December 3, 2009 • 38 mins
Inspired by an anonymous message scrawled across Ben's Monte Carlo, the High Speed Stuff crew takes a look at car washes, from the most basic do-it-yourself versions to the world's most expensive car cleaning service. Learn more in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel and under the hood on everything
automotive with high speed stuff from how stuff works dot com.
I ever want to welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott Benjamin,
the auto editor here at how stuff works dot com,
and I'm joined by Ben car Wash Bowling. Yep, Ben
car Wash Bowl and that's me. I'm the video writer
(00:23):
here at how stuff works dot com. The well, you
know what I've been I was trying to think of
the blank to your blank, but I couldn't. I couldn't
find out won't that was appropriate for the air man?
I don't know. I'm always hitting me with these uh
these these nicknames just rafter, you know. But that's that's
a bad one though. That's I don't like No, I
don't like car like the others. Okay, oil, can I
(00:46):
liken corn chop? That's good on some others. Yeah, we
gotta remember at the end of this episode, let's remember
to ask the listeners to write in some nicknames. Um.
I I am sorry. I've been a little bit off
the ball man, but I've dealt with the fact that
kind of just kind of give you a moment here.
I want to be completely truthful with you. It's not
(01:08):
my favorite story, Scott. But um, the other day I
was unpleasantly surprised to find that my my car, which
I do love dearly and take pretty good care of, um,
somebody had decided to give me the sign that was
time to wash it. Do you know what the sign?
(01:29):
You know what I'm talking about talking about the does
it say wash me? It says wash it carved? And
people still do finger in the window or on the
on the finish, on the back window, the back window. Okay,
that's all better than because the window shows. That's that's
what I was thinking too. Did they do that thing
where they put a date on it like maybe like
two thousand four? Oh god, no, it's funny. It's funny,
(01:50):
and they make it like a couple of years back.
It's funny. Yeah, they just put wash me. And then,
you know, I could not even be mad. I was
just embarrassed because I thought, uh, yeah, I should wash
that car, man, I should definitely. So maybe we can
talk about that because that is something that I usually
don't fall off on. I enjoy car washed. You know.
(02:13):
As as a kid, one of my favorite things to
do was to go through the auto wash and go
with my dad, um or some of my friends to
do it yourself washed where you could spend some time.
And you know what, only recently if I started using
the drive through car washes. I've always been a do
it myself and the driveway. Yeah, I've always washed, you know,
the bucket of soap and the sponges and the rags
(02:35):
and everything. And only recently since i've lived in the
stupid Wiener apartment that I'm in right now. Yeah's stupid Wiener.
That's right, It's a stupid Wiener apartment. And I've been
there for a couple of years now. I'm getting out soon.
But um um, I haven't been able to hand wash
my car like I used to. And I used to
do it all the time, and it's something that I
really missed. So I'm not accustomed to going somewhere and
(02:57):
paying five dollars and letting them, you know, take care
of the whole thing or whatever it costs, ten dollars whatever,
especially when you know what you want to happen, what
you want to have happened, right, you know the result
I end up with I have a dirty or I
have a dirty car more often now because I just
don't that's not part of my routine. You know. I
do it on the weekends in the past, or you know,
(03:18):
whenever I had an opportunity, sometimes more than once a week. Um,
And now you know, I just kind of let it go. Well,
it's such a unique and good feeling to me, I
guess me because I grew up with it. There's just
something that gets me about I always associated with springing
or summer, you know, getting up and and cleaning up
the car, and then spend some time on it, really
(03:39):
making it look nice, and then being able to just
take that leisurely dry. Yes, I love that. I love
that same feeling. Yeah, I really enjoy I spend hours
and hours on my cars. When I was younger, I
had a lot of time. You know, I'd be able
to do that. Um, probably nearly every other day. I
would have watched my car at some points, um in history.
I guess it was. It was. It's something I took
(04:01):
a lot of pride in. My cars are always spotless.
Your guy takes get care of your cars, I did.
It would be really weird if you didn't. You like
the Auto editor, I did to a point up until
about two years ago. Did I mentioned my stupid Wiener
apartment you have alluded to, well, stupid Wiener apartments aside.
Um I I was, I was interested with um A
(04:22):
point you said earlier, you said, it's kind of problematic
for you to pay five to ten dollars or something
to have somebody else wash your car. Um. And that's
that's about where you're at with people washing your car, right,
that's right. That's not the only kind. I guess there's
there's other types of car washes that you can go to.
They're five different types. Let's break it down, man. All right,
(04:43):
well there's, uh, there's the self service car wash, which
is kind of the quarter operated ones where you going.
I think it's seventeen dollars for three minutes of time
and it's all quarters so it takes a long time
and load them in, but you get the job done, right,
So you get the wind with the soap and everything. Yeah,
and the little dial, Yeah that's got aked with mud
and everything when you put it on your car and
scrape it around. And I'm just kidding, it's not so bad. Really,
(05:04):
I used to do that sometimes. I don't know what
neighborhood you're in. I thought we were going to the
same place. Yea, but yeah, you can choose with the
tire curificance and the engine cleaner and all that stuff. Sure,
with the dial switch or whatever. And it does cost
a lot of quarters, so I'll be ready. But anyways,
that's the self service type. Then there's the exterior rollover type,
(05:25):
which is that's the kind where the car stays still. Oh,
I love that one and everything moves around you, like
in the gas stations where they have that building. Yeah,
gas stations, because that's a time or space saver really,
because you know, you're able to have just a bay
that fits one vehicle and everything can happen all around
the car instead of having to drive through the long
time you roll up the ramp. You roll up that
(05:47):
small metal ramp and then your tire, one of your
tires hits that that spot in between the ramps, and
then it goes from go to stop. Yes, yeah, that's
the one. Oh man, that's so much fun. Yeah, I
got it either. If you do not have a retractable
antenna though, unscrew that bad boy, yeah, because that machinery
spin around will take it right off. I went without
(06:08):
a radio for three months really, yes, because you know
you know, why don't you do just like everybody else
does and just jam a coat hanger in there. I man,
I don't know, I wasn't that. Street smart can be
a great look for you your money, Carlo. Um. Let's
see the last one or not in the last one
in the middle one here exterior only, which is really
the drive through type you know, where you just you
(06:29):
drive up like what I'm talking about. You're right, that's
a tunnel long tunnel drive up, you pay your five dollars,
you drive through. But um, everything, all the machinery stays.
It's stationary. You drive through the tunnel and everything kind
of happens as you progressed each stage. Okay, so that's
different from the other one where everything moves around you.
This is the one where you know your car moves
through the tunnel. I've actually never I've only seen the
(06:51):
ones where you have somebody else driving it through the tunnel. Yeah, huh,
I'm missing like high class or something. What's going on?
I mean, I clean off the mink floor mats for
you to Oh no, I take the mink out. They'd
steal it. Great, great, good point. Now the Yeah, this
is just a type where you know, you you drive
(07:12):
your own vehicle through and if you choose to, you
can stop off at the end and vacument. Usually they
have free vacuums. Oh that's cool, free vacuum as long
as it been since you put in the cart this
place everywhere? Are you serious? Everywhere? That's I don't well, whatever,
we'll get to it. Maybe you can tell me the
type that you go to, which is probably something extreme. No,
come on, you know, yeah, I go to the self service. Okay,
(07:36):
all right, so you probably you probably use your neighbor's
host to wash your car, right, yeah, don't tell them,
don't tell okay, alright, so full service, that's that's the
next type, which is where that's probably the type of
you're talking about, where um, usually you get out of
the car, someone else takes over the control of the car,
drives it into the same exact thing. That's the one.
They kind of usher it through the system, and then
at the end they get inside, they wipe down the windows,
(07:58):
they vacuum it real quickly, and there you go. That's
the only car wash that my girlfriend will take the
car to. Really, yes, it infuriates me. Why is that
is she? You know what I got a question, is
she buy any chance? Is she afraid of a car wash?
Afraid of the Is she afraid of it? Because I
think I've never asked her. Maybe you should ask, maybe
I should. Maybe I'm being insensitive. You know, some some
(08:20):
kids are afraid of the car wash, not that you know.
I'm just saying that maybe she's afraid of it. Maybe
it's never, you know, something that she hasn't outgrown or something.
Maybe she's not comfortable with it. Well, I don't mean
to speculate like that. I'm just saying that maybe you know,
But um, I don't know. I've seen kids that are
afraid of going to Some animals are afraid of going
through there. I've seen dogs freak out before when they're
in there. Um, you know, I don't think she has
(08:41):
I don't think she has those iss not a fear. Really,
it's probably just what's closest to the house, right. Well.
It's also it's a matter of convenience, because you and
I like washing cars. You know, to us, it's cool
to sit out there, you know, with with the sponge
and then go back and dry and put on the wax.
To other people, it's just this waste of time. Yeah,
I guess, so something you have to do a necessity. Yeah,
(09:03):
well what what what's the next step? The last step
or the next step would be out of the five
categories here. Um, a detail shop. And you've probably heard
a car detailing before. I'm sure you have. I've heard
of it. But break it down. It's it's it's really
just like just an exceptional cleaning of your car, just
a very of course, it's right there in the name
(09:24):
detailed job where they clean everything inside. I mean it's
it's clean inside outside. Usually there's a wax and you know,
maybe even a machine buff um or hand buff or whatever. Um.
It's also they may steam clean the carpets, they may
steam clean the engine. Um. They remove tar and bugs
(09:45):
and odors and not whatever else is in your car. Um.
It's really just completely taken care of it. It It may
be dusting, you know those event louvers that you can
never get clean. Um, getting in the little crevices and
you know, the controls and things, and making sure that
everything is clean, all the French fry, you know, salt
and stuff out of there. Yeah, not that I have
a problem with that, not that, No, not that you
would have a problem with that. Um okay, so those
(10:07):
are fun categories and and adding adding onto that, of course,
is just a little bit past self services. What you
and I are talking about, which is just you know,
the guy in the driveway who's which which a lot
of people UM prefer because there You know, when when
I really started looking at this guy, I entered, I
(10:27):
did not know that I was entering into a different world.
You know how when and you warned me about muscle cars,
when you started reading about muscle cars, and I thought, man,
this is is serious. These guys really they all know
what they're talking about. They all have their preferences and
they have strong opinions. It is the same with car washing. Yeah,
they're there are people who will say, you know, um,
(10:50):
I mean, people take it very seriously because they take
a lot of pride in their cars. So the products
that they use, um down to the class that they use.
They use a sponge, don't use a sponge, and to
use this clay wax in order to get this off
every everything is extremely um. I guess custom for every
every person who does this, they wanted a certain way
(11:12):
or they experiment until they find the way that works
best for them or the product that works best for them.
So um yeah, like you said, I think everybody has
their own opinion of exactly what you know, their their
car needs. And so for uh, you know, with this there,
with these systems, there are people who have you know,
they have decided, well it is worth my time to
(11:33):
buy a wax that is sixty dollars versus a wax
that is thirty dollars. Yeah, I see, I see your
face there. Do you do you have? You know? Actually? Actually, um,
just another thing that I wanted to mention before. I
have a friend in Michigan who, um, who worked for
a company that that made systems, washing systems for for
(11:56):
these you know, I guess the people that buy buildings,
you know that they want to in all the Uh yeah,
I say, I'm I'm opening your eyes here. Yeah that's cool. Um.
What the way it works at is exactly actually that
it's a UM It's like you buy pieces of the track. Um.
Let's say that you have a system that's UM and
I'll probably goop this up, but this is generally the
(12:16):
way it works. Let's say you have a building that's
seventy ft long and you're gonna put track in uh,
fifty of that feet you know, feet of that, So
you've got fifty feet of machinery that you need to
do certain processes. You need to pre soak, you need
to have the um the soap, and then you need
to have the rents and you know, et cetera all
the way down. So you have to have certain elements
in place, and then they start to you kind of
(12:37):
add on ala carte what you would like to have
in your car wash. You know, features that you'd like
to offer your customers. So if you want, you know,
like a wheelwah, or if you want um an undercarriage flush,
or you want you know, something different, you're able to
add You're able to add all of that ala carte
and say, I want my system to have this, this
and this. I have to have this because you know
that this is just essential. You have to have you know,
(12:58):
maybe four things, but you want to add on additional
three things, and and they do it by feet and
how how many feet you want to purchase? UM. That's
really it's interesting. I have no idea. So it's it's modular.
It's in a Sensus modular modular. Yeah, but you have
to put them together in the right order, otherwise they
don't quite work together. So, um, you know, he was
I think I think even in sales, I'm pretty sure. Um,
(13:19):
but he would, you know, go out and kind of
scout these things and tell the people what they needed. Um.
It was interesting. It was an interesting line of work.
I didn't know that it worked that way. I thought
it was kind of all one system. Yeah, I thought
was one thing and that the way you determined what
happened was you know, by the uh I guess the
code you entered or what what he decided to buy. Well,
it's sort of like that still. I mean you can
(13:39):
you can still turn on and off certain features that
are you know, I think I think they're infrared sensors
that turn on and off different things when that vehicle
gets through. Um, I don't know. I've always kind of
wondered that if you know, if you pay for the
basic wash, you get in the same thing as you
get in the deluxe wash. See. See there you go.
You're reading my mind because I've thought the same thing.
I remember, because they do that pre soaked thing and
(14:02):
sometimes a friend of mine and I spent, oh gosh,
spent a couple of afternoons one day going through the
same gas station thing. And we didn't take the same
car through their repeatedly. That would just be weird. This
is only eccentric. Um, we took uh, we took you know,
his car, and then we took my car and we
got one of them. Uh. We hit it with the
(14:25):
basic you know, the the seven or eight dollar one
or whatever. And then the next one we hit with
I guess fourteen dollars something or twelve dollar or something.
Some of those several dollars higher. But yeah, the gas
station prices are a little higher for that, and it
included wax or something like that. And um, he tells
me that there was a difference, but I maintained that
(14:47):
I could not tell them you could. I mean, I
don't know, man, Maybe I just didn't want to believe it.
Maybe maybe should have tested it with drop of water
to see if it beat it up and rolled off
or you know what. But I guess you'd have to
know what it did beforehand as well. I should have.
But after that long, well, I was ready to go,
I understand, but tough to test. Really, I think that
(15:07):
what we should we should talk about because people probably
tuned in and read the title of our podcast, so
we haven't really got into it. So as as a
guy who will readily admit to being thrifty, that would
be me talking to his podcast partner who will readily
admit to you know, preferring you know, five, preferring to
(15:29):
do a car wash himself, but paying you know five
to ten, which I think is reasonable. Scott, what would
you say is, oh, gosh, okay, let's let's do it
this way. What would you say is the most you
would pay for the perfect car wash? The perfect car
wash you're talking about probably detail, right, Yeah? Yeah, I
um on your car all right? And on my car now,
(15:52):
I have a kind of civic It's just a couple
of years old, nothing special, but it's it's newer civic
s I um, I would probably I mean, I guess
if if I was getting the full detail, where the cleaning,
the carpets and the the the inside windows and everything,
every everything was being done, I guess reasonably. And this
is probably off even I bet it's more than this,
(16:12):
but I would probably pay. I'd probably pay a hundred
bucks or something like that to get it, to get
it looking brand new again. Yeah, And that's Everything's steaming
the engine, that's everything. And I'm probably and I bet
you it's probably. It probably does cost twice that, but
I just don't know it because I've never really had
a detail done on my suit. We're talking over a
hundred dollars, but that's to get in pristine condition. It
would be like if I was going to sell it, right,
(16:34):
I would want to get it in perfect condition. For
selling the vehicle, I'd probably pay a little more than
a hundred bucks. My friends, I am going to tell you, um,
something I think is very interesting. We talked about a
little bit before about a fellow named Paul Dalton who
is the founder and owner of a company called Miracle Detail. Okay,
(16:54):
this is no kidding, and I'm not you know. I
know I use hyperbole a lot, but this I know
I use hyperbobly all the time. Uh. This is the
rock star of car washes or detail work. Yes, let
me read to from his website. UM. As a master detailer,
Paul's work is hailed as the pinnacle of professional card use.
(17:17):
He uses an expertly created range of exclusive products made
by Swiss Fax in Switzerland. Um. And this guy has
a waiting list that can go up to nine months
in advance, a waiting list for a car wash. Yeah,
it's well. Now, I think he might not want us
(17:37):
to call it that, but I I can't speak for
Mr Dalton self, not meaning personally. But this is the guy,
um that we talked about before I sent a video
to you and you see the thing. Um. Let me
just real quick breakdown his his low end car wash.
I've seen this is this is good. Yeah, you see
(17:58):
this okay, and I know you would like this really do. Okay,
so you can check on the internet and you or
or check um how stuff works and you can see
some some close ups of the master at work and
uh his let's just go through a little a low
ball here a tent step process and I'll go pretty quickly.
Tent wait ten ten steps, ten steps. This is the
(18:19):
bottom runk. Okay, okay, Yeah, so that's that's where he
starts off with a degrease or citrus degreas or and
that's supposed to remove um grime from the lower half
of the vehicle. And then he rents is the car,
but he uses he's very careful to keep the water
around thirty five degrees celsius. And this is also not
harder soft water. But somehow pH balance water. Yes, that
(18:43):
is a pH balance like you bounce your cool water,
or you balance maybe like shampoo or something, which if
you think about it, kind of makes sense because you know,
if it's acidic, perhaps that has the potential to damage
the paint shops somehow, and pH balance water even better.
The next step, the third step is a spun is
(19:04):
washing it with the sponge um and he uses uh
sixty five pound bucket um, which they say is imported
from America. And I guess it's a big deal because
he is based in England. And uh he uses a
pH neutral shampoo and he doesn't quite reveal what that
shampoo is. Okay, but again you'll see you'll see more
(19:24):
and more. There's an emphasis on the idea of acidic
or basic. And he's a shampoo not I don't know,
dove or ivory or whatever. He's not like, he's not
like the guy who just goes and takes a bunch
of you know, windex or or four oh nine. It
just pours it in the bucket something that will clean. Yeah,
(19:44):
I think he would be pretty insulted. And then fourth step,
he rentses it again, and then he towels the car
dry with towels that are probably a higher quality than
the average person would use in their in their bathroom
at home. So he's like micro fiber called natural cotton towels.
And then he puts on a wheel gel that is
again non acidic um and apparently the he makes he
(20:10):
makes some very good points about these products as he's
going through them, and so from there he's still not
ready to wax the car. After he's washed it down,
sponged off, he's not ready to wash it, I mean
to wax it. He takes a little block of clay,
because he says they're microscopic bits of dirt. They're not
visible to the naked eye, but that overall can stop
(20:31):
the car from shining. They can diffuse the light, so
it goes over it with this block of I've seen
the clay clay bar stuff where they spray uh liquid
in front of it so that he's never rubbing the
clay on on the surface when it's when it's dry,
it's always wet surface. I've seen that before that mother
I think it's Mother's. Maybe I don't know the brand names,
but Um, I'm sure he's not using those products. He's
(20:52):
probably got something exceptional. Yeah, I'm not I'm not completely
familiar with his brand. But but okay, so that's not crazy. No,
not not totally crazy, but that's a that's a cool
thing to do. Here comes number eight. He uses an
ultrasound depth gage chemon yes, for what to measure the
paint depth? So how much paint is a top the metal?
(21:14):
And he does this because he wants to find how
much paint he has to rub out scratches or swirl
marks and stuff. And he gets pretty precise with the scott.
He takes it one of a millimeter at a timely patients, patients, patients,
which I do not have to do that. He's an
(21:34):
ultrasound depth finder, yeah, depth gage gage, Yeah, to determine
the thickness of the paint. Yeah. So he runs it
over and he says, okay, it's this thick here, this
thick here is how much you know, which makes sense
because if he's really taking out scratches, he doesn't want
to get down to the metal. And then then he
begins to go through another prep with the car to
(21:59):
make sure he gets ready for the wax and then
he massages in the wax with his hands and eventually, um,
this will go get harder than concrete at last for
six months. And and he's on call and we'll show
up to help you. He waxes it with his hands,
not with that or whatever. He gives this car massage,
(22:22):
and um, yeah, and here in that's the wait, that's
the that's the that's the basic. Right, that's the basics.
That's the basic. That's the basic. Now we'll get we'll
get to the other one. But I want to take
a second to tell you about this waxy. Okay, So, um,
we had mentioned wax before and how some car enthusiasts
have their own preferences for wax. For a while he
(22:45):
was using something and part of my mispronunciation, we get
this wrong. This is a Brazilian Uh is this a Brazilian?
Is comes from the product comes from Brazil. The the ingredients, um,
of the main ingredient, zimal royal glaze, and it was
it's called this because it was originally supposed to make
(23:05):
protect the finish of the Bugatti Royale. And then you
know less than I think less than twenty of those
were built. And um, it contains something called Brazilian number
one white Carnuba nava, white car nava. One of our
one of our Portuguese speakers will correct me on that,
but you can find this on Amazon. You can find
(23:31):
a tub of this for eight thousand, four hundred and
sixteen dollars eight thousand dollars for the car wacks and
to Amazon's credit, that is with an Amazon discount. What yeah,
the regular prices I think just under nine thousand five
Oh my gosh, so there there, Wow? Does it say
(23:51):
how much? I mean, I don't know if I'm catching
you off card or not, but how much? How much
he uses per vehicle? I mean he puts on several
he puts on several coats, and it depends really because
he has different tiers of service, the car washing, the
excuse me, detail and mentality here is for him, it's
it's almost how much work does the vehicle need? And
(24:13):
then how how high up do you want to go
because you you still have tiers of service. So hey,
thousand dollars man, and that's for fifty ounce to eight yes,
oh my gosh. Uh it does come with free refills though, wait, yeah,
they pointed that out on Amazon. Well here's the network.
(24:34):
Here's the catch. So you have you have the you've
used up all of your thousand dollar super wax, eight
thousand dollars super wax, and then you send it back
to the company. You pay for the postage there and back.
They charge you a cleaning fee um to clean the
(24:55):
thing out before they put the wax in, and then
they send it back to you, so not completely free.
How much does it cost to clean out the jar?
I wondering, I don't know, I don't know. I didn't
I didn't see that. Interesting, But so this is this high?
Is this like a like a like a one refill
thing or do you know, lifetime refill? So it's a
nine thousand dollars and you'll never buy another can of
(25:17):
wax again. Kind of like that hybrid calculation. How long
you have to go to break even? Yeah, that's amazing. Wow. Interesting.
He keeps going because he's coming out with his new
his own brand of wax, and his own brand of
wax is called Paul Dalton's Crystal Wock. Excuse me, it's
a tongue twister. Paul Dalton's Crystal Rock wax Rock wax
(25:41):
Rock Crystal rocks that's the that's impauld. Those are those
the important parts. This is uh, this is ten thousand
pounds um British pounds for and I've got a picture
here for you to check it out. And it has
seventy six percent of this um carneubal wax, which I
mentioned it, but just to go in. It's called the
Queen of wax. So it's got um a harder melting
(26:03):
point than other waxes. And it's really it's the it's
the ideal um. It's the ideal cherry wax. Very nice.
He's gonna have his own brand. Yes, interesting, kind of
makes sense that he would do this. So let's play
the game, man, let's let's go up here. So I
(26:24):
told you about the uh, the ten steps which people
can see on the video. That's the four dollar wash, right.
It might be well, it's definitely less than the bottle
of wax than the tube of wax. But how how
high do you think he goes up? How high? Because
you know this is obviously I don't want to kill
(26:44):
the suspense. How high do I think? How for a confirm?
How much work can you do because at this point
we're talking just to let you know at this point,
we're talking about, uh, perception of quality more than worry
about that. That's ten steps right there, that's you told me. Okay,
the ones we went over, I'd say that he probably
(27:04):
adds another. I thought he could add another ten steps
to that. He could, he could, He has several times.
The highest one is sixty one steps, and I can
tell you some of what it sixty one steps and
you you just went over ten and that was that
was an impressive list already. Yeah, it's I mean he
used ultrasound unbelievable. I don't know what more he could do. Okay, well,
(27:29):
I mean you're from the website. I'm not going to
go through all of them. Yeah, just fift I mean
you know we've already went over the first test. Here,
I'll read the list here. I got gotta right here.
Um okay, well, uh, well, you know he does the
he does the paint work measurement on all the panels,
and then he also uses he applies the wax, and
(27:54):
he cleans all the mirrors and you know, basically he
cleans everything and he details everything. And the thing is
it really it's the the amount of time that it
takes him to clean that's what that's what you're paying for.
Because this thing, when you go to the top man,
it can take you can take two weeks really two
(28:17):
weeks to two weeks to get your car because because
he's well, it's good enough that it only lasts for
that last for a year. And we're talking about like
we're talking about like supercars here, right, we're talking I
take my hand to Civic and to have him do this,
and we're talking Ferrari dealerships. We're talking, Oh, dealerships, have
them do this. Dealerships will have him do it because
just like you said, if you want to sell the car,
(28:39):
you know, and uh, there are people you can find
plenty of people who are customers of his or clients
who will tell you that the car looks better when
he's done with it than if he had then then
it did when they bought it. Um. Yeah, so top
of the line, he improves the car, then improves, he improves. Yeah,
And um, I've met a skeptical at first, and uh,
(29:02):
well I'm going to defend him, which is out of
the way for me to defend something that I would
usually consider exorbitant. Um, you have to call him for
that ultimate treatment. You have to call him to negotiate
time to meet him and to negotiate the price space
on what you need from your car. But we're looking
at some number that gets thrown around a lot is
five thousand British pounds, which translates to more than eight
(29:26):
thousand dollars but less than eight eight thousand, five hundred,
but more than eight thousand dollars for one wash. So
someone people are doing this once a year. Yes, he's
got a nine month waiting list, and he's charging almost
nine thousand dollars two or eight thousand dollars, nine thousand
dollars to Washington wax your car. Yes, unbelievable. And he
(29:49):
is very very popular. Really, Yes, that's that's quite a business.
And he is you know, and he's not a charlatan.
He's got street credit from the from the detailer community. Um,
if he's he's improving the car, if he truly is
improving the car, then I can understand the value and
something like that, especially show cars, and you've checked it out,
you've seen you've seen the video ways doing that. But
(30:10):
that that ultrasound thing is just crazy. I still can't
get over measuring the depth of the paint and he
also does paint correction, um and paint restorations. Yeah. I
didn't know that so um and that's you know, if
it's necessary. But I've got to say, man, I am
surprised that, you know, washing his his service, his detail
(30:33):
service rather, because you're right, it's not just washing. Uh
cost more than my my first car, you know, it's
like way more than my first car. Yeah. Yeah, four
times or five times the cost of my first car, right, well,
you know and manly the first the first car. Yeah,
but I mean then again, he's probably watching million dollar
plus vehicles and it's it's sixty four hours of his
(30:56):
time spread out over the over the course, because you know,
when he applies the coats of wax, he applies multiple
codes all by hand and four hours. Yeah, and you
don't see dissatisfy customers. That's the crazy thing. The people
who get the service, the companies and the people in
carlorers who get the service, swear by it, so they
come back. They love it. Yeah, they come back a
(31:18):
great a great service. I wanna I want to close
out though, because he's not he's not. All is not
well in the world of exclusive car wash and details
because he he has one. He has one bane that
he has reported that is the is one of the
worst things that he hates to see hit me with it?
(31:40):
What is it? Bird poop? Really? Okay? He says that
he just he hates bird poop. He hates, you know,
in a car. And when he has a client, you know,
if they will if he's worked on their car, you know,
and they call him it's a bird poop, he will
drive over there. That's how much he hates it. Really, yeah,
(32:02):
And I mean it makes sense if you think about it,
because this guy spends all day around you know, cars
that are easily half a million dollars, you know, and
so I can imagine because remember do you have you
ever been that moment where you're just getting out of
the car wash and a bird poops. Of course there's
something that happens everyone. Yeah, but after spending like more
(32:25):
than almost two days just wait, almost three days just
in manpower hours. Yeah, I'd be mad too, I would
be too. Well, hopefully this uh, this wax that he
applies has a finish that will just wipe right off cleanly.
But oh my gosh, you know that, you know that
makes me think of My father in law has a
corvette that rarely sees direct sunlight and uh, never sees rain,
(32:47):
never sees snow anything like that. It's a baby car,
you know, right in the garage. That's about it. Um.
He came over to my house one day in in
the summer, and this is in Michigan, and when he arrived,
there was bird poop on the front hood of the
car and this red corvette right and he came inside
and he got a bottle of bottle of water out
of the refrigerator and he had a special clot like
(33:08):
a diaper that he brought with him in his pocket,
just a cloth um strictly for the car. And I
poured the bottle of water onto the cloth and gently
rubbed away the the offending bird poop there on the
on the hood, and I thought that was kind of funny.
And then he buffed it out and kind of looked
at it from a lot of different angles and everything.
But he's, you know, fanatical about keeping that clean clean,
so I can understand. But but I don't know about
(33:32):
getting in the car and driving to someone's house to
take care of something like that, because it seems like
that's pretty it happens often. You know. Well, also consider
the clients have paid you know, a significant amount of money.
I guess, so, yeah, it's I think it's just we're
talking about the car wash game at the highest steaks. Guy.
It's no job. It's beyond my world. It's beyond my
world too. Man. I didn't even know you could drive
(33:52):
through the tunnel yourself. No, no, no, no. So I
guess we probably want to hear from some listeners about
the you know, if they have any experience with wax.
But we've got some other listeners I've already written in earlier.
You know what I'm talking about listener mail. All right,
today is a little bit of listener mail. We just
got one here, I think then, Um, it is actually
(34:14):
a comment on the on my blog. Um, we did
a wrap up of you know, every week I do
on Friday, I do a wrap up of what we
talked about during the week on on the blog. And
this one happened to be the week and we covered
um engine trouble and the Bloodhound Supersonic car. But the
Bloodhound SSC okay, um was it? Wrote in here? Evan.
Evan recently wrote in and said that, um, he checked
(34:37):
my math, which he checked my math, which is good.
And um, he says that you said in the podcast
at the Blood Handle travel stretch that's one mile and
around three point six seconds. Well, if one mile is
five thousand eight feet, the cars traded, and the cars
traveling in a thousand fifty miles per hour like I said,
like you said, Scott, the time for one mile would
(34:58):
be just over five seconds, not three point six like
I said. Um, he says that the math for that
would work out that the car would be traveling over
four hundred and fifty miles per hour in that one
mile one mile stretch, which is still a lot faster
he had. You know, he says, it's still blurred no
matter what doesn't matter. But you're talking about a difference
between three point six seconds and five seconds for a mile.
(35:19):
That's still pretty minimal, but it is a lot difference
in you know, the speed difference is significant. And um,
you know I checked it out just to make sure.
And you know he's he's right. Evan is correct. Um,
so he caught that. But in my defense, I had
to do this. I was going to say it if
you did. In my defense, I went back and looked
because I thought, well, how could I make a mistake
(35:39):
like that? So I didn't just make up the numbers.
I went back to the Bloodhound s SC site, UH,
their homepage, and I found it in two different spots
where people mentioned UM that actually, as a matter of fact,
um Ron Ayers, who was the chief of aerodynamics on
the Bloodhound SSC team. UM, he's got a comment in
on his page there in the site that says UM
(36:02):
that it will travert the sc will traverse the measured
mile in less than three point six seconds, So he's
alluding to the fact that it's even faster than the
fifty miles per hour that we're talking about. So I
don't know if this thing is gonna be traveling faster
than that or not. UM, because it's it pops up
and that's not the only person. It's not like maybe UM,
maybe Ron just misspoke, because there's another person. His name
(36:23):
is Brian and i'll mess up his last name here,
Lacomber or Lacomber L. Yeah, Brian L. And he's a
British freestyle aerobatic champion. He's also UM the Aviation Journalist
of the Year. He's just recently nominated that UM He
has a comment in there that says, um, you know,
(36:43):
for the timing of it, it takes one mile there
and one mile back for the dashes through the timing trap,
and he says, which eerily take three point six seconds
each or seven point two seconds total. So um, again,
that's two references to three point six seconds and for
that mile traveled. And I just don't know the straight story.
I don't know if um um there, I guess being
overboastful there or what. But maybe if the maybe those
(37:05):
are spects that have not been updated or could be
could be maybe yeah, yeah, maybe maybe they're going for
even greater speed than we think, because now that that
speed that we're talking about over a thousand is is
a you know, they're shooting for the thousand mile mark,
a thousand fifty. They want to go for an average
of above thousand. But I don't know if you're doing
it in three points six seconds, there's not a lot
of leeway there. You just want to do it quick
(37:26):
and be done with it. Umy miles per hour is
though significantly greater than one thousand fifty miles per hour.
So Evans correct. I mean, I'm glad, he pointed, that out.
But again, if you go back to the site, they
do say three point six seconds. So well, if you
get the straight scoop on this when it happens, because
it's coming up, maybe we can, maybe we can get
the powers that be to send us out to check
(37:48):
on that. I would love to be there. We'd love
to do some high speed I like watching just the
video of these things happening. They're really cool and to
be there be unbelievable to feel that that boom, a
sonic boom. After it had passed, you would have realized
that you saw it in a second, for less in
a second. That's right, We've been really cool. Well, we've
got to get out of here. Evan thinks so much
(38:10):
writing and you guys, um, please tell us what you
think about the car wash. If you have any feedback force,
if you have any ideas for a topic or nicknames,
because we are in the market, please send us an
email at high speed Stuff, how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
that how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
(38:32):
you think. Send an email to podcast and how stuff
works dot com and be sure to check out the
High Speed Stuff blog on the how stuff Works dot
com home page. H
Go behind the wheel and under the hood on everything
automotive with high speed stuff from how stuff works dot com.
I ever want to welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott Benjamin,
the auto editor here at how stuff works dot com,
and I'm joined by Ben car Wash Bowling. Yep, Ben
car Wash Bowl and that's me. I'm the video writer
(00:23):
here at how stuff works dot com. The well, you
know what I've been I was trying to think of
the blank to your blank, but I couldn't. I couldn't
find out won't that was appropriate for the air man?
I don't know. I'm always hitting me with these uh
these these nicknames just rafter, you know. But that's that's
a bad one though. That's I don't like No, I
don't like car like the others. Okay, oil, can I
(00:46):
liken corn chop? That's good on some others. Yeah, we
gotta remember at the end of this episode, let's remember
to ask the listeners to write in some nicknames. Um.
I I am sorry. I've been a little bit off
the ball man, but I've dealt with the fact that
kind of just kind of give you a moment here.
I want to be completely truthful with you. It's not
(01:08):
my favorite story, Scott. But um, the other day I
was unpleasantly surprised to find that my my car, which
I do love dearly and take pretty good care of, um,
somebody had decided to give me the sign that was
time to wash it. Do you know what the sign?
(01:29):
You know what I'm talking about talking about the does
it say wash me? It says wash it carved? And
people still do finger in the window or on the
on the finish, on the back window, the back window. Okay,
that's all better than because the window shows. That's that's
what I was thinking too. Did they do that thing
where they put a date on it like maybe like
two thousand four? Oh god, no, it's funny. It's funny,
(01:50):
and they make it like a couple of years back.
It's funny. Yeah, they just put wash me. And then,
you know, I could not even be mad. I was
just embarrassed because I thought, uh, yeah, I should wash
that car, man, I should definitely. So maybe we can
talk about that because that is something that I usually
don't fall off on. I enjoy car washed. You know.
(02:13):
As as a kid, one of my favorite things to
do was to go through the auto wash and go
with my dad, um or some of my friends to
do it yourself washed where you could spend some time.
And you know what, only recently if I started using
the drive through car washes. I've always been a do
it myself and the driveway. Yeah, I've always washed, you know,
the bucket of soap and the sponges and the rags
(02:35):
and everything. And only recently since i've lived in the
stupid Wiener apartment that I'm in right now. Yeah's stupid Wiener.
That's right, It's a stupid Wiener apartment. And I've been
there for a couple of years now. I'm getting out soon.
But um um, I haven't been able to hand wash
my car like I used to. And I used to
do it all the time, and it's something that I
really missed. So I'm not accustomed to going somewhere and
(02:57):
paying five dollars and letting them, you know, take care
of the whole thing or whatever it costs, ten dollars whatever,
especially when you know what you want to happen, what
you want to have happened, right, you know the result
I end up with I have a dirty or I
have a dirty car more often now because I just
don't that's not part of my routine. You know. I
do it on the weekends in the past, or you know,
(03:18):
whenever I had an opportunity, sometimes more than once a week. Um,
And now you know, I just kind of let it go. Well,
it's such a unique and good feeling to me, I
guess me because I grew up with it. There's just
something that gets me about I always associated with springing
or summer, you know, getting up and and cleaning up
the car, and then spend some time on it, really
(03:39):
making it look nice, and then being able to just
take that leisurely dry. Yes, I love that. I love
that same feeling. Yeah, I really enjoy I spend hours
and hours on my cars. When I was younger, I
had a lot of time. You know, I'd be able
to do that. Um, probably nearly every other day. I
would have watched my car at some points, um in history.
I guess it was. It was. It's something I took
(04:01):
a lot of pride in. My cars are always spotless.
Your guy takes get care of your cars, I did.
It would be really weird if you didn't. You like
the Auto editor, I did to a point up until
about two years ago. Did I mentioned my stupid Wiener
apartment you have alluded to, well, stupid Wiener apartments aside.
Um I I was, I was interested with um A
(04:22):
point you said earlier, you said, it's kind of problematic
for you to pay five to ten dollars or something
to have somebody else wash your car. Um. And that's
that's about where you're at with people washing your car, right,
that's right. That's not the only kind. I guess there's
there's other types of car washes that you can go to.
They're five different types. Let's break it down, man. All right,
(04:43):
well there's, uh, there's the self service car wash, which
is kind of the quarter operated ones where you going.
I think it's seventeen dollars for three minutes of time
and it's all quarters so it takes a long time
and load them in, but you get the job done, right,
So you get the wind with the soap and everything. Yeah,
and the little dial, Yeah that's got aked with mud
and everything when you put it on your car and
scrape it around. And I'm just kidding, it's not so bad. Really,
(05:04):
I used to do that sometimes. I don't know what
neighborhood you're in. I thought we were going to the
same place. Yea, but yeah, you can choose with the
tire curificance and the engine cleaner and all that stuff. Sure,
with the dial switch or whatever. And it does cost
a lot of quarters, so I'll be ready. But anyways,
that's the self service type. Then there's the exterior rollover type,
(05:25):
which is that's the kind where the car stays still. Oh,
I love that one and everything moves around you, like
in the gas stations where they have that building. Yeah,
gas stations, because that's a time or space saver really,
because you know, you're able to have just a bay
that fits one vehicle and everything can happen all around
the car instead of having to drive through the long
time you roll up the ramp. You roll up that
(05:47):
small metal ramp and then your tire, one of your
tires hits that that spot in between the ramps, and
then it goes from go to stop. Yes, yeah, that's
the one. Oh man, that's so much fun. Yeah, I
got it either. If you do not have a retractable
antenna though, unscrew that bad boy, yeah, because that machinery
spin around will take it right off. I went without
(06:08):
a radio for three months really, yes, because you know
you know, why don't you do just like everybody else
does and just jam a coat hanger in there. I man,
I don't know, I wasn't that. Street smart can be
a great look for you your money, Carlo. Um. Let's
see the last one or not in the last one
in the middle one here exterior only, which is really
the drive through type you know, where you just you
(06:29):
drive up like what I'm talking about. You're right, that's
a tunnel long tunnel drive up, you pay your five dollars,
you drive through. But um, everything, all the machinery stays.
It's stationary. You drive through the tunnel and everything kind
of happens as you progressed each stage. Okay, so that's
different from the other one where everything moves around you.
This is the one where you know your car moves
through the tunnel. I've actually never I've only seen the
(06:51):
ones where you have somebody else driving it through the tunnel. Yeah, huh,
I'm missing like high class or something. What's going on?
I mean, I clean off the mink floor mats for
you to Oh no, I take the mink out. They'd
steal it. Great, great, good point. Now the Yeah, this
is just a type where you know, you you drive
(07:12):
your own vehicle through and if you choose to, you
can stop off at the end and vacument. Usually they
have free vacuums. Oh that's cool, free vacuum as long
as it been since you put in the cart this
place everywhere? Are you serious? Everywhere? That's I don't well, whatever,
we'll get to it. Maybe you can tell me the
type that you go to, which is probably something extreme. No,
come on, you know, yeah, I go to the self service. Okay,
(07:36):
all right, so you probably you probably use your neighbor's
host to wash your car, right, yeah, don't tell them,
don't tell okay, alright, so full service, that's that's the
next type, which is where that's probably the type of
you're talking about, where um, usually you get out of
the car, someone else takes over the control of the car,
drives it into the same exact thing. That's the one.
They kind of usher it through the system, and then
at the end they get inside, they wipe down the windows,
(07:58):
they vacuum it real quickly, and there you go. That's
the only car wash that my girlfriend will take the
car to. Really, yes, it infuriates me. Why is that
is she? You know what I got a question, is
she buy any chance? Is she afraid of a car wash?
Afraid of the Is she afraid of it? Because I
think I've never asked her. Maybe you should ask, maybe
I should. Maybe I'm being insensitive. You know, some some
(08:20):
kids are afraid of the car wash, not that you know.
I'm just saying that maybe she's afraid of it. Maybe
it's never, you know, something that she hasn't outgrown or something.
Maybe she's not comfortable with it. Well, I don't mean
to speculate like that. I'm just saying that maybe you know,
But um, I don't know. I've seen kids that are
afraid of going to Some animals are afraid of going
through there. I've seen dogs freak out before when they're
in there. Um, you know, I don't think she has
(08:41):
I don't think she has those iss not a fear. Really,
it's probably just what's closest to the house, right. Well.
It's also it's a matter of convenience, because you and
I like washing cars. You know, to us, it's cool
to sit out there, you know, with with the sponge
and then go back and dry and put on the wax.
To other people, it's just this waste of time. Yeah,
I guess, so something you have to do a necessity. Yeah,
(09:03):
well what what what's the next step? The last step
or the next step would be out of the five
categories here. Um, a detail shop. And you've probably heard
a car detailing before. I'm sure you have. I've heard
of it. But break it down. It's it's it's really
just like just an exceptional cleaning of your car, just
a very of course, it's right there in the name
(09:24):
detailed job where they clean everything inside. I mean it's
it's clean inside outside. Usually there's a wax and you know,
maybe even a machine buff um or hand buff or whatever. Um.
It's also they may steam clean the carpets, they may
steam clean the engine. Um. They remove tar and bugs
(09:45):
and odors and not whatever else is in your car. Um.
It's really just completely taken care of it. It It may
be dusting, you know those event louvers that you can
never get clean. Um, getting in the little crevices and
you know, the controls and things, and making sure that
everything is clean, all the French fry, you know, salt
and stuff out of there. Yeah, not that I have
a problem with that, not that, No, not that you
would have a problem with that. Um okay, so those
(10:07):
are fun categories and and adding adding onto that, of course,
is just a little bit past self services. What you
and I are talking about, which is just you know,
the guy in the driveway who's which which a lot
of people UM prefer because there You know, when when
I really started looking at this guy, I entered, I
(10:27):
did not know that I was entering into a different world.
You know how when and you warned me about muscle cars,
when you started reading about muscle cars, and I thought, man,
this is is serious. These guys really they all know
what they're talking about. They all have their preferences and
they have strong opinions. It is the same with car washing. Yeah,
they're there are people who will say, you know, um,
(10:50):
I mean, people take it very seriously because they take
a lot of pride in their cars. So the products
that they use, um down to the class that they use.
They use a sponge, don't use a sponge, and to
use this clay wax in order to get this off
every everything is extremely um. I guess custom for every
every person who does this, they wanted a certain way
(11:12):
or they experiment until they find the way that works
best for them or the product that works best for them.
So um yeah, like you said, I think everybody has
their own opinion of exactly what you know, their their
car needs. And so for uh, you know, with this there,
with these systems, there are people who have you know,
they have decided, well it is worth my time to
(11:33):
buy a wax that is sixty dollars versus a wax
that is thirty dollars. Yeah, I see, I see your
face there. Do you do you have? You know? Actually? Actually, um,
just another thing that I wanted to mention before. I
have a friend in Michigan who, um, who worked for
a company that that made systems, washing systems for for
(11:56):
these you know, I guess the people that buy buildings,
you know that they want to in all the Uh yeah,
I say, I'm I'm opening your eyes here. Yeah that's cool. Um.
What the way it works at is exactly actually that
it's a UM It's like you buy pieces of the track. Um.
Let's say that you have a system that's UM and
I'll probably goop this up, but this is generally the
(12:16):
way it works. Let's say you have a building that's
seventy ft long and you're gonna put track in uh,
fifty of that feet you know, feet of that, So
you've got fifty feet of machinery that you need to
do certain processes. You need to pre soak, you need
to have the um the soap, and then you need
to have the rents and you know, et cetera all
the way down. So you have to have certain elements
in place, and then they start to you kind of
(12:37):
add on ala carte what you would like to have
in your car wash. You know, features that you'd like
to offer your customers. So if you want, you know,
like a wheelwah, or if you want um an undercarriage flush,
or you want you know, something different, you're able to
add You're able to add all of that ala carte
and say, I want my system to have this, this
and this. I have to have this because you know
that this is just essential. You have to have you know,
(12:58):
maybe four things, but you want to add on additional
three things, and and they do it by feet and
how how many feet you want to purchase? UM. That's
really it's interesting. I have no idea. So it's it's modular.
It's in a Sensus modular modular. Yeah, but you have
to put them together in the right order, otherwise they
don't quite work together. So, um, you know, he was
I think I think even in sales, I'm pretty sure. Um,
(13:19):
but he would, you know, go out and kind of
scout these things and tell the people what they needed. Um.
It was interesting. It was an interesting line of work.
I didn't know that it worked that way. I thought
it was kind of all one system. Yeah, I thought
was one thing and that the way you determined what
happened was you know, by the uh I guess the
code you entered or what what he decided to buy. Well,
it's sort of like that still. I mean you can
(13:39):
you can still turn on and off certain features that
are you know, I think I think they're infrared sensors
that turn on and off different things when that vehicle
gets through. Um, I don't know. I've always kind of
wondered that if you know, if you pay for the
basic wash, you get in the same thing as you
get in the deluxe wash. See. See there you go.
You're reading my mind because I've thought the same thing.
I remember, because they do that pre soaked thing and
(14:02):
sometimes a friend of mine and I spent, oh gosh,
spent a couple of afternoons one day going through the
same gas station thing. And we didn't take the same
car through their repeatedly. That would just be weird. This
is only eccentric. Um, we took uh, we took you know,
his car, and then we took my car and we
got one of them. Uh. We hit it with the
(14:25):
basic you know, the the seven or eight dollar one
or whatever. And then the next one we hit with
I guess fourteen dollars something or twelve dollar or something.
Some of those several dollars higher. But yeah, the gas
station prices are a little higher for that, and it
included wax or something like that. And um, he tells
me that there was a difference, but I maintained that
(14:47):
I could not tell them you could. I mean, I
don't know, man, Maybe I just didn't want to believe it.
Maybe maybe should have tested it with drop of water
to see if it beat it up and rolled off
or you know what. But I guess you'd have to
know what it did beforehand as well. I should have.
But after that long, well, I was ready to go,
I understand, but tough to test. Really, I think that
(15:07):
what we should we should talk about because people probably
tuned in and read the title of our podcast, so
we haven't really got into it. So as as a
guy who will readily admit to being thrifty, that would
be me talking to his podcast partner who will readily
admit to you know, preferring you know, five, preferring to
(15:29):
do a car wash himself, but paying you know five
to ten, which I think is reasonable. Scott, what would
you say is, oh, gosh, okay, let's let's do it
this way. What would you say is the most you
would pay for the perfect car wash? The perfect car
wash you're talking about probably detail, right, Yeah? Yeah, I
um on your car all right? And on my car now,
(15:52):
I have a kind of civic It's just a couple
of years old, nothing special, but it's it's newer civic
s I um, I would probably I mean, I guess
if if I was getting the full detail, where the cleaning,
the carpets and the the the inside windows and everything,
every everything was being done, I guess reasonably. And this
is probably off even I bet it's more than this,
(16:12):
but I would probably pay. I'd probably pay a hundred
bucks or something like that to get it, to get
it looking brand new again. Yeah, And that's Everything's steaming
the engine, that's everything. And I'm probably and I bet
you it's probably. It probably does cost twice that, but
I just don't know it because I've never really had
a detail done on my suit. We're talking over a
hundred dollars, but that's to get in pristine condition. It
would be like if I was going to sell it, right,
(16:34):
I would want to get it in perfect condition. For
selling the vehicle, I'd probably pay a little more than
a hundred bucks. My friends, I am going to tell you, um,
something I think is very interesting. We talked about a
little bit before about a fellow named Paul Dalton who
is the founder and owner of a company called Miracle Detail. Okay,
(16:54):
this is no kidding, and I'm not you know. I
know I use hyperbole a lot, but this I know
I use hyperbobly all the time. Uh. This is the
rock star of car washes or detail work. Yes, let
me read to from his website. UM. As a master detailer,
Paul's work is hailed as the pinnacle of professional card use.
(17:17):
He uses an expertly created range of exclusive products made
by Swiss Fax in Switzerland. Um. And this guy has
a waiting list that can go up to nine months
in advance, a waiting list for a car wash. Yeah,
it's well. Now, I think he might not want us
(17:37):
to call it that, but I I can't speak for
Mr Dalton self, not meaning personally. But this is the guy,
um that we talked about before I sent a video
to you and you see the thing. Um. Let me
just real quick breakdown his his low end car wash.
I've seen this is this is good. Yeah, you see
(17:58):
this okay, and I know you would like this really do. Okay,
so you can check on the internet and you or
or check um how stuff works and you can see
some some close ups of the master at work and
uh his let's just go through a little a low
ball here a tent step process and I'll go pretty quickly.
Tent wait ten ten steps, ten steps. This is the
(18:19):
bottom runk. Okay, okay, Yeah, so that's that's where he
starts off with a degrease or citrus degreas or and
that's supposed to remove um grime from the lower half
of the vehicle. And then he rents is the car,
but he uses he's very careful to keep the water
around thirty five degrees celsius. And this is also not
harder soft water. But somehow pH balance water. Yes, that
(18:43):
is a pH balance like you bounce your cool water,
or you balance maybe like shampoo or something, which if
you think about it, kind of makes sense because you know,
if it's acidic, perhaps that has the potential to damage
the paint shops somehow, and pH balance water even better.
The next step, the third step is a spun is
(19:04):
washing it with the sponge um and he uses uh
sixty five pound bucket um, which they say is imported
from America. And I guess it's a big deal because
he is based in England. And uh he uses a
pH neutral shampoo and he doesn't quite reveal what that
shampoo is. Okay, but again you'll see you'll see more
(19:24):
and more. There's an emphasis on the idea of acidic
or basic. And he's a shampoo not I don't know,
dove or ivory or whatever. He's not like, he's not
like the guy who just goes and takes a bunch
of you know, windex or or four oh nine. It
just pours it in the bucket something that will clean. Yeah,
(19:44):
I think he would be pretty insulted. And then fourth step,
he rentses it again, and then he towels the car
dry with towels that are probably a higher quality than
the average person would use in their in their bathroom
at home. So he's like micro fiber called natural cotton towels.
And then he puts on a wheel gel that is
again non acidic um and apparently the he makes he
(20:10):
makes some very good points about these products as he's
going through them, and so from there he's still not
ready to wax the car. After he's washed it down,
sponged off, he's not ready to wash it, I mean
to wax it. He takes a little block of clay,
because he says they're microscopic bits of dirt. They're not
visible to the naked eye, but that overall can stop
(20:31):
the car from shining. They can diffuse the light, so
it goes over it with this block of I've seen
the clay clay bar stuff where they spray uh liquid
in front of it so that he's never rubbing the
clay on on the surface when it's when it's dry,
it's always wet surface. I've seen that before that mother
I think it's Mother's. Maybe I don't know the brand names,
but Um, I'm sure he's not using those products. He's
(20:52):
probably got something exceptional. Yeah, I'm not I'm not completely
familiar with his brand. But but okay, so that's not crazy. No,
not not totally crazy, but that's a that's a cool
thing to do. Here comes number eight. He uses an
ultrasound depth gage chemon yes, for what to measure the
paint depth? So how much paint is a top the metal?
(21:14):
And he does this because he wants to find how
much paint he has to rub out scratches or swirl
marks and stuff. And he gets pretty precise with the scott.
He takes it one of a millimeter at a timely patients, patients, patients,
which I do not have to do that. He's an
(21:34):
ultrasound depth finder, yeah, depth gage gage, Yeah, to determine
the thickness of the paint. Yeah. So he runs it
over and he says, okay, it's this thick here, this
thick here is how much you know, which makes sense
because if he's really taking out scratches, he doesn't want
to get down to the metal. And then then he
begins to go through another prep with the car to
(21:59):
make sure he gets ready for the wax and then
he massages in the wax with his hands and eventually, um,
this will go get harder than concrete at last for
six months. And and he's on call and we'll show
up to help you. He waxes it with his hands,
not with that or whatever. He gives this car massage,
(22:22):
and um, yeah, and here in that's the wait, that's
the that's the that's the basic. Right, that's the basics.
That's the basic. That's the basic. Now we'll get we'll
get to the other one. But I want to take
a second to tell you about this waxy. Okay, So, um,
we had mentioned wax before and how some car enthusiasts
have their own preferences for wax. For a while he
(22:45):
was using something and part of my mispronunciation, we get
this wrong. This is a Brazilian Uh is this a Brazilian?
Is comes from the product comes from Brazil. The the ingredients, um,
of the main ingredient, zimal royal glaze, and it was
it's called this because it was originally supposed to make
(23:05):
protect the finish of the Bugatti Royale. And then you
know less than I think less than twenty of those
were built. And um, it contains something called Brazilian number
one white Carnuba nava, white car nava. One of our
one of our Portuguese speakers will correct me on that,
but you can find this on Amazon. You can find
(23:31):
a tub of this for eight thousand, four hundred and
sixteen dollars eight thousand dollars for the car wacks and
to Amazon's credit, that is with an Amazon discount. What yeah,
the regular prices I think just under nine thousand five
Oh my gosh, so there there, Wow? Does it say
(23:51):
how much? I mean, I don't know if I'm catching
you off card or not, but how much? How much
he uses per vehicle? I mean he puts on several
he puts on several coats, and it depends really because
he has different tiers of service, the car washing, the
excuse me, detail and mentality here is for him, it's
it's almost how much work does the vehicle need? And
(24:13):
then how how high up do you want to go
because you you still have tiers of service. So hey,
thousand dollars man, and that's for fifty ounce to eight yes,
oh my gosh. Uh it does come with free refills though, wait, yeah,
they pointed that out on Amazon. Well here's the network.
(24:34):
Here's the catch. So you have you have the you've
used up all of your thousand dollar super wax, eight
thousand dollars super wax, and then you send it back
to the company. You pay for the postage there and back.
They charge you a cleaning fee um to clean the
(24:55):
thing out before they put the wax in, and then
they send it back to you, so not completely free.
How much does it cost to clean out the jar?
I wondering, I don't know, I don't know. I didn't
I didn't see that. Interesting, But so this is this high?
Is this like a like a like a one refill
thing or do you know, lifetime refill? So it's a
nine thousand dollars and you'll never buy another can of
(25:17):
wax again. Kind of like that hybrid calculation. How long
you have to go to break even? Yeah, that's amazing. Wow. Interesting.
He keeps going because he's coming out with his new
his own brand of wax, and his own brand of
wax is called Paul Dalton's Crystal Wock. Excuse me, it's
a tongue twister. Paul Dalton's Crystal Rock wax Rock wax
(25:41):
Rock Crystal rocks that's the that's impauld. Those are those
the important parts. This is uh, this is ten thousand
pounds um British pounds for and I've got a picture
here for you to check it out. And it has
seventy six percent of this um carneubal wax, which I
mentioned it, but just to go in. It's called the
Queen of wax. So it's got um a harder melting
(26:03):
point than other waxes. And it's really it's the it's
the ideal um. It's the ideal cherry wax. Very nice.
He's gonna have his own brand. Yes, interesting, kind of
makes sense that he would do this. So let's play
the game, man, let's let's go up here. So I
(26:24):
told you about the uh, the ten steps which people
can see on the video. That's the four dollar wash, right.
It might be well, it's definitely less than the bottle
of wax than the tube of wax. But how how
high do you think he goes up? How high? Because
you know this is obviously I don't want to kill
(26:44):
the suspense. How high do I think? How for a confirm?
How much work can you do because at this point
we're talking just to let you know at this point,
we're talking about, uh, perception of quality more than worry
about that. That's ten steps right there, that's you told me. Okay,
the ones we went over, I'd say that he probably
(27:04):
adds another. I thought he could add another ten steps
to that. He could, he could, He has several times.
The highest one is sixty one steps, and I can
tell you some of what it sixty one steps and
you you just went over ten and that was that
was an impressive list already. Yeah, it's I mean he
used ultrasound unbelievable. I don't know what more he could do. Okay, well,
(27:29):
I mean you're from the website. I'm not going to
go through all of them. Yeah, just fift I mean
you know we've already went over the first test. Here,
I'll read the list here. I got gotta right here.
Um okay, well, uh, well, you know he does the
he does the paint work measurement on all the panels,
and then he also uses he applies the wax, and
(27:54):
he cleans all the mirrors and you know, basically he
cleans everything and he details everything. And the thing is
it really it's the the amount of time that it
takes him to clean that's what that's what you're paying for.
Because this thing, when you go to the top man,
it can take you can take two weeks really two
(28:17):
weeks to two weeks to get your car because because
he's well, it's good enough that it only lasts for
that last for a year. And we're talking about like
we're talking about like supercars here, right, we're talking I
take my hand to Civic and to have him do this,
and we're talking Ferrari dealerships. We're talking, Oh, dealerships, have
them do this. Dealerships will have him do it because
just like you said, if you want to sell the car,
(28:39):
you know, and uh, there are people you can find
plenty of people who are customers of his or clients
who will tell you that the car looks better when
he's done with it than if he had then then
it did when they bought it. Um. Yeah, so top
of the line, he improves the car, then improves, he improves. Yeah,
And um, I've met a skeptical at first, and uh,
(29:02):
well I'm going to defend him, which is out of
the way for me to defend something that I would
usually consider exorbitant. Um, you have to call him for
that ultimate treatment. You have to call him to negotiate
time to meet him and to negotiate the price space
on what you need from your car. But we're looking
at some number that gets thrown around a lot is
five thousand British pounds, which translates to more than eight
(29:26):
thousand dollars but less than eight eight thousand, five hundred,
but more than eight thousand dollars for one wash. So
someone people are doing this once a year. Yes, he's
got a nine month waiting list, and he's charging almost
nine thousand dollars two or eight thousand dollars, nine thousand
dollars to Washington wax your car. Yes, unbelievable. And he
(29:49):
is very very popular. Really, Yes, that's that's quite a business.
And he is you know, and he's not a charlatan.
He's got street credit from the from the detailer community. Um,
if he's he's improving the car, if he truly is
improving the car, then I can understand the value and
something like that, especially show cars, and you've checked it out,
you've seen you've seen the video ways doing that. But
(30:10):
that that ultrasound thing is just crazy. I still can't
get over measuring the depth of the paint and he
also does paint correction, um and paint restorations. Yeah. I
didn't know that so um and that's you know, if
it's necessary. But I've got to say, man, I am
surprised that, you know, washing his his service, his detail
(30:33):
service rather, because you're right, it's not just washing. Uh
cost more than my my first car, you know, it's
like way more than my first car. Yeah. Yeah, four
times or five times the cost of my first car, right, well,
you know and manly the first the first car. Yeah,
but I mean then again, he's probably watching million dollar
plus vehicles and it's it's sixty four hours of his
(30:56):
time spread out over the over the course, because you know,
when he applies the coats of wax, he applies multiple
codes all by hand and four hours. Yeah, and you
don't see dissatisfy customers. That's the crazy thing. The people
who get the service, the companies and the people in
carlorers who get the service, swear by it, so they
come back. They love it. Yeah, they come back a
(31:18):
great a great service. I wanna I want to close
out though, because he's not he's not. All is not
well in the world of exclusive car wash and details
because he he has one. He has one bane that
he has reported that is the is one of the
worst things that he hates to see hit me with it?
(31:40):
What is it? Bird poop? Really? Okay? He says that
he just he hates bird poop. He hates, you know,
in a car. And when he has a client, you know,
if they will if he's worked on their car, you know,
and they call him it's a bird poop, he will
drive over there. That's how much he hates it. Really, yeah,
(32:02):
And I mean it makes sense if you think about it,
because this guy spends all day around you know, cars
that are easily half a million dollars, you know, and
so I can imagine because remember do you have you
ever been that moment where you're just getting out of
the car wash and a bird poops. Of course there's
something that happens everyone. Yeah, but after spending like more
(32:25):
than almost two days just wait, almost three days just
in manpower hours. Yeah, I'd be mad too, I would
be too. Well, hopefully this uh, this wax that he
applies has a finish that will just wipe right off cleanly.
But oh my gosh, you know that, you know that
makes me think of My father in law has a
corvette that rarely sees direct sunlight and uh, never sees rain,
(32:47):
never sees snow anything like that. It's a baby car,
you know, right in the garage. That's about it. Um.
He came over to my house one day in in
the summer, and this is in Michigan, and when he arrived,
there was bird poop on the front hood of the
car and this red corvette right and he came inside
and he got a bottle of bottle of water out
of the refrigerator and he had a special clot like
(33:08):
a diaper that he brought with him in his pocket,
just a cloth um strictly for the car. And I
poured the bottle of water onto the cloth and gently
rubbed away the the offending bird poop there on the
on the hood, and I thought that was kind of funny.
And then he buffed it out and kind of looked
at it from a lot of different angles and everything.
But he's, you know, fanatical about keeping that clean clean,
so I can understand. But but I don't know about
(33:32):
getting in the car and driving to someone's house to
take care of something like that, because it seems like
that's pretty it happens often. You know. Well, also consider
the clients have paid you know, a significant amount of money.
I guess, so, yeah, it's I think it's just we're
talking about the car wash game at the highest steaks. Guy.
It's no job. It's beyond my world. It's beyond my
world too. Man. I didn't even know you could drive
(33:52):
through the tunnel yourself. No, no, no, no. So I
guess we probably want to hear from some listeners about
the you know, if they have any experience with wax.
But we've got some other listeners I've already written in earlier.
You know what I'm talking about listener mail. All right,
today is a little bit of listener mail. We just
got one here, I think then, Um, it is actually
(34:14):
a comment on the on my blog. Um, we did
a wrap up of you know, every week I do
on Friday, I do a wrap up of what we
talked about during the week on on the blog. And
this one happened to be the week and we covered
um engine trouble and the Bloodhound Supersonic car. But the
Bloodhound SSC okay, um was it? Wrote in here? Evan.
Evan recently wrote in and said that, um, he checked
(34:37):
my math, which he checked my math, which is good.
And um, he says that you said in the podcast
at the Blood Handle travel stretch that's one mile and
around three point six seconds. Well, if one mile is
five thousand eight feet, the cars traded, and the cars
traveling in a thousand fifty miles per hour like I said,
like you said, Scott, the time for one mile would
(34:58):
be just over five seconds, not three point six like
I said. Um, he says that the math for that
would work out that the car would be traveling over
four hundred and fifty miles per hour in that one
mile one mile stretch, which is still a lot faster
he had. You know, he says, it's still blurred no
matter what doesn't matter. But you're talking about a difference
between three point six seconds and five seconds for a mile.
(35:19):
That's still pretty minimal, but it is a lot difference
in you know, the speed difference is significant. And um,
you know I checked it out just to make sure.
And you know he's he's right. Evan is correct. Um,
so he caught that. But in my defense, I had
to do this. I was going to say it if
you did. In my defense, I went back and looked
because I thought, well, how could I make a mistake
(35:39):
like that? So I didn't just make up the numbers.
I went back to the Bloodhound s SC site, UH,
their homepage, and I found it in two different spots
where people mentioned UM that actually, as a matter of fact,
um Ron Ayers, who was the chief of aerodynamics on
the Bloodhound SSC team. UM, he's got a comment in
on his page there in the site that says UM
(36:02):
that it will travert the sc will traverse the measured
mile in less than three point six seconds, So he's
alluding to the fact that it's even faster than the
fifty miles per hour that we're talking about. So I
don't know if this thing is gonna be traveling faster
than that or not. UM, because it's it pops up
and that's not the only person. It's not like maybe UM,
maybe Ron just misspoke, because there's another person. His name
(36:23):
is Brian and i'll mess up his last name here,
Lacomber or Lacomber L. Yeah, Brian L. And he's a
British freestyle aerobatic champion. He's also UM the Aviation Journalist
of the Year. He's just recently nominated that UM He
has a comment in there that says, um, you know,
(36:43):
for the timing of it, it takes one mile there
and one mile back for the dashes through the timing trap,
and he says, which eerily take three point six seconds
each or seven point two seconds total. So um, again,
that's two references to three point six seconds and for
that mile traveled. And I just don't know the straight story.
I don't know if um um there, I guess being
overboastful there or what. But maybe if the maybe those
(37:05):
are spects that have not been updated or could be
could be maybe yeah, yeah, maybe maybe they're going for
even greater speed than we think, because now that that
speed that we're talking about over a thousand is is
a you know, they're shooting for the thousand mile mark,
a thousand fifty. They want to go for an average
of above thousand. But I don't know if you're doing
it in three points six seconds, there's not a lot
of leeway there. You just want to do it quick
(37:26):
and be done with it. Umy miles per hour is
though significantly greater than one thousand fifty miles per hour.
So Evans correct. I mean, I'm glad, he pointed, that out.
But again, if you go back to the site, they
do say three point six seconds. So well, if you
get the straight scoop on this when it happens, because
it's coming up, maybe we can, maybe we can get
the powers that be to send us out to check
(37:48):
on that. I would love to be there. We'd love
to do some high speed I like watching just the
video of these things happening. They're really cool and to
be there be unbelievable to feel that that boom, a
sonic boom. After it had passed, you would have realized
that you saw it in a second, for less in
a second. That's right, We've been really cool. Well, we've
got to get out of here. Evan thinks so much
(38:10):
writing and you guys, um, please tell us what you
think about the car wash. If you have any feedback force,
if you have any ideas for a topic or nicknames,
because we are in the market, please send us an
email at high speed Stuff, how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
that how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
(38:32):
you think. Send an email to podcast and how stuff
works dot com and be sure to check out the
High Speed Stuff blog on the how stuff Works dot
com home page. H
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
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