Car Wash Girls

Protectants vary by manufacturer. Near the rinse is where a tire shining machine is often installed, which is designed to apply silicone tire dressing to the tires. This application makes the tires look good (new, and glossy) and preserves the rubber. Next the vehicle is treated with a drying agent and a final rinse. Many carwashes utilize a "spot free" rinse of soft water that has been filtered of chlorine and sent through semi permeable membranes to produce highly purified water that will not leave spots. After using spot free water, the vehicle is finished with forced air drying, in some cases utilizing heat to produce a very dry car.
Older automatic washes - a majority of which were built prior to 1980 - used to use brushes with soft nylon bristles, which tended to leave a nylon deposit in the shape of a bristle, called brushmarks, on the vehicle's paint. Many newer washes in the US are either cloth (which is not harmful to a car's finish, as long as it is flushed with plenty of water to remove the grit from previous washes) or a closed cell foam brush, which does not hold dirt or water, thus is far less likely to harm any painted finish. Closed cell foam brushes can, in fact, provide a gentle polishing effect that will shine the vehicle's surface during a wash.
In order to avoid paint marking issues, "touchless" (aka "touchfree" or "no-touch") car washes were developed. A touchless car wash uses high water pressure to clean the vehicle instead of brushes, minimizing the chance of surface damage to the vehicle. There are five primary factors to cleaning a vehicle successfully using a touchless system. These five factors are water quality, water temperature, chemistry, time, and water pressure generated by the equipment. If these factors are all set properly, vehicles will come out clean and shiny without the chance of vehicle damage caused by brushes.
At "full-service" car washes, the exterior of the car is washed mechanically with conveyorized equipment, or in some cases by hand, with attendants available to dry the car manually, and to clean the interior (normally consisting of cleaning the windows, wiping the front and side dashes, and vacuuming the carpet and upholstery). Many full service car washes also provide "detailing" services, which may include polishing and waxing the car's exterior by hand or machine, shampooing and steaming interiors, and other services to provide thorough cleaning and protection to the car.