Do It Yourself Car Wash For The Frugal

by MoneyNing · 8 comments

Since I did not have a house and do not really have access to a water hose, I would often go to these hand car wash places, spending $16 dollars each trip. After a few months, I discovered the use of coupons, and that cut the expense down to about $10.

Around the end of last year, my fiancée told me that there are places that let you do car washes yourself! So what I did last weekend was go to one of them, and as you can see, it ended up costing me $0.75.

coins for car wash
From $16 –> $0.75 is not bad huh?

dirty car before car washdirt all over car before car wash
Hmm… a little dirty isn’t it?

the car wash placeplace for car wash
This is the car wash place that let you do it yourself

car wash settings
There are so many settings that you can use your money. What we use is just soap, water, and spot free rinse. We found that the main reason why people use much more money with these machines is because they would keep it on the soap setting and then keeping feeding the machine money while they wipe their car. We just turn it to the soap for 30 seconds, and then we would turn it off and wipe the car with the soap that is already on the car. We find that you really don’t need that much soap to make the car clean, which at the end of the day saves us lots of money since these machines are on a pay for time basis.

clean car after car washdetailed shining after car wash
After the Spot free rinse, the car is shining clean.

For those that are going to hand car washes with the excuse that you don’t own a house and do not have access to a water hose, try this for $0.75 from now on.

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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Family Savings July 13, 2007 at 8:34 am

Great money saving idea! I always thought those carwashes cost about the same as a drive through one which is about $5.00. I’m going to try it and see if I can do it for 75 cents. Do you use their vacuum too?

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MoneyNing July 13, 2007 at 12:03 pm

Family: No I don’t usually use their vaccum. What I do is try my best not to mess it up in the first place since it’s inside the car. Southern California also doesn’t rain much so it helps with the dirt on the carpet etc. Another thing I use is a plastic mat on top of the standard carpet that it comes with so all the sand and rocks stay on the plastic mat so I can just take the mat out and clean it.

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The Digerati Life July 13, 2007 at 11:03 pm

Nice pix man. I do car washes too, maybe once a month. My van always becomes fairly filthy after a while because of two kids who do everything in it… :D I have to spend some for the inside and outside cleaning though. Around $15 – $30 a pop!

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MoneyNing July 13, 2007 at 11:07 pm

Digerati Life: $15 – $30 for a car wash is quite expensive. Are you sure you cannot do it yourself since using those public vaccums can’t be THAT expensive.

On the flip side, at least you aren’t paying $200 for those detailing service since I had a friend who was doing that every 2 weeks! (that was a year ago and now he’s in financial trouble)

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NewSunSEO March 18, 2008 at 12:14 pm

Hello, this may be a cost efficient way to go if that makes you happy. To us detailer’s on the other hand, you can see the swirl marks and spider webbing all over the car which is basically micro scratches in the paint from drying the car incorrectly or from wiping down a dirty car. Detailers focus on paint correction and once you start detailing, it is addictive.

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Sam August 31, 2008 at 7:17 am

Nice pics!

I like washing my car once a week, usually I follow this car-washing guide and the results are always good.

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