How long do you guys spend on a basic wash?

If you include setup and cleanup time it takes me around 2 hours maybe a little less to wash my car. I usually am taking my time though. I'm probably having a drink and maybe smoking a cigar the whole time. So, I'm not exactly rushing through the whole thing. If I'm in a rush then I can cut it down to about an hour.



Doesn't Accumulator take 4 hours to wash his car? I'd like to see that.
 
Exterior wash only? I'm averaging 45mins, once everything is setup (two buckets, soap diluted in foamgun, running the extension cable, etc).
 
TrueDetailer said:
You guys are nuts spending that much time just to wash your car. Takes me like 15-20 minutes to wash my truck and clean and dress the wheels and such. Around 40 minutes if i vaccuum and clean the windows and give it a quick wipe down.
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Gee I reckon a wash that fast would induce some swirls, unless it is very fast no pressure gliding of mitt over surface and using multiple mitts.



When I washed at home, about 30 mins to wash, 40 minutes to dry, QD and dress tyres

Now it's 3 minutes 30 seconds for a high pressure only wash and rinse, 25 minutes to dry, all with far less marring than when I washed at home.
 
Not including time to get all the goodies out, its about 30-45 minutes for a regular sized car, including the wheel wells and doing a good job cleaning the wheels and tires. One hour for QEW but that includes filling the buckets and rinsing them out. I could see spending two hours on a car that was really dirty. Some cars are so dirty they just have to be washed twice.
 
I would say it takes me around 1-1.5hours. Thats getting everything out, washing all the jeep, tires, rims, fender well, hitch, gas tank skid(can be seen), and drying.. I enjoy washing it.. Why cut down on the time? Its a hobby. not a job.
 
Unless you're doing time trials at Indy, why does it matter.

It takes no time at all if you don't bother, longer if you do!



In the zen of detailing, it's not how long something takes, but how well it turns out. After all, what is your desired outcome?



true confession: Last Saturday it was about 30F while I was doing an ONR wash. It wasn't wiping down as well with the dry towel, I was cold and my gung ho left me. I looked at the tires and thought "I can clean these, but they're gonna be a mess again as soon as I hit the street", so after the paint, I dumped the bucket and went inside.



I'm thinking as serious winter sets in, it's gonna most likely be an ONR/Coin-op combo!
 
Yea, im throwing in the towel, winter is here and yesterday was warm (if you call 45 degrees warm). I actually took my shoes and socks off and went barefoot washing the car. Needless to say my toes were numb and I was close to frostbite. Ya i'm crazy lol.
 
BMW335i said:
Yea, im throwing in the towel, winter is here and yesterday was warm (if you call 45 degrees warm). I actually took my shoes and socks off and went barefoot washing the car. Needless to say my toes were numb and I was close to frostbite. Ya i'm crazy lol.
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Wow, why in this world did you take your shoes off??!?! I couldnt imagine!



You can only get frostbite if its below 32 degrees. :cool:
 
I spend around 30 minutes to wash and dry the car. I have a wife and kids and 30 minutes is too long for my wife.:grinno: I have my kids hose off the car and I use the two bucket system with a sponge. My kids like to help so I usually let them have their own bucket and sponge. I skip dressing the wheels and vacuuming my car, which is an additional 30 minutes. I would love to spend more time on my vehicle but circumstances dictate otherwise. I have recently joined like you and want to make my cars the best they can be. This site is awesome for the amount of insights into detailing. My task in the spring will be to try the Autoglym polish by hand to remove the swirls that I have accumulated over the years. I am of the opinion that if it takes you 4 hours and you enjoyed it, than it's all good. If you didn't enjoy it then there are methods on this site that can reduce your time to where it is again, pleasurable.
 
It takes me a minimum of 2 hours, and that's on a pretty clean vehicle.



That's working so fast that it's aerobically demanding, and I'm in shape. That's working with both hands. That's not wasting a single moment. If I could do it any faster without compromising my results I sure would!



The wheels/tires/wheelwells/undercarriage take over 30 minutes easy, sometimes a lot longer than that. Sure, I do those surfaces at every wash (but just a quickie job on the Blazer). Cleaning the suspension takes a while, as does cleaning around each of the wheel lugs and doing the back sides of the wheels. On some wheels I have to use little swabs to clean around the valvestems. Takes time to jack each side of the vehicle up too (don't have to do that on every vehicle though).



Doing the regular exterior goes pretty fast, even with my foamgun-centric approach (one pass with the BHB, one-two passes with mitts, inspect, spot-clay and rewash as needed). But the engine compartment and doorjambs (again, I do these at every wash) take a little while. On the Audis I have to remove some under-hood cladding to gain access. On the minivan and Blazer I have to move my work platforms around to do the roof.



The basic drying takes a little time, but what *really* takes a long while is blowing all the water out of nooks and crannies with the air compressor. Some vehicles like the Blazer retain a lot of water, it took me over half an hour to do it last time. Drying around the hinges in the doorjambs and trunk goes slow on every vehicle.



And then I have to clean up the shop and set it up for next time :rolleyes:
 
I spend about 1.5 hours, but I like to thoroughly wash the wheels and tires and then dress the tires. I find that cleaning the wheels takes about 20 minutes and making sure all the nooks and crannies get dry takes a while.
 
SVR said:
Gee I reckon a wash that fast would induce some swirls, unless it is very fast no pressure gliding of mitt over surface and using multiple mitts.



When I washed at home, about 30 mins to wash, 40 minutes to dry, QD and dress tyres

Now it's 3 minutes 30 seconds for a high pressure only wash and rinse, 25 minutes to dry, all with far less marring than when I washed at home.
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What does taking only 20 minutes to wash a truck have to do with inducing swirls. I'm not an anal weekend warrior that can take that kind of time to wash a truck. I'm careful not to install swirls when i wash, but its not the #1 thing on my mind though. If i do, well than i'll just polish them out when it comes that time to do a full detail.



I hope the people who take 2 hours just to wash the outside are not in the detailing business, you couldn't make any money. You gonna spend 2+ hours just to make 30 bucks lol
 
TrueDetailer said:
.. I'm not an anal weekend warrior that can take that kind of time to wash a truck. I'm careful not to install swirls when i wash, but its not the #1 thing on my mind though. If i do, well than i'll just polish them out when it comes that time to do a full detail.



I hope the people who take 2 hours just to wash the outside are not in the detailing business, you couldn't make any money...
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If a (local) pro could wash my vehicles as well as I can (and without any marring), I'd consider paying whatever he asked. If, OTOH, a pro marred my vehicles, I wouldn't care *how* cheap his prices are. Oh well, if the customers are happy then the pro is satisfying his target market, and I don't seem to be the targeted customer of any pros in my area (their loss IMO but I guess they don't mind).



When I wash a vehicle for somebody else, I work to satisfy *their* standards, which are almost always a lot lower than mine (though when I was detailing for the local dealership I worked *many* hours off the clock, whatever it took to do the job right). So it's not like I couldn't wash one as fast as the next guy if that met the goal. But I'm not gonna treat *my* stuff that way and I wouldn't want anybody else to either.



Heh heh, I don't consider myself "an anal weekend warrior" just because I do everything in life to the best of my ability ;) I'd prefer a term like "talented amateur", like the folks who compete in the Olympics :D
 
For me, at least an hour and 15 minutes. On some soft black paint, I will rinse a mitt 3-4 times per panel, which equates to about an hour and 45 minutes(including wheels and tires). It usually takes me 20-30 minutes for wheels and tires(tire cleaning, wheel cleaning in and out, and well cleaning), about 30-40 minutes for the actual washing, and 20 minutes for drying. I can't see how you can wash a car in 30 minutes and not induce marring.
 
It takes me about 45 minutes doing a conventional wash, and right at an hour using ONR. Both times include: wash, dry, wheels, tires, tire wet, QD, and glass. I have a fairly small car though.
 
You think mine sounds long for all I do? I personally feel it's very quick....even a little quicker sometimes when I use the leafblower. People spending 2 hours or more......that I can't understand. I would have to move at a snails pace to take that long and I'm extra percautious as it is.
 
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