You will find this facility being used early in the morning by people who are on their way to work; during the evenings, by people who are returning from work and yes on the weekends.
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Hi Friends,
With the growing road network infrastructure worldwide, the appetite for extended road trip adventures has only increased, and does not show any signs of slowing down. This subsequently has led to the implicit need for us to respect our cars even more so than before, and also pay a lot more attention to its upkeep, both mechanically and in terms of general hygiene. Unlike in India, where getting helpers to clean our car (at the cost of leaving swirl marks all over) almost daily is a common practise, in Europe (…and perhaps elsewhere as well) on the other hand, is not. And therefore the prevalence of car wash at every nook and corner of cities here is quite understood and obvious.
Speaking of Germany, the automotive capital, with some of the best car producing companies within its boundaries, these companies have their enthusiast customers, who themselves are crazy about the upkeep of their cars. This high demand, combined with German engineering and you have some of the fanciest, state of the art and the biggest car washes you would have seen in a while.
I will in this blog, share my always so joyful, experience of washing my car in one of the such car washes of Germany – Mr Wash.
I also attempted capturing my car wash experience in one of the episodes on my channel BeermanTalkies.
Usually I follow a 3 step process for cleaning my car which takes approximately 1.5 hours of cleaning end to end.
Step 1: Bug removal + high pressure rinse:
Because of high speed driving on the autobahn, there are a lot of road bugs that hit the nose of the car which when left over days, dry up and firmly stick to the paint of the car. Additionally when driving in snowy conditions on the roads here, that are treated with salt to lower the freezing point of water to further delay the process of ice formation on the road, this salt also get splashed onto the body of the car, sticking on it. Now if the car wash brushes, in the process of cleaning my car, were to rub this salt against my car body, it would create scratches on the paint. To take care of these problems I first go to a high pressure wash facility to give my car a quick rinse to wash off this stuck salt. And before I give it a rinse, I also spray this bug remover on the nose, with which the bugs loosen out a little and are washed away easily.
Most of the “self service” car wash stations in Europe run on timers, and the quantum of time is what you buy from self service terminals. For example the wash station I go to gives me a 100 seconds for every 1 euro. And in these 100 seconds I can choose whether I need soap wash, soap brush, clear wash, hot wash or shine wash. Either I use everything one after the other (what many people do), or only choose what you want. In my case, since I will get my main wash done in Mr. Wash, I only choose a quick soap wash followed by clear wash to wash out the bugs and the salt off my car. The last option in most of these self service timer based washes is the shine wash, which is simply softened water which when dries, does not leave any water spots behind on the car. Its almost as if the car was blow dried after the wash.
Some pictures demonstrating this step of the cleaning process:
Using the insect removal spray before the rinse:
Inserting euros in the self service, five wash terminal:
Washing the salt off especially in the side skirts area, that bear the maximum splashes:
Drenched/ dripping wheel arch:
Time to exit the high pressure wash facility and head to Mr Wash:
Step 2: Outside full body cleaning including underbody:
For this step I come to Mr. Wash, which is an experience in it own, and I strongly recommend it, if you are this side and driving around. The Stuttgart branch of Mr. Wash is considered as one of the world’s biggest car wash facility, but even still, the Dusseldorf one, where I go to, is by no means small. I am sure you will realize it when you see the video. You think of a service related to your car, and it’s available under this roof. Even though the name of the facility is Mr. Wash, in addition to cleaning service it also has regular car service packages, oil change, waxing, detailing etc. Depending on the extent of cleaning (/service) you wish to get done, there are different packages available here. I mostly choose the 15 euro one, which includes the thorough all round exterior car wash including tyres and under body, and also gives me access to interior cleaning bay which I have described in the step 3.
If its sunny and not raining, and its a weekend, you would always find a long queue here which just reiterates what I had mentioned earlier, that people really pay a lot of attention to their cars here. You will find this facility being used early in the morning by people who are on their way to work; during the evenings, by people who are returning from work and yes on the weekends.
For the exterior wash there are two washing zones in this facility and in each one of these zones there is a conveyor belt onto which you have to load your car, and off you go into the wash cabin sitting in the car. It take a little getting used to aligning your wheels to the conveyor belt but there is enough assistance here – a person guiding you and also, there is a live television showing real time tire alignment of your car as you get onto the conveyor belt. Also, as soon as you board the conveyor belt you have put the car on neutral (not the P mode in automatic transmission). This is to ensure that your car can roll freely and consistently maintaining the gap between other cars on the conveyor belt through all the cleaning stages.
Inside the wash cabin there are water jets and cleaning brushes of different kinds that do their magic. As much as I would like to describe it in words, its best seen in my video above.
The last section in this wash cabin, is the blower sections which comprises of high pressure hot air blowers that blow each and every droplet of the water from the drenched car. After passing this last section, you can exit the wash cabin and the conveyor belt, put the car in drive mode (or in a gear) and drive off.
Some pictures demonstrating this step of the cleaning process:
Mr Wash – Hafen, Düsseldorf:
Check in line at the reception:
Entering the drive in washing zone (two wash cabins here – left and right):
Washing brushes performing ballet:
The ballet performance continues:
The final stage in the washing zone – hot blower section:
Step 3: Interior cleaning:
For the third and the final step we have to head to the upper deck of Mr. Wash for which I get free access, in the cleaning fee that I had paid earlier. As you can also see in the video, this upper deck has numerous cleaning bays, and with each cleaning bay you get a set of vacuum (two vacuums, one for the right side of the car and the other one for the left of the car), a set of high pressure air jets and a floor mat cleaning machine. Additionally, there are also water cleaning stations, and also alcohol wipe vending machines.
Before getting into the interior cleaning, I use a micro fibre cloth to just wipe clean my car, especially in areas like under the ORVM and near the reverse parking camera’s which are not expose to the hot air blowers from the last section of the car wash zone in step 2. I also find it quite important to wash my micro fibre towels regularly to clean them from trapped dirt and dust particles which may also scratch the paint when wiping the car clean. It is one of the main reasons why I am always watchful of the car wash brushes that I use for cleaning my car – for example I never use brushes that are kept dipped in a bucket full of dirty water in fuel stations, because I am sure that the bristles of those brush will have a lot of dirt trapped in them from the already dirty water which can cause serious damage to my car.
I start the interior cleaning process with the floor mats which get the dirtiest during travel. With the help of the floor mat cleaning machines installed here, I just insert the mat in the machine, push a foot pedal that kicks off a few cleaning brushes to roll inside the machine and cleans my floor mats, spec free. These machines are for carpet mats. For cars with rubber mats, the water stations can be used which have a connected high pressure water jet hose to take care of the hardest of muck on your mat. Foot mat cleaning process is followed by vacuuming, using the very effective vacuum cleaners which can reach each and every corner of the car. After the first round of vacuuming, I use the high pressure air jet to bring out all the hidden /unreachable things from under the seats, from inside the dashboard trays, bottle holders, side pockets etc., and then do a quick second round of vacuuming to remove them.Finally I use my own wipes to clean the dash, centre console, door handle area, door pockets, phone charge tray etc., followed by a quick check under the hood if anything needs cleaning and thats it!
The facility at Mr. Wash is really state of the art and there is no time constraint whatsoever so you can take as much time here as you want to clean your car peacefully. When you are up here, on the upper deck, you will see a lot of people really taking time and enjoying the cleaning process – men, women, children…everyone!
Some pictures demonstrating this step of the cleaning process:
Upper deck with multiple bays for interior cleaning:
Wiping the car clean with a micro fibre cloth:
Carpet mat cleaning machine. Press the foot pedal, the cleaning brushes roll inside, move the mat up and down between the brush and viola! spec free mats:
The high pressure vacuums, one one either side of the car. These vacuums are always on:
Vacuums can reach every corner of the car:
High pressure air jets on either side of the car:
Using the air jets to expose hidden objects from under the seat:
Wipes cleaning the dash using alcohol wipes:
Under the hood check to see if anything needs cleaning there:
Mirror finish car:
More of the mirror finish. Always brings a smile, always:
The huge deck with numerous cleaning bays:
Leaving the state of the art cleaning facility which has all the car related services that you can think of, under this star studded roof:
Now that I have shared the car cleaning procedure that I follow, it will be incomplete to not mention some other general aspects as following:
- Driving around a visibly dirty car in Germany can give you a lot of stares on the road.
- Maintaining a black car is difficult, even in Europe! No dust here, but rather it’s the rain and the resulting slush, that takes the discredit.
- In cities with dust and rain prevalent (like in coastal regions), its a nightmare to maintain the exterior cleanliness. With a layer of dust on the car, followed by a rain or drizzle, leaves horrible chicken pox (or leopard ) style of print of the car.
- If you are the kinds of always wanting to see a mirror finish on your car, then you need to have a garage to yourself. If you do not, and have to park your car in the open (street parking for example), then you probably will spend more money in your car wash than renting yourself a garage.
- Its a struggle most of time to get a garage for yourself here, if you don’t have one along with your apartment. So like finding apartments for rent, people also search for garages for rent here, and the closest available garage might not be next to your house! My garage for example is 300 meters away from my apartment.
Keyword: Experience at a state of the art car wash & service facility in Germany