My usual response to the auto car wash threads....
Would love to hand wash but who has the time? I have a summer car that is garaged year round and I can rarely wash that 3-4 times in a summer (haven't even washed it one time this summer!), so the truck is definitely out for hand washing. Add in the fact that my truck is not garaged all year (or at all), it is my daily driver, and has to go through northeast winters, it's auto car wash for the ram. All of my rams (4) have had auto car wash passes that I used regularly (and not even the touch free
), and I got top dollar for each one at trade in time, so apparently it's not doing that much damage on any of my vehicles.
That being said I only keep my trucks for 2-3 years (but until my current one, also bought slightly used trucks with around 20k miles) and I don't obsess or study my paint for defects. I know the truck is going to get some minimal wear and tear, but if you can keep it minimal in this part of the country, you're doing quite well.
Oh and also, we have a fair amount of birds around here dropping bombs from above. Without auto car washes my truck would look gross and drive me crazy, it's nice to take a 5-10 minute detour to the car wash rather than wash the thing by hand for however long that takes, especially if you had just washed it within the last few days. Damn birds.
All that being said I wish I could hand wash it, but reality doesn't allow that. Wish I could auto car wash my old car too, but that also is unrealistic.