Is CARC safe in car wash?

I heard somewhere that CARC will get scratched by a high pressure wash. I don't know if the car washes use high enough pressure to do this. Has anyone taken their CARC painted truck through a wash? They love road salt around here and I've just gotta get it off.
Thanks,

If the CARC is damaged by a car wash it wasn't applied correctly. It's one of the more bullet-proof coatings I've come across. (Just read some of the posts about what a 'treat' it is to remove) CARC is like a plastic coating when done right and is formulated that way to keep chemical agents from soaking into it and posing a hazard to troops after the vehicle returns from front line ops. As such I think road salt would have a hard time getting past the surface before you had a chance to 'decon' it with a stiff bristled scrub brush and hose-- which is how we clean 'em in the motor pool.
If you want to experiment, find an extra part, bracket, cover or whatever that's had CARC applied and test it with a pressure washer which puts out a lot more force than a car wash ever hoped to.

wash

The salt will not bother the CARC unless it can get thru cracks in a 20 year old paint job.

RE: wash

Since the size of the pressure washers the guard unit has here is awesome,and i would guess that the reason for CARC is also that when being cleaned under pressure it will retain its effectiveness, it would be highly unlikly that a pressure washer cold do anything to it, unless its cracked and flaking, that is probably the route of this problem, it blew off some paint that was chipping off, Randy

RE: wash

Chemical Agent Resistant Coating. Sums it up pretty well for me I would imagine that the deco process of scrubbing with Calcium Hypo Chlorate would not affect it either.. It was built for it.

RE: wash

CARC has a number of features that are hard to beat. It's roughly equal to an industrial-grade rhino-lining for the exterior and so forms a continuous plastic 'skin'. With the addition of various gritty additives like ground quartz and other nasties to it's formula, it's also IR scattering and non-photoreactive. Even though it comes out flat, it isn't absorbant; so nothing bad can stick and then leach out later.

RE: wash

Once upon a time, a long time ago - I worked for various manufacturers of high pressure cleaning equipment, eventually risiing to national sales manager for two, and working in product development for a third, so I'll chime in here.

If the CARC surface is in good shape, you'll have no problem with the washer itself. If the paint has cracked or chipped, or has underlying rust, a high pressure washer operating at four or more gallons per minute and 2000 PSI or more pressure can removed the damaged paint.

Most coin-op car washes are typically in the 4 gallon per minute 800-1400 PSI range. "Touchless" car washes use a great deal more volume of water, often at lower pressure.

A very hash alkaline cleaning chemical - such as an industrial degreaser - will remove oxidation from the paint. This is apparent particularly if you have done an uneven wash job, especially on the black - where there will be streaks. Some of the black will be "blacker" than the rest - the truly clean being jet black, and the oxidized having a bit of a gray tint to it. This doesn't effect the servicability of the paint, only the appearance. Certain acids can produce the same effect, but this aren't available to non-commercial users.

HTH,
David

RE: wash

I am pretty sure that the CARC will not damage the car wash or its operators unless they drink the effluent.

RE: wash

It survived many a hose down in the wash racks and when we first tried to paint our entire fleet to sand color for Desert Shield deployment in August 1990 the tanks were the first ones in line and they came out pink when they dried. Talk about complaints man I have never heard such whining even if I cancelled a movie for all four of my children. That stuff was only dry for about 24 hours and nothing would take if off short of sand blasting it. We had to repaint them all but they got in behind the Bradleys

the point is not if the carwash will damage the Paint, but if the CARC will damage the bristles of the carwash

The scratches I have seen put into CARC painted vehicles is usually trail damage, like thorny bushes, branches, rocks, etc. Takes a lot to scratch CARC. I doubt a car wash, which is designed to be nice to factory-fresh civvy paint jobs, will damage a properly-applied CARC paint job.