What temperatures are too cold to be washing your car in? I was just wondering because I remember reading about not washing in the cold(I know extreme cold is just plain dumb, but I was wondering when cold is too cold.) Right now weather.com says it's 36*/feels like 29*... but when I go outside it doesn't feel too cold at all. Just wondering what ill effects the cold can have if you wash your car just above freezing.

 

hmm its a good day out here also low 40s and i am stuck at work, havent cleaned my car for more than a month

i will clean mine whenever its over 32 and sunny in the day time, during the night i did once and it started freezing

 

Haha, Im thinking about going and washing my Z right now too, I want it to be clean for the Z06's heh.

 

Hehe, doesn't feel THAT cold outside does it?

 

Nahh not really...but it is like mid 30s...

 

it was like 20* F when i washed my car and took these pics, i have a torpedo heater in the garage, which wouldl barlly keep the water from frezing on the car. after-words i pulled the car on to the drive-way and took pics, (more at my cardomain site in the sig). but i cant belive i complaned about how hot it is in the summer, to wash my car .

 

Anytime it's above freezing I try and wash my cars.

Unfortunately it hasn't been above freezing here for a while.

 

I go to the car wash because its hardly ever above freezing. I'd rather risk the car wash damage than have it rust out from salt, nice choice isn't it

 

umm here in cali, its hard to wash a car in the middle of summer because its so hot and water spots appear almost immediatly. in thewinter, it gets windy, so dust likes to stick to it. i guess thats why there is wax and the good o' california duster

 

I usually go to the self serve car wash down the street from my house. It has heated water so it's not too bad. I will never go through an automatic car wash. They cannot get the salt off the sides of my car at all.

 

anything above freezing will work or use hot water to wash the car, i have in the past hooked up to the drain on the water heater when realy desperate to get a wash in.
bigest thing to do is dry the car after, use your chamois just lke normal. dry all the door seals and t top gaskets all those rubber places you don't want to freeze and rip when you open them. i also run the car with the heat on inside if it is below freezing it helps a little bit.

jeff

 

it was like mid 30's today and i did a wash ...a few weeks ago my hose was frozen so i had to get a bucket and throw it on the car after i did an area lol it was fairly amusing...

 

Why not fill a little plastic tub with hot water and unfreeze the hose with it? Thats what I do if I need the hose for somthing that badly

 

depends on what paint you have on your car. as in wether it's factory or a repaint...

always above freezing no matter what you do and if it's below 50 or otherwise to cold to really use your hands in a bucket of water you should try to wash as little as possible.

matching the water with the temperature of the paint (ie: wether its been running so the body is warm or its been sitting so its cold) is a good idea. too warm or too cold of water on the opposite temperature will cause your paint to crack...you may not see the effects right away but you will down the road.

it's the same principle in the summer, you should wash your car in the shade because cooler water on hot sunbaked paint will crack it as well....use your head and think of all the things you learned in school. the same way temperature affects an ice cube is what it does to your paint. factory paint is more durable to this where as aftermarket repaints are not.

good luck...




also chances are if your using warm water to unfreeze a hose you shouldn't have your hose hooked up. most cases your outside water source should have been turned off months ago and your just asking for problems not only to your car but to your home water supply and the pipes themselves.

if you must wash your cars in the winter which is a good idea for daily drivers you should use quarter car wash sprayers. also a good idea not to use at full pressure as more often then not they are turned up higher then they should be and its bad for your paint especially in winter.

 

I don't unfreeze my hose to wash my car, I use it for other things, rarley. I do turn the water off from inside the house in the winter, but I turn it back on if I need it then turn it off again. Unfortunatly around where I life there are no coin washes, so its a bucket of hot water or an automatic one. Up here though, they are all over the place, but they're damn expensive.

 

Pyro, where on Long Island do you live? There's a self service car wash in Bay Shore and one in West Babylon.

 

Glen Cove, guess next time i'm around they're ill take a look around for it. Thanks.

 

i work at a carwash with both self-serv and a converyor type autowash. so i get my car washed about twice a week from my experience, the automatic does a much better job then people do themselves in the self-serv bays. mainly because the attendants get all the trouble spots(under mirrors, rockers, wheel wells) before they send the car through. and if your worried about somthing being damaged from a carwash, dont be, as long as the wash is using a neo-glide or horse hair material on their bushes the is no way any paint will be scratched or peeled. the only problem we have is people driving off the conveyor(which is not easy to do) and then the people behind them rear-ending them. but that happens rarely, and we always pay for any repairs eventhough its the dumbasses fault behind the wheel.

 

Ive never been to that type of carwash, all the ones upstate here just soak your car in foam that high it with high pressure water, no brushs. Thats what I don't think can be too good for it.

 

yeah, those are in-bay automatics, they use just high pressure to clean the car, no brushes or anything and they do an absolutely ****ty job, and there is a possiblity that it could peel paint because in order to get all the stuff off without using brushes the guns have to use very high pressure.

 

Not to mention if you have t-tops, the high pressure is very bad for the seals.