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      01-18-2022, 06:47 AM   #1
DrPartagas
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Best Color Paint for Machine Car Wash?

People in my family tend to take the car to a drive-thru car wash on occasion.

Which color paint might best mask any imperfections caused by a drive-through car wash? I'm thinking white metallic exterior.

Any thoughts? Laziness is sometimes difficult to control.
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      01-18-2022, 07:28 AM   #2
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White is definitely going to be the safest. I do not know if/how the paint has changed, but my F10 550i in what is probably most similar to the current Dark Graphite held up pretty well, especially for a dark color (but the machine wash would have been so occasional, not a good comparison). I'm following this thread as well out of curiosity.
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      01-18-2022, 11:05 AM   #3
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In my experience, white seemed to be the easiest to maintain. All the darker colored vehicles I had would show all the imperfections in the paint much more easily.
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      01-18-2022, 11:14 AM   #4
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Ditto to other comments here - My white cars (all brands including BMW) have fared best. Even metallic white. And a good detail brings them back close to new.
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      01-18-2022, 02:03 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPartagas View Post

People in my family tend to take the car to a drive-thru car wash on occasion.
White ... but that's terrifying.

There aren't too many scenarios where I'd consider full-car PPF but this would be one of them.
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      01-18-2022, 04:20 PM   #6
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Normal bright silver will look the best the longest, has the advantages of being a light color, without the disadvantages of a pure background.

Without regular full-detailing, white will start "staining" if you live anywhere with salt/road chemicals.
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      01-18-2022, 05:41 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPartagas View Post
People in my family tend to take the car to a drive-thru car wash on occasion.

Which color paint might best mask any imperfections caused by a drive-through car wash? I'm thinking white metallic exterior.

Any thoughts? Laziness is sometimes difficult to control.
I had mineral white on my g30. Admit to hitting the tunnel wash a few times. Only had it for 2.5 years, but it held up very well.

Had a 4Runner before that, it was pearl white…very similar to BMW's mineral white. Beat the hell out of the paint on that vehicle…a wash and light polish and it looked brand new.
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      01-18-2022, 06:51 PM   #8
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My wife's white 540 gets tannin stains continually from the seeds that our redwood trees drop, even if I park it pretty far away from them. Damn seeds blow around like crazy, we get a little fog overnight, seeds get wet, and BOOM! little red spots/rings all over the place. They do not come off with a hand wash. I end up have to clay bar the thing every couple of months if I want it to look good.

Never had that problem with silver, though. For sure they were there, but you couldn't see them.
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      01-19-2022, 05:26 AM   #9
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We had a mineral white G05, ran it through the tunnel plenty of times without any issues
Got a Manhattan Green G06 and decided to go the handwash route, found couple of shops not too far that do that

Last edited by 2dangerous; 01-20-2022 at 04:48 AM..
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      01-19-2022, 08:11 AM   #10
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Hilariously, half the time I do not go through the tunnel because the car needs to be washed. It is because my 4 year old enjoys it so much and I am so bad at saying no. It's a weird little ritual for us. So I can relate to trying to get a paint color that will hide that a bit. In my experience, even with black cars, anything that a modern car wash does details out relatively easily.
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      01-19-2022, 12:44 PM   #11
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I tunnel wash our White X5s, probably 2x a week on average. I know, I know, I used to be super anal, but with kids and busy schedules, this is just a lot easier and I rarely keep them past 3 years anyways.

Anyways, White shows almost nothing unless you're under a bright lamp, and the modern washes tend to use fillers that hide any swirls for the first few days after a wash anyways. Other than White or Silver, I'd prob not be brave enough to do it, hence why my last 4 cars have been white.
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      01-19-2022, 01:07 PM   #12
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My MW x5 used machine wash for 3 years.
There is no any paint problems.
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      01-19-2022, 01:17 PM   #13
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White, Silver and light greys
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      01-19-2022, 05:28 PM   #14
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I have a dumb question.
How do you wash your car if not machine wash?

Hand wash by yourself? It's forbiden in our city. (not fully but you cannot do it on your driveway.)
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      01-19-2022, 06:24 PM   #15
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Hand wash in the garage :-)
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      01-19-2022, 07:24 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blake6551 View Post
I tunnel wash our White X5s, probably 2x a week on average. I know, I know, I used to be super anal, but with kids and busy schedules, this is just a lot easier and I rarely keep them past 3 years anyways.

Anyways, White shows almost nothing unless you're under a bright lamp, and the modern washes tend to use fillers that hide any swirls for the first few days after a wash anyways. Other than White or Silver, I'd prob not be brave enough to do it, hence why my last 4 cars have been white.
This…

Life is way too busy for wasting my time washing cars. I do spend extra time at the marina detailing my boat after every use though…ha!

We drive SUVs, not Bugattis.
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      01-20-2022, 05:41 AM   #17
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I suspect a high quality ceramic paint treatment is a great insurance policy for protecting paint.
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      01-20-2022, 07:56 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gqgambler View Post
White, Silver and light greys
Agreed. Since the standard colors on G05 are limited, I would only go with Alpine White or Mineral White to be safe. If there was a light silver or light grey option, those would work too.
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      01-20-2022, 08:44 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Luminor513 View Post
Agreed. Since the standard colors on G05 are limited, I would only go with Alpine White or Mineral White to be safe. If there was a light silver or light grey option, those would work too.
No standard silver on the G05. Standard greys are Artic and Dravit, which are both on the darker side. There are special order colors that add 12 weeks to production.
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      01-21-2022, 02:56 PM   #20
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I would always prefer looking at a color that I like (but with imperfections from machine washes in the paint) over perfect paint in a color that I don't much care for.

But that's just me, and I also prefer "nice but dirty and washing imperfections" over "boring color, but clean and perfect paint".
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