Worst washing/drying techniques ever witnessed
 

So 2 days ago i am my route ( im a mail man :D ) and i deliver to my most hated place ever " DIY car wash" the ones with the brushes not the touchless automatic ones, and i see an older couple 50+ drying there look to be a 2013-14 dodge caravan at first i thought nothing of it then i saw what they where drying i mean SCRUBBING! there paint with......newspaper....now i give them the benfit of the doubt being older but newspaper? Windows and all lol i wanted to tell them just drive the car instead of ruining the pretty grey but i kept it to my self.

So how about you guys, whats the craziest thing you have ever seen at a car wash or any where?

ive seen a guy at one of those DIY washes washing his car while it was pouring and hailing out :egads:

From what I've read from time to time, newspaper used to be of a cloth-ish material. The people you observed most likely grew up with that and haven't grown out of it. My research years ago showed some threads recommending newspaper as glass towels and QD towels

bucket of water and paper towels.... started at the bottom and worked up.....

I'm fiftyish, I'm a gear head, and I don't use newspapers to scrub the car. But what you saw are not "old" ignorant people, but people who see cars as transportation and nothing else. There's nothing wrong with that. Their interests lie somewhere else. They probably laugh at those who spend hours and lots of $$$$$$ trying to get the perfect finish, only to have some ignorant bird poop on it. I think they're blessed.

Never said they where ignorant for using newspaper

i told my ex rubbing compound would take out a scratch.
her: whats rubbing compound?
me: its like comet, it has grit in it to wear down the paint
her: uh ok, walks away
20 minutes later its been quiet and i haven't seen her, i look out the window
and she has a scotch bright dish scrub and a can of comet going at it on her paint

lol what an idiot.

You did not. I used the word as in "clueless", which could have been a less offensive term. The thing is that my neighbor did something almost as bad: use dishwashing liquid to wash his cars, and he'd kid me about my (former) fastidiousness. When he passed away I discovered he had acquired a few millions in wise investments, on top of his 30+ years as the city's school district superintendent. He saw his vehicles as mere transportation, as tools, while I saw mine as something more. It was only after he was gone that I realized that he was right and I was wrong, and I now enjoy my cars even more. But bottom line is I didn't set out to demean what you said in any way. What I did set out to say, however, is that maybe, just maybe, there's something to be learned from those folks.

Jellybean

My worst case was close to home. An uncle, in fact. He called asking for a little help with a paint issue on his new light blue Ford. He had driven it down a stretch of freshly oiled gravel roadbed and got a lot of it all over the paint. I had him stop over to find he had tried cleaning off the oil with a Brillo pad. He had done half of the right front fender and it was now a lovely flat matt blue. I was able to polish it out pretty well except for a few deeper rids. I asked him what he was thinking. He said the spots weren't coming off with a shop rag and some dish soap.

I was away from the house one day and my wife got it into her head to wax her car.

When I came home, there was a white Toyota in my driveway. I thought, "That's funny, my wife's Toyota is red".

It turns out she had covered the entire car in wax. By the time she had finished coating the rear, the front had dried too hard for her to remove, so she decided to leave it until I came home.

Six hours later.

By the time I got to deal with it the entire car was covered in rock hard wax. There was no way it was coming off by hand with a rag. After a couple of hours with a wax removal pad on my orbital polisher, her car was finally red again. :egads:

this has got to be the best one...:egads:

+1... i totally agreed with this young man. although i do see my car as more than transportation. if you don't take care of her she won't take care of you.

Newpapers on glass is the best :/ I grew up with that around my house and it's streak free and gets rid of that pile of newspaper.

This used to work when the newspapers didn't use soy based ink, now its not worth a damn.