The Fate of Tyrlon and other Dubious Things

So I got back to town on January 1st from Kentucky and the whole way my family and I were racing in front of the big snow storm that was heading southeast. Each time we stopped the snow would catch up and snow would be falling on us but then we’d get ahead of it and there would be no snow for a good while. I got back to where I live (about an hour southwest of Asheville, NC) and it wasn’t snowing. I didn’t think we’d get any snow here in Sylva, NC (see, you probably don’t know where that is thus why I referenced Asheville!) so I got my car washed at the gas station where I filled up on that wonderful super expensive premium gas my car drinks.

The car wash took about 8-9 minutes to complete and I was feeling pretty good about the look of the car afterward since my car still has a good coat of wax on it the dirt etc just washes right off and the car still shines like the day I bought it! After that I dropped by Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries (milk, cereal etc) but when I got back out to the car the water droplets left after the car wash had already frozen! I knew right then I had probably just blown my $7 on the car wash since it was getting so cold so quickly.

Fast forward to the next morning, 2 inches of snow on my car and a temperature outside of 12 degrees! This morning it was a brisk 7 degrees when I woke up! Needless to say after driving around all yesterday afternoon on top of snow and ice my car is super dirty now with that distinctive ring of white dust along the bottom and wheel wells. It is also dirty all across the top where snow that had dirt particles in it has started to melt off unevenly and the icicles on the front grill finally started melting to. We actually got up to a balmy 33 degrees today for our high, but by the end of the weekend it will be 60 degrees again here - don’t you love strange weather patterns?

So, the point of this meandering topic is to not get your car washed when the temperature is going to be sub-freezing, and secondly don’t do it when it is going to SNOW! These all might seem fairly obvious to the average person, but to the “just bought a new car” person I write: JUST DONT DO IT! Having the car looking like new every day really isn’t needed, and it does get quite expensive. For now i’m going to try to stick to getting it washed only 1-2x a month and waxing it myself at least every other month to try to keep it well maintained. After all, it is a huge investment (just check Infiniti.com to see how much M45x’s go for) and I don’t want to throw money down the drain on resale value someday because I didn’t properly maintain the inside and outside appearance of the vehicle.

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