Car wash?

I use a touchless for quick cleaning. When the weather is good, I hand wash. Twice a year, I do a full clay bar, polish, and seal with Chemical Guys JetSeal, applied with an orbital buffer.

 

I'm in Mass also...….

 

Good to know! Thanks!

 

I have taken my 2 month old 21 venture through car wash a couple of times without any problem. After reading messages here, I am not sure I will do that again

 

A touchless will be fine. Avoid soft-touch washes with a basket.

 

Hand wash tunnel car wash recommended regardless of roof rack or no rack. Number of cars go through tunnel car wash. Spinning brushes would take off dirt from all previous cars and re used on your 4Runner. Same as using same microfiber towels over and over. Using same bucket of water to rinse towel and use again and again. Seen small scratches on A pillar? This is the reason. 100% hand wash locations are recommended than tunnel car wash.

 

I have the Venture and had no issues when I put it through a car wash. The car wash I use is not one of those fully automated ones though.

 

I don't use automated car wash as it scratches the paint. Especially visible on darker colors like my blue runner.

 

Hand washes only for me. I'm 66 and still do it. Automatic washes = trouble. In the winter, I just use my pressure washer on the body and undercariage to remove any potential salt. They don't use salt very often though here in North Carolina.
Don't care if I don't have that mirror shine during winter months.

 

I still disagree with this. I've run every vehicle through automatic washes for the last 15 years and no trouble. I apply a quality wax periodically so the automatic wash doesn't really penetrate that.

If I lived on the south and had a good place to hand wash, I would probably do a hand wash and wax every few months and still use the automatic wash every week or so.

 

Giggity...penetrate

Touch less auto wash if anything for me

 

I do the touchless as well. We call the automatic with the brushes the "scratch-o-matic"

 

Never heard of any chain car washes.......like a chain of restaurants......."the mcdonalds of carwashes.we are mister car wash!"
I like it.
I second the guy that said. coin operated self service sprayers work nice.

 

I use those whenever I get it muddy. It works great, but gets expensive! I need to start using my own pressure washer.

 

From the suburbs of Chitown to the desert of SW New Mexico. Although, we very occasionally get snow, yet it usually melts in a few hours. We are only at 4500'.

 

So you guys that have added aftermarket roof racks how do you keep the roof portion of the 4runner clean? Seems like some of those racks have tight tolerances and would be hard to get under and keep it clean or from oxidation.

 

I’m a hand wash guy as well. Always have been. Although drying this thing with a rack is a pain in the ass lol

 

You need to do yourself a favor and get yourself an Adams Polishes Air Cannon. It will change your life lol

 

Ha!! I might have to look into it! It really is a pain to dry this thing

 

I have it and I love it. Hot, filtered air. It will dry that roof and rack in seconds. You won't even need to use a towel.

 

just looked it up!! I may have found my Christmas present to myself

 

Now Im curious to see how my air blower will do…

 

As others have said, I'd avoid car washes with brushes. While I suspect the odds of damage are on the low side (after all, that rack is built to withstand huge amounts of air pressure from simply driving at highway speeds) it's prob not worth the risk.

On this point, when I last went through an automated wash with brushes it apparently unseated the weather stripping on my roof above the driver door. I heard something flapping around up there while I was driving and sure enough about a 8-10 inches of the strip was dislodged from its channel, starting where the strip begins just above the windshield. I pushed it back in and it's stayed put in the several weeks since then -- but I also haven't been to another car wash.

 

Maybe try one of these..

 

There were some pictures of a while back of somebody's Gobi rack that got caught and bent in a car wash. The worst part about it was probably waiting like 16 months for another Gobi rack LOL!

 

Crazy! We were talking about that on the trail last weekend. Thankfully my car wash guys can (and do) turn off the upper brushes. They forgot once and popped the top right off my snorkel! Put it back on very easily, though. They do have a high-pressure overhead sprayer, though, which is nice. Especially when there's a bug gut infestation on my windscreen.

 

How dare you speak ill of Gobi

It was a Baja Rack that was bent from the car wash.

For the record, I've gone through a bunch of car washes with my Gobi and no issues.

 

I would think those brushes could bend any roof rack if they caught it right. I would only ever use a touch-free with my rack on.

 

Although North Carolina does not require a front liscense plate, my Runner originated in NY, so it has the mount, thus, holes in the bumper. Because of this, I decided to put a nice vanity plate on it.
Even though I'm very against automatic car washes, I ran it through our local wash anyway recently.
It ripped the tag AND mount completely off. . No more auto car washes for me!!!

 

I'm 71 and still doing a lot of the work. I go to the self serve wash first and do the tires and wheels, under-hood, splash pads. (but it's 10 miles each way). Then I take it to a fully automatic, brushless (also self-serve) which is only a mile and a half from where I live. It's called RAZOR. Does a great job for only $5.00 and dries most of the water off. They even have a bottom blaster that works well for $3.00 more. Then I drive it home the short one mile trip and finish drying it off. Especially inside and out of the tailgate area that really traps the water as most of you guys know. An air blower is especially handy for that tailgate area. Then I do the interior cleaning myself. Power wax/buff twice a tear. Like many of you guys, my garage looks more like a detail shop LOL.