My dads car was actually damaged by a touch car wash. One of the brushes caught on the edge of his hood and folded over the hood metal. It was a huge pain, had to fight the car wash company to pay for the damage (they eventually did) and even still you can tell where it was repaired. Plus they wouldnt pay for color matching so he had to pay out of pocket for that.

Between that and the possibility of some tiny rock or grain of sand being caught in a brush and scratching the heck out of my car, I now only ever use touchless or wash it myself if the weather is warm. Im in upstate NY where we get pretty cold winters, so whenever it dips above freezing ill run through the touchless just for the underbody spray to get the road salt off

I would never use a soft touch car wash. At best it's going to put small micro scratches in the paint. At worst it's going to put actual scratches in the paint.

Always touchless, but some film will still remain and the vehicle needs a hand washing once in a while.

When cleaning off salt with a touchless carwash find one that has the under body spray.

I do touchless, and I don't bother with anything beyond the basic wash option. That tricolor foam stuff looks fun while you're in there, but idk how much good it actually does.

I don't care about my car looking shiny and clean, but I've driven hail cars exclusively for the last 15ish years. I try keeping them rinsed off at all times to avoid anything gnarly festering in paint cracks or whatever. Every third or fourth fill-up, I'll run the car through the cheap $8-10 touchless wash, even (especially) during Minnesota winters.

I think hand-washing is the only way to go if we want our cars clean looking, but who am I trying to impress, you know?

With Soft touch you risk that the caked on mud will scratch your paint as it's best of you're car rr that the previous guys mud is still stuck on the soft touch brush. If you have any non stock exterior accessories, they may get ripped off by the car wash as it flails your car clean.

Touch less it's just water cleaning your car. Sometimes you need a scrub. Think of how some things get clean in a mediocre dishwasher and some things you have to scrub clean before that go into the dishwasher.

I'll use whatever's available. Though I have a preference for the soft touch as it cleans better.

I use this guide made by ChrisFix on YouTube and it doesn’t require much effort after the first wash. I only “deep clean” once a year

Touch less or hand

If nothing touches my car, what's cleaning it? 🤔

Neither. The racks on my car mean I can't use a conventional brush carwash, and there isn't a "touchless" car wash within 100 miles of me.

Going to probably be the oddball but I daily drive a Maserati and go with touch everytime. Specifically 'EverClean' car wash, a chain that recently started popping up in my area.

It's a monthly subscription (another one I know) but for like 15$ unlimited full service washes, and I've never had an issue.

People scoff when I say I take it through auto car washes, but the reality is unless some major cosmetic damage happens, the "swirling" or scratches arent an issue.