I have never taken any of my high end cars to carwash. I always do hand wash at home. Having said that, my new EQS is going to be a daily family hauler and we take it everywhere and I can't spend time cleaning it myself. I used to have a monthly membership for unlimited wash in my local area (Soapy Joe in San Diego). Any concerns of taking this car through automatic carwash?

 

Fasten your seat belt, bpans! You've just sparked a religion debate ;-)
As for me, I ordered a light color (silver) in part because I intend to use automatic car washes from time to time...and the resulting minute scratches will not be as visible as they might be on dark colors.

 

I use touchless only and have it hand dried. No issues.

 

I have 12 cars in my stable and with business have absolutely no time anymore for hand washing my modern cars. I run the EQS 580 SUV through a local car wash as I do other cars and have no problems. Years ago I used a touch less car wash for one of my trucks and after 2 years the paint had worn in places that were obvious. Touch less uses acids and harsher detergents to make up for no brushes and the newer car washes with brushes are much, much softer than they were even 10 years ago.

My older cars from 1919 to 1958 I do hand wash but they are not on the road much and stay a lot cleaner than my daily use newer vehicles….

 

I had ours ceramic coated after purchase and did several hand washes before a grew tired of it. I've taken ours through the car was many times and the ceramic is doing a great job and holding up well. BTW, our EQS 580 SUV is black!

 

I did not know that! Thank you!!

 

ok, I am going to try it out today. I will activate the carwash mode and take it through the car wash. Our car color is polar white. My previous SUV is also white and it does a good job of hiding any streaks.

 

We are fortunate here in my part of Texas to have the Bucees drive ins with over 100 gas pumps, 24 Tesla charging stations, restrooms cleaned every 15 minutes and traveling supplies and fast food galore! They also have the World record 1/8 mile long car washes that do a fantastic job. I’ve seen a employee stick his arm into one of the large rolling brushes just for fun. They are very gentle. Here is one under construction.
Also 30 car vacuum stations.

 

Very impressive!

 

Damn, that's like a theme park for cars
We need one here!

 

You could fit 20 Swedish automatic car washes inside that one...
Maybe the Swedes are more efficient?

 

The manager at our local Katy, Texas Bucees told me they run 600-700 cars a day through the car wash at his location.

 

Everything is bigger in Texas!

 

I recently had a talk with the manager of my automatic wash. We talked about the best strategy for not damaging my cars (one black and two white). He said to come as early in the morning as possible, as the equipment is power washed overnight, and gets the gunk/rocks/debris out. He said soccer moms and people on their way to work usually come in the morning, and very dirty work trucks start showing up later in the day--the worst possible time you could take in your EQS. My black CL550 was getting swirl marks--he said to ask for "retract all", which means there will be no brushes applied during the trip through the tunnel. I've also started asking for retract all in my white EQS if it is not very dirty--the now touchless wash does fine under such circumstances.

 

I had my silver E-Wagon through the car wash twice last year, then realized the washing process takes the wax off..
No more of that: I use a boat wax that that is made to hold up in a constant sun and salt environment for 6 to 9 months in
Florida, but the car wash is strips it right off.
Hand wash only now, but most of the time it is just a fresh water rinse and dry as the wax works almost as good as
ceramic coating, nothing sticks to it.

(I don't sell it, don't have stock in the company either)

 

I run my S Class through a carwash. Does it scratch it up? Yup. Do I care? Not really. Have it polished out and detailed once a year and it will look great. No time for hand washing or taking it to or waiting on a detailer to come hand wash it.

 

my MB dealership offered me the ceramic coating..is that really worth it?

 

Worth it to have but probably not what the dealership will typically ask for, get it done somewhere else.

 

I’d bet the dealership farms the job out to a independent and tacks on a charge for themselves.

 

Yup precisely.

 

yeah they wanted to charge about 2k for ceramic coating and door protection

 

I ceramic coated my car myself using Avalon King products. I gave the paint a very good cleaning and then put two coats of ceramic on the paint. It cost me $65 to do it myself. And it didn’t take me that long to do it.

 

Good to hear, I guess no need to paint correct either? Did you at least clayed it?

 

Either way since dealership contracts it out better off paying less from a shop you find youself.

 

You don’t need to correct the paint, but you do need to clay, and do some sort of paint prep, a light polish or something and then do an IPA wipe down.