E39 M5 and Automatic Carwash
Discussion
belleair302 said:
Don't do it......get it washed by hand or spend the money and get it properly detailed.....well worth the investment.
This, times lots. Doing as you suggest (OP) is one good way to ensure your M5 will look like a tired old dog when you come to sell it next vs. the enthusiast cared for examples that fellow enthusiast tend to vastly prefer to buy. Given the price differential between them, a few hundred £ spent on a good detail once or twice a year and a quick wet, wipe and leather off from you in between would be a wise investment to make.
Given that they're practically a decade old and 100k average mileages, the divide emerges at this point between the crap that will dribble down to a council estate near you soon, to be killed in afew years by neglectful maintenance (i.e. no bill more than a few hundred £ ever being paid) and the good ones having good money spent keeping them A1, to the point that it can be worth paying nearly double for something much closer to the latter sort than the former.
Turning up to see a dull, scratched, swirled-to-buggery paintwork is usually sufficiently off-putting as if nothing else, it infers if that even a surface level of care hasn't been taken, then the deeper, vital and expensive stuff certainly won't have, so I'd just walk away. I know I'm not alone in that mindset. For a £1k runabout/s
tter, then fine - but not for a proper performance car for reasonable money. Zwolf said:
This, times lots.
Doing as you suggest (OP) is one good way to ensure your M5 will look like a tired old dog when you come to sell it next vs. the enthusiast cared for examples that fellow enthusiast tend to vastly prefer to buy. Given the price differential between them, a few hundred £ spent on a good detail once or twice a year and a quick wet, wipe and leather off from you in between would be a wise investment to make.
Given that they're practically a decade old and 100k average mileages, the divide emerges at this point between the crap that will dribble down to a council estate near you soon, to be killed in afew years by neglectful maintenance (i.e. no bill more than a few hundred £ ever being paid) and the good ones having good money spent keeping them A1, to the point that it can be worth paying nearly double for something much closer to the latter sort than the former.
Turning up to see a dull, scratched, swirled-to-buggery paintwork is usually sufficiently off-putting as if nothing else, it infers if that even a surface level of care hasn't been taken, then the deeper, vital and expensive stuff certainly won't have, so I'd just walk away. I know I'm not alone in that mindset. For a £1k runabout/stter, then fine - but not for a proper performance car for reasonable money.
Agreed. They're at a watershed moment these days, think where the e39 m5 will be as a model in another 3 or 4 years time. When i was looking for an m3 it was similar. I must have looked at at least 4 or 5 neglected cars before i found mine, which had been bought recently by a potentially neglectful owner and was still just saveable.Doing as you suggest (OP) is one good way to ensure your M5 will look like a tired old dog when you come to sell it next vs. the enthusiast cared for examples that fellow enthusiast tend to vastly prefer to buy. Given the price differential between them, a few hundred £ spent on a good detail once or twice a year and a quick wet, wipe and leather off from you in between would be a wise investment to make.
Given that they're practically a decade old and 100k average mileages, the divide emerges at this point between the crap that will dribble down to a council estate near you soon, to be killed in afew years by neglectful maintenance (i.e. no bill more than a few hundred £ ever being paid) and the good ones having good money spent keeping them A1, to the point that it can be worth paying nearly double for something much closer to the latter sort than the former.
Turning up to see a dull, scratched, swirled-to-buggery paintwork is usually sufficiently off-putting as if nothing else, it infers if that even a surface level of care hasn't been taken, then the deeper, vital and expensive stuff certainly won't have, so I'd just walk away. I know I'm not alone in that mindset. For a £1k runabout/s
tter, then fine - but not for a proper performance car for reasonable money. M cars seem to suffer with being bought by fur coat and no knickers owners a lot, the ones that command good money do so because they've been treated as performance cars, not badge whoring bangers.
I don't think that the odd auto car wash would wreck the paint to the extent that's been mentioned, but I agree that you should never put such a fine car through them regularly, mine's never been near one, but I normally have time to give it a thorough clean once a week. If you really don't have time to give it a proper hand wash yourself, surely a auto wash is preferable to leaving road grime, salt and all the other nasty winter deposits on the paint???
nickrex said:
If you really don't have time to give it a proper hand wash yourself, surely a auto wash is preferable to leaving road grime, salt and all the other nasty winter deposits on the paint???
So instead of taking it to a carwash, take it to your friendly local Kosovan handwash or Ghanaian multi-storey or Sainsbury's car park washers. Pretty much anything but the soapy beltsanders. L, I've always been surprised by the number of enthusiasts who just don't care about swirl marks.
When I got the B5 from Harold's Wood, the condition of the paintwork (1 owner, running in miles) was Freddie Kruger grade and required immediate, remedial correction.
Hail to Matthew from www.offyourmarks.com who is/was exceptional.
When I got the B5 from Harold's Wood, the condition of the paintwork (1 owner, running in miles) was Freddie Kruger grade and required immediate, remedial correction.
Hail to Matthew from www.offyourmarks.com who is/was exceptional.
Zwolf said:
So instead of taking it to a carwash, take it to your friendly local Kosovan handwash or Ghanaian multi-storey or Sainsbury's car park washers. Pretty much anything but the soapy beltsanders.
These are the bloody worse?They don't use water, so how do they remove grit from the paint work?
Their stupid little trolley hide a multitude of sins.
In my experince they're thieving little b
ds too, A number of supermarkets down here have told them to sling thier hook after being caught.I had the locks punched in on my car, but could'nt prove it was them
scarebus said:
its just a 5 series.... come on!
True, there's no reason to look after them really...http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/sales/3370454.htm
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/sales/3360310.htm
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/sales/3123948.htm
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