ORIGINAL: raubt

It's been anywhere between 0 and -40 (F) here for the last 4 months, lots of snow and ice (and so road salt and all that crap), and my Mustang is my daily driver so I'll give you my routine.

I take mine into one of the do-it-yourself wash bays with the heated pressure washers and just go at it that way. I wash it whenever I can, at least once every week or two, but it depends on the weather (if things get warm and slushy, for example, washing is a waste of time and money because things will be dirty again on the drive home.) I rinse (always hot water, it takes the road grime off way better than cold), then rinse with soap, then rinse the soap off with more clean hot water and that's that. DO NOT USE THE CAR WASH'S FOAMING BRUSHES. Those things are so disgustingly full of sand and crap I wouldn't even use one on a beater car. You will, without question, badly scratch your paint job if you touch your car with any kind of soap applicator at a car wash.

If you can bring your own wash-mitt or whatever and rub the soap around with that, sweet, but most car washes are pretty bitchy about that (since you're taking space in their bay but not paying them for anything while you use your own cloth.) So like I said, rinse, soap, rinse, and always touchless. No exceptions to that. Also spray off the underside of your car as best you can, and get into the wheel wells and everything because the sand and dirty snow likes to build up in there.

For drying, if possible, wipe down all the rubber stripping and everything while you're inside (so you can stay warm), but again, some car washes will flip out at you for drying your car off in their bay, so the other tactic is to take it outside and open up both doors, the trunk (it doesn't have to be wide open, just unlock it so there's a bit of a gap) and the fuel door (you can leave the fuel cap itself because it's threaded in and gasoline eats ice, so I've never had a problem with the actual fuel cap freezing shut.)

Once everything's open, start wiping it all down with a rag or whatever you use. All the rubber stripping, door jams, edges of the door windows, basically everything that will touch something else when it's closed. Wiping it down will get rid of most of the water, and then the thin layer of water left will freeze to just the surface it's touching (everything is still open, remember) and after 1-2 minutes any water traces will be frozen, and the doors/trunk/fuel door won't freeze closed.

That's really all I ever do with it in the winter, and my car looks way better than 98% of the vehicles on the road (and not just because it's a Mustang this time) and I never have any problems with it at all as far as freezing.

Just make sure you wipe down the door jams and rubber stripping and everything, and leave everything open in the cold for a few minutes so the water can freeze to that one surface it's touching and you'll be fine.

If you use the key to open your driver's door or trunk, it's a good idea to put lock de-icer (it's just rubbing alcohol or something in a pressurized bottle) into the locks, but if you use the remote to open everything, it's not necessary.

As for e-brakes and mechanical stuff freezing, I've yet to ever have that happen on any vehicle I've driven in the winter in the past 6 years (as long as I've been driving), and I've washed in some horribly cold weather, so I wouldn't (and I personally don't) worry about that too much. The biggest risk to the car is having the rubber weather stripping freeze to the doors and rip off when you try opening them the next morning, but as long as you wipe everything down with a towel and leave the doors open for a minute or two after the wash, it'll be fine.

Oh also, with the auto up/down windows in this car, I usually take a piece of paper towel or something thin like that and put it along the bottom edge of the exterior door windows (where the bottom of the window meets the rubber on the door) to absorb any water just sitting there near that bottom bit of weather stripping. That helps the windows to not freeze. However, a while ago the door windows were kind of frozen in place when I got in my car the next morning, so I just had the heat on high (naturally) and once the car warmed up inside so did the windows which melted the ice that was frozen to them, and when I got out of my car about 10 or 15 minutes later they were back to normal, so don't panic if the windows are frozen at first.

Enjoy your nice clean Mustang!

ORIGINAL: Stoenr

I wash it in the 70 degree warm shop, with lifts to blast the undercarraige
Crappy job, but does have some perks.