Touchless Car wash...our first experience

Ever since we got here, the kids have been begging us nearly every weekend if we could get the car washed at one of the 'Touchless' car wash places.

Almost everyone I know in India who had a car, also had a driver, who would wash their car every morning, if not every other day or at least twice a week. If not a driver, they would hire the newspaper boy or someone like that exclusively for car washing duties! Automatic car washes are either non existent in India or very rare to say the least. I remember an MRF one in Chennai, but I never knew if that actually worked or not. Does anyone know?

So, getting the car washed automatically by a bunch of sprayers and huge sponges was something new.

This is the outside of the Touchless Car Wash we went to. They are normally found along side a gas station or part of one. The one we went to was part of a gas station chain, and they had a deal where you got a discount on the car wash if you put in some gas first.

So we first put in twenty dollars worth of gas. They have different rates for different kinds of washes.

The basic one, the premium one (includes high pressure sprays underneath the car too) and the one where they spray anti rust underneath the car.

We took the premium one, which costs 8.99/- but we got a two dollar discount because of the twenty dollar gas we put in. So, minus 6.99/- and more gas in the tank, we headed for the entrance of the car wash.

This is a car that was in front of us which went in first.

As the doors closed behind this car, we positioned our car so that my husband could lean out of the drivers door and punch in the code from our receipt into the little touchpad they had near the entrance.

Once you punch in your code, and the car in front of you is finished, the main door opens and you drive in.

Once you drive in, there is a series of lighted signs telling you to either go forward, back up or stop. This is to get you into the right position for the sprayers to work.

Once you are in the right position, the door closes behind you and the high pressure sprayers come on. You sit in the car while this three minute process goes on...and it sounds and feels like you are in the car during a heavy rain storm with the wind and water lashing at your windows.

The sprayers come on and these huge beams with the sprayer holes move side to side, under and over your car....with very high pressured water spraying the dirt right off.

Then a soap water solution is then sprayed all over the car and washed off, this being repeated twice before a minute of high pressure water hitting you from all sides. Make sure your windows and sun roof are closed!!






This is the water being sprayed on the windshield. This process takes about two minutes.


Then once this is over, you drive very slowly out towards the exit where these huge dryers overhead blast hot air on the car to dry it. This dryer is a huge version of the ones you see in the bathrooms of hotels these days, for drying your hands. The picture below is of the dryers overhead.
















The exit door opens and you come out, noticing right away how clean the windshield is.










View of the exit through our now clean windshield. (You should have seen it before!)









Here is our car after the wash..notice how clean the tires are!! We got out of the car and said, 'WOW!' because it looked so good. It was such a mess before since we didn't clean the car for ages. (we kept hoping it would rain!) Then we went around and looked at the other side...OOPS..there was mud dripping down the entire right side of the car and the back of the read view mirrors were still filthy. So my husband took the car back, got a free car wash and came back home with a car that was now clean on BOTH sides. This seemed to be a one off...as the guy at the car wash said he would put in a complaint to the company that something was obviously faulty.

The kids wanted to go again, as if it was some ride in Disneyland...but for the time being....we will wait until the next time we feel like it and until then either wait for it to rain..or wash it ourselves!!