Bay Area Autopians help?

[admac]

okay, so i live in an apartment in the city (san francisco). i scoped out a couple of the coin-op diy carwashes in the city and they are, charitably speaking, in "interesting" parts of town. and the facilities were a bit short of disgusting. not exactly where i want to be spending a lot of time detailing a new m3.

are there any nice coin-op carwashes in the area? even if i have to drive 15 miles to get to someplace nice it would be worth it to me. anyone have any experience with a nicer coin op place in the general vicinity? thanks.

[gti]

I have not used one but take a look at these:
http://yp.yahoo.com/py/ypResults.py?...22.417068&cs=4

There is one in daly city.

[carguy]

FYI - I used to use coin-ops - I'd bring a mit, and pretty much use them for their space as well as to get soapy water on the car and rinse it off. I rinsed my mitt with the wand, but only the mitt touched the car.

TWO WARNINGS

1. The pressure is high enough to cause serious injury - I sprayed the mitt on my hand and managed to spray the inside of my wrist - it broke the skin. Hurt like crazy. I was LUCKY - you can get serious infections this way because this stuff can penetrate DEEP.

2. Although I USUALLY had good luck, you must know that this water is "recycled". You have no idea how often they clean their filters, and you have no idea what stuff people have washed off their cars prior to your using that water. Could be parts cleaner, battery acid, god knows what. Anyway - even though I pulled the car out and went to dry immediately, I got some horrendous water spots once, and I attribute it to some bad, bad, bad stuff in their water.

Do you know anyone in the area with a house? Would they let you use their hose? I think this is infinitely preferable.

[Sharkie]

There’s a coin-op here in Marin in San Rafael. It’s on Vivian way I think. It’s not the best neighborhood but it’s close to east Francisco Blvd and I certainly feel safe there. It’s pretty close to Sonnen BWM actually. They don’t allow car washing at my apartment building either but luckily my mom lives close by (I can do laundry at the same time!) but I feel your pain. Might be a bit far but you can go check it out, hit Sonnen and then go back the long way over Mt. Tamalpais.



Good luck

SJS

[admac]

hmm. thanks for the heads-up on the recycled water greg. did not know that. the real bummer of it is that i have a house in los angeles, but i think you'd all agree that 400 miles is a long way to go to wash your car and it's probably be dirty when you got back anyway. LOL. i guess i may just stick to using a couple buckets in front of my apartment building. they don't forbid washing vehicles, i've washed my bike there a few times, it's just that i'm limited to the amount of water that i feel like trudging up and down the elevator. maybe it's still the best bet though.

i guess none of the coin ops are in nice parts of town because it's just a bad return on investment real-estatewise. i guess i was just hoping for one in sausalito with a nice view of the bay. looks like i'll stick to my buckets.

[Dude]

The water quality at coin-ops varies tremendously. You might want to try a few until you find one that has good water.

[Ed]

I think there may still be a coin-op washer on Geary near Collins (which is near Masonic), which is a pretty good neighborhood. If it's still there, it's on the south side of Geary, with traffic heading east, somewhere between Parker and Masonic.

Let me know if you find it.

(And I'm not talking about the car wash at the Shell station, which you definitely want to avoid. There is (or used to be) a coin-op a few blocks east from there.)

Good luck!

[admac]

ed, is that a good neighborhood? i always heard western addition was a bit sketchy. but maybe that's old news. the other one i checked out was at 801 bryant, near my motorcycle dealership. yikes. not fun. i'll check out the masonic and geary one. thanks.

jeff