DarrenBarefoot.com

I am one who like to wash my car as little as possible. I usually get out there once or twice a year. The way it has been raining around here (Southern Ontario) I wonder if my car even needs to be washed. I think next to washing it by hand I would have to concur with Matt T and say the coin operated hand wash way is best for me. Our old car dealer used to have a car wash service that they would do for free when the car was in for service. I liked that idea, less work for me.

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I enjoy it, though my parking spot under the pines makes it largely pointless. Taking a broader view, there’s obviously a market in people who like to wash (wax, polish, buff, hone, …) their cars, as evidenced by the success of this company:

http://www.griotsgarage.com/category/car+care.do

(Yes, they’re successful. They’ve been around for years.)

Further proof that you can make a business by staking out the high end of any leisure activity.

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I don’t enjoy it, but I do it because I don’t want to drive somewhere, to queue to wash my car.

My sister loves washing cars. She can’t explain why but she’s even put thought into opening a valeting business because she loves it that much.

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bz: Fair point. I’ve never bought or leased a new car, so I have zero sense of the economics. In fact, I wanted to search for the average price of a new BMW. I’m sure there’s an authoritative car pricing site, but I have no idea what it is. That’s how ignorant of this topic I am.

John: I think the queue is mostly an Irish problem. Plenty of times I’d drive up to a car wash in Vancouver and not have to wait more than one car. All the queues in Ireland were longer than in Canada. I guess it’s population density, or fewer retail outlets per capita?

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I apologize for hijacking the thread, but can anyone recommend a downtown Vancouver detailing service for my 9-year-old Honda Civic? I just want the interior cleaned and the outside given a good wash. I recognize that this sounds stupid for an old Civic, but I have decided that putting on roof racks and forking over cash for occasional detailing is preferable to me upgrading to a minivan.

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Can’t say as I enjoy it but I have a 2 month old vehicle so my friends expect it to be shiny all the time. So I do a combination of washing it myself and goto the automatic washing place. I know I am lazy and should wash it myself

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Like bz said above, BMWs aren’t really that expensive in the grand scheme of things. My brother is by no means a rich man, but he drives around in a BMW. He washes his own car on a regular basis, because he doesn’t trust the goofs at the local car wash and he’s not about to spend hundreds of dollars on a high-end place every couple of weeks or whatever.

When my car was still new, I washed it religiously. Now that it’s not so new anymore, I seem to let it slide more often than not.

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Your neighbour can afford a BMW because he washes his own car.

Depending on the age and the type of BMW, it may have a rather high look/price ratio. Check out the used-car values on a BMW 850, a car that once sold for six figures, and now sells for less than a Honda Fit.

Detailing shops are sufficiently expensive that I would just as soon wash my own. Even a typical automatic car wash is up to $8 or more now, and if there’s any line-up the time saving can be minimal or negative.

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+1 to Ryan Cousineau. My BMW is so old it’s past simply looking out-of-date and is starting to look classic (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). I wash it myself because that way I find stone chips, scratches etc before they turn into big blisters of rust.

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