sad bugger I know) I left the car wash, unwashed. I wonder if they charge less because your car is clean when you go there? Cheeky buggers.

So some poor guy is out working in the teeth of a Welsh winter when some entitled wker rocks up in a rolling mudbath then begrudges him even a fiver just to wash it, let alone a tenner to wash and dry it?

You, sir, are a Grade-A tight-fisted twunt... and I'd bet what little I have that you're rather better-off than I am!

Edited by RoverP6B on Thursday 6th February 06:52

In fairness, if a car cleaning service is advertised for £5 per car, then it's not unreasonable to expect to only pay £5 to have your car washed. The pricing policy has changed then the sign needs updating to reflect that. They shouldn't be retrospectively charging more than advertised because a dirty car in winter is brought to them in a particularly dirty state.

On a separate note, kudos for bothering to keep the lights/plate clean and talking of which, nice reg too.

In 2003, on the bridge over the Euphrates near Basra, there was a bunch of kids with buckets on long pieces of twine making a small fortune cleaning our vehicles. $5 per vehicle. We turned up in a Foden EKA. They wanted $10. Absolute bargain. It was spotless after they finished.

Paying double is sometimes worth it .

[Alextodrive]

thiscocks said:

You're the one who sounds like a wker mate. Do you employ a load of illegal eastern Europeans or something? Cash in hand I guess? Personally I find it a joke when places up the price if the car is dirty. That's the fking reason you're there in the first place.

Funny how you're asking if he employs any illegal eastern europeans. Does imply you think the chaps you went to use to wash your car (until they hiked their price) are illegally working.

But whatever the case, no need for name calling on the internet chaps. We're meant to be grown ups who like cars, not teenagers with limited vocabularies practising swear words.

I just wish I could get a car wash for a fiver. That'd be the day.