Car washes -- and a way of thinking about "paying for convenience"

[obstinate]

I recently posted this to my Facebook. I thought it might be interesting, if old-hat, to this audience.

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So we live in rich-town CA, where (it seems) no one washes their own car. Hard to motivate yourself to when the mortgage/rent is so relatively large. In fact, I made a post a year ago where I claimed that paying for carwashes was nonsense, but I'm so inured to the idea that one does not wash their own car that I didn't even consider that third possibility.

Well, with the lack of rain and lack of washing, my car is now well and truly gross. To the point where even I can't tolerate it. So that changes today.

But I'm still not paying to get it washed. I'm washing it myself. And for all you lazy folks like me out there who had been paying to get your car washed, try this exercise and see what you come out with. The goal is to motivate you to get off your butt and get out there with a bucket and a sponge. Here's my line of thinking:

It takes (liberally) about half an hour to wash your car if you do a reasonably thorough job without waxing. It takes about ten minutes to get your car washed at a moderate-service type place, including the detour, waiting in line, paying, etc. So the net cost in time of washing your own car is about twenty minutes.

Around here, it costs about $15 to get your car washed at a mid-tier place. Multiply this by your marginal tax rate to get a pre-tax rate. Rather than disclose mine, I'm just going to use 35% -- not at all a hard number to hit in California. Multiply by three (60 min/hr / 20 min) to get the hourly, pre-tax saving rate of washing your own car.

In my scenario, this comes out to $60/hr pre-tax. If you could get paid the same rate on a yearly basis, that would be $125k/y. That's pretty good return on investment! So, yeah, from now on, I'll be washing my car.

Please don't ask me to apply the same logic to mowing my own lawn. I don't want to think about that right now. D:

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I think this is a good way to think about a lot of the conveniences we might choose to pay for or might choose to do ourselves. That is, if I translate this number into the yearly rate I would get paid if I did it full-time, does it really make sense to pay someone else to do it?

In fact, for me, this number is somewhat below my normal hourly rate. But a Mustachian can get a lot more out of this than mere savings. I feel a warm glow in my heart right now when I think about how I got off my lazy ass and did this work. I know for a lot of you work like this comes as easy as breathing, but I am truly a lazy person, so it's an accomplishment for me. Don't judge :). It feels good to exercise this muscle, so if that motivates someone else here to wash their own car, good!

[Blatant]

Aren't you in the midst of a drought?

[obstinate]

Yep. :)

[Papa bear]

Just another reason to raise the cost of water out in California...


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[SwordGuy]

Here's to helping you get motivated for car washes.  It's a scene from Cool Hand Luke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veCZvM6-okQ

[obstinate]

Realistically, washing my car used less water than a single day's worth of lawn watering. And we are still allowed to do that twice a week. And residential usage in turn is only a fifth of CA water usage. I wouldn't worry about that too much, y'all.

[lbmustache]

I live in an HOA/condo that has banned washing your own car because of the mess people leave behind (soap, residue, water everywhere).

Also, isn't a big reason to not wash your car yourself the run-off? It goes into the sewers which go into the ocean?

[obstinate]

There's always more you can do. I am comfortable with the balance I've struck for reducing my environmental impact.

[The_path_less_taken]

Zero impact would be to find some idiot (probably corporate) who has their sprinklers set high enough to impact the street slightly...and just park there once a week.

Or make sure you get a white or silver car: you can go a long time before those look bad. A black car looks dirty in a day.

[Tetsuya Hondo]

Sell your car and buy a POS that's so ugly that it doesn't matter if you ever wash it.

Problem solved.

[Playing with Fire UK]

Does the Fire Department ever do a charity car wash? I justify this because it is going to a good cause (split sick kiddies and injured fire fighters).

I would also ask (seems like it might not work for your but I haven't washed my silver car for months, and only bother when the roads are salted in winter), how decent of a job could you do in 10 minutes? Then it would be time neutral (not effort neutral tho) and you would be paying yourself a huge (tending toward infinity but undefined) amount per hour.

[ketchup]

I'm pretty sure the last time I washed either of our cars was sometime last year.  A few weeks ago, some bird shit all over my car.  Luckily, it rained pretty hard the day after.  Nature giveth the filth, and nature taketh away.

[CanuckExpat]

I live in an HOA/condo that has banned washing your own car because of the mess people leave behind (soap, residue, water everywhere).

Also, isn't a big reason to not wash your car yourself the run-off? It goes into the sewers which go into the ocean?

Yes. Your car is a mess of paints, oils, greases, etc.
If you wash your car yourself it goes down the driveway, through the storm drain, and into your local water system untreated.
Commercial car washes in most jurisdiction are required to filter their waste water before discharging it.

You can buy things that let you get a similar effect at home, but most people don't do that. Washing your car on your grass or other porous surface would mitigate the harm a bit because it will get filtered by the plants similar to a wetland (ashphalt and concrete are non porous).

If you are in a drought area, a commercial car wash will probably also be forced to use recycled water, which you probably don't have ready access to.

My solution is mainly just not to wash my car :)
We don't drive it much, and it doesn't get dirty.

If you mainly ride your bike, it cleans off easier and the residue isn't as toxic either :)

[use2betrix]

Most "self serve" car washes can spray down your vehicle quickly and efficiently for around $3-$4, with way better pressure than any garden hose.

[mm1970]

I live in an HOA/condo that has banned washing your own car because of the mess people leave behind (soap, residue, water everywhere).

Also, isn't a big reason to not wash your car yourself the run-off? It goes into the sewers which go into the ocean?

Yes - runoff and drought are the two big enviromental reasons why Californians should not be washing their own cars.  (My car is filthy, by the way).  Whether there are "other things you can do or not" - tell that to the people in the desert whose wells have dried up completely.

I live at the Coast, and soap and residue going into the ocean is a big deal.  As is the water.  Car washes recycle their water.  I figure if I'm water-wise enough to save my shower water to water my plants, why would I wash my car and let it run into the ocean?

Ironically, it's raining right now.

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

I live in an HOA/condo that has banned washing your own car because of the mess people leave behind (soap, residue, water everywhere).

Also, isn't a big reason to not wash your car yourself the run-off? It goes into the sewers which go into the ocean?

Yes. Your car is a mess of paints, oils, greases, etc.
If you wash your car yourself it goes down the driveway, through the storm drain, and into your local water system untreated.
Commercial car washes in most jurisdiction are required to filter their waste water before discharging it.

You can buy things that let you get a similar effect at home, but most people don't do that. Washing your car on your grass or other porous surface would mitigate the harm a bit because it will get filtered by the plants similar to a wetland (ashphalt and concrete are non porous).

If you are in a drought area, a commercial car wash will probably also be forced to use recycled water, which you probably don't have ready access to.

My solution is mainly just not to wash my car :)
We don't drive it much, and it doesn't get dirty.

If you mainly ride your bike, it cleans off easier and the residue isn't as toxic either :)

I used to wash my car on the grass, back when it was worth washing. Then it does not go right into the storm drains. These days, it would just be embarrassing to wash it.

[expatartist]

If you insist on washing your car at home, this article has some tips on how to save water/cut down pollution: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/3-big-reasons-why-you-should-not-wash-your-car-at-home.html

[rocketpj]

I live on the Wet coast of BC.  I haven't washed my car in 5 years, I just don't park it under the carport (which is where the winter clothesline is hung). 

PNW/West Coast BC carwash is known as 'weather'.

[Argyle]

I didn't know anybody paid for washing their car, apart from fancy detailing stuff that's not for mustachians.  Around here you get a free carwash when you fill your gas tank.

[obstinate]

If you insist on washing your car at home, this article has some tips on how to save water/cut down pollution: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/3-big-reasons-why-you-should-not-wash-your-car-at-home.html

I don't know how you could possibly use that much water to wash your car without just leaving the hose running. That is illegal where I live -- you can be fined heavily for doing so. I would estimate based on how long my nozzle took to fill my bucket that I used 10-15 ga on washing my car. One thing I did learn from this thread that I will implement in the future is to dump leftover soapy water down one of the drains in the house rather than onto the sidewalk. That seems like a low-effort way to reduce the already low impact of this new habit.

[Goldielocks]

Realistically, washing my car used less water than a single day's worth of lawn watering. And we are still allowed to do that twice a week. And residential usage in turn is only a fifth of CA water usage. I wouldn't worry about that too much, y'all.

Yeah, but I want industry to use water, i like washed veggies at the market, and clean food factories...I don't care so much about your car.

[obstinate]

Then pay more for those things. Personally I like imported veggies and care little for pistachios. Your preferences are no more my problem than mine are yours. :)

[Fishindude]

I don't know the facts, but would almost bet that the high efficiency new car was equipment uses less water than you will doing it with a bucket and hose.

[reader2580]

Many cities in times of water shortages have banned at home car washes.  They still allow commercial car washes because they supposedly use less water.  Some car washes recycle some of the water too.

In the climate I live in you pretty much can't wash your car yourself in the winter.  The cheapest wash with under chassis wash costs $6 here.  For those who are not mustachian and drive their cars in the winter the cost of a car wash every week or two can be less than the damage over time caused by the salt.

[MrsPete]

Maybe I'm just extra-slow about it, but I can't wash my car in 30 minutes.  Because I do it so seldom, finding a bucket, etc. seems to take me forever.  Then I'm all wet and have to go change clothes.  If I did this regularly, I suppose I'd keep materials handy /all in one place, and I'd be more efficient. 

I wouldn't go to a mid-tier place (well, maybe I would if I'd hit a skunk or something).  I can go to the cheap drive-though car wash for $4.  I never get anything except the cheapest wash.  And then the vacuums are free, though you have to do the work yourself. 

[dailycycle]

I live in CA, too.  There are restrictions on water use, including that we're not allowed to wash cars at home.  You'll see a lot of dirty cars on the road right now.

[Orvell]

I don't regularly wash my car (lazy as well as cheap), but I always heard it was basically a part of responsible maintenance to make sure the under body got washed/rinsed in areas of the world (aka the north USA in particular...) where salt is used on the roads.
Do people wash the under of their car themselves?? Or is this a myth?

[Playing with Fire UK]

I use a pressure washer connected to a water butt to spray the underside of my car after driving on salted roads.

[Leisured]

I live in Australia, and self serve car washes charge by the minute, so you can use a car wash for two minutes,at a dollar a minute, and switch your nozzle from soap to water when you want. I have always regarded such car washes as a licence to print money, even though they charge a dollar a minute, a notch below self serve storage facilities, and so a Mustachian investment. In Australia, self serve car washes are Mustachian.

[music lover]

Winters here get to -35 so washing the car yourself is impossible. In winter I spend $3 or $4 a couple times a month at a hand wand place just to rinse the salt/road crud off the vehicle. When it's above freezing I wash it in the driveway....I have a well and there are no storm drains so any runoff just soaks into my gravel driveway.

[TheAnonOne]

I guess it depends on what kind of car you have.

For my daily, I just do w/e or don't wash it at all, I don't really car if it gets swirl marks (which you will get in a 30 minute wash, just simply isn't enough time to do it 'right')

For my un-mmm car washing it can take 2ish hours. Which includes using the 2 bucket method on the paint + a separate bucket for the wheels. It also gets a quick layer of detail spray and once every year or so a full wax.

I do all of this myself, but on none of those cars has the paint had a swirl mark and I intend to keep it that way.

The costs are negligible.

[TheAnonOne]

Winters here get to -35 so washing the car yourself is impossible. In winter I spend $3 or $4 a couple times a month at a hand wand place just to rinse the salt/road crud off the vehicle. When it's above freezing I wash it in the driveway....I have a well and there are no storm drains so any runoff just soaks into my gravel driveway.

I'm with you on this boat. Luckily a local 'no touch' car wash sells 5 for $20 on occasion and I get those. I may run it through once every 2-4 weeks. I generally, don't worry about it though, when it's that cold the salt can't react anyway.