My son works at the Waterway in Foxfield and sees Tesla’s coming through there all the time.
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I got a very good price on PPF and decided to get the whole car done, in part so I could easily & inexpensively clean it and not worry about swirls. Now that passage from the manual has me wondering if perhaps it’s not just the paint... maybe some of the sensors/cameras could be affected by the automated washes that touch the car? My plan had been to use those over touchless (detail shop told me they’d be better than touchless for the film).
That's why I am asking... What is so different about taking a Tesla through one vs any other car? People on this forum talk about Tesla + Touch Car Washes as if they will literally destroy your car. Like they will break the sensors, break the cameras, cause the sky to fall, give Elon a heart attack, etc. If the only real issue is the "swirls" on the paint, then that's a non issue in my opinion because I've been taking my cars to the same membership based touch-car wash for years and never had a problem with scratches or swirls. Their brushes are micro fiber cloth and not the crappy plastic or hard brushes.
No, you pull your car up to some ATM looking machine where you pick what kind of wash you want and then you pull in to a bay. There's a light that tells you when to stop and when you do stop, there's an arm that goes around the whole car spraying various detergents/water, etc. At the end, the same arm blows the water off and you drive off. The arm never touches the car. All while you sit there an watch from the drivers seat.
A lot of the gas stations out here have the touchless wash. Some do better than others. Often times it doesn’t do a great job of getting the lower sides of the car. Easy enough to wipe down after though.
I am fighting to keep mine clean, the touchless washes don’t do the deep cleaning. I go to the DIY car washes but don’t use the scrub brush because I know it will rip swirl marks into the car. I have a ceramic coat but no matter how gentle I dry I still see some swirl. I guess at least with the ceramic I can just buff most of it out at some point and try again.
xilex
Model P3D
How do you all avoid the rim hitting the rail that you have to drive the car through? Or do only certain places have the railing?
if you do ceramic coating, even the homeowner DIY kind, the touchless car wash (like in the video above) is all you'll ever need. These are really popular here in New England. Gets the caked salt and sand right off during winter and the car is spotless. Until the next slushfest.
xilex
Model P3D
I see. The local handwash I take my regular car to in the past, they would load the car (without me) onto a moving rail platform, and at the beginning workers would handwash the car, then the car travels down on the railing to get spray washed down, followed by optional "polish" and "wax" sprays, do an air blow dry to get most of the water off, and then the car gets taken to the waiting area where it gets a final dry by hand.
Runebane
Member
Some do have a rail with a pressure plate for the front tire, but they're pretty wide, so it's fairly easy to avoid hitting. Not wide enough for a dually but still pretty wide.
I've owned Teslas for the past 8 years. I didn't take my Model S through it when I first got it because it was black. But I've been taking my white Model X through it since 2016. Well, I took my car through the carwash and the plastic piece that goes above the wheel on the outside of the car came off.
I've had a "Park Assist Unavailable" error for several weeks so I have a feeling that the plastic piece was getting loose and fell off. Has anyone had this happen to them? How does Tesla handle it?
I've had a "Park Assist Unavailable" error for several weeks so I have a feeling that the plastic piece was getting loose and fell off. Has anyone had this happen to them? How does Tesla handle it?
i have once, it was high stress and terrifying. At first i couldn’t get the car into neutral, then the auto wipers started going off like crazy and i was mashing buttons to let them to stop, then i had to navigate my rims along metal guidebars at the exit trying to avoid curb rash.
Never again.
Never again.
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