Motorists take pride in their vehicle's appearance and try to keep their ride looking good. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost with many car owners spending a lot of time and money to make their cars look good. A new product called Mr. Clean AutoDry Carwash is designed to help make the cleaning process fast and simple by combining a washing and drying system that leaves your car virtually spot-free. So with all that said, we took the system for a test drive to see if the product lives up to its claims. The Mr. Clean AutoDry Carwash system includes the hose attachment, filter cartridge and a bottle of soap. The user must install the filter into the sprayer and fill the reservoir with the soap provided. Using any other soap is not recommended and will void the Spot-Free Guarantee.

Washing the car
The system includes a hose attachment that is used to Rinse, Soap and finally AutoDry the vehicle. The rinse setting does not do anything special with the incoming water and provides a good flow to the output nozzle. This is basically the same thing one would do when normally washing a car. Once the car is wet and rinsed free of general dirt buildup, Mr. Clean AutoDry Soap with the Dry Rinse Polymer™ can be applied using the soap setting. With this setting, the soap is applied using de-ionized water for a spot free wash. The instructions recommend using a standard washing mit to clean the vehicle. Finally, the rinse setting is used to wash the soap from the vehicle with de-ionized water. Spray a little more rinse water on any area where water is beading. This rinses free the spot-causing minerals and leaves a residue-free finish when the area dries.

Mini and Max
Our test vehicles were a 2007 Mini Cooper-S and a 2008 Nissan Armada. The Mini had a beautiful blue finish and due to its size, was easy to wash and rinse. We started in the late afternoon when the sun started to sneak behind the trees. Obviously, direct sunlight makes it more difficult to keep the car wet and often dries the soap on the vehicle making it difficult to rinse. Once the soap was rinsed from the Mini, a shiny surface emerged with no spots whatsoever. It was almost hard to believe as we are so used to seeing spots due to hard water. The same process was performed on our full size Nissan Armada SUV. This vehicle is black, so it reveals spots on the surface very easily. It is also significantly more difficult to wash and rinse due to its sheer size. After the rinse cycle, the Armada looked great.

Unfortunately, the filter began to turn brown indicating that it needed to be changed. We confirmed this when the surface of the vehicle no longer had a completely spot-free look. Changing the filter is quick and simple, but the cost associated with filter and soap replacements may factor into the overall cost and effort of getting your vehicle clean and looking good.

Conclusion
The Mr. Clean AutoDry Carwash delivers as promised with a spot-free car wash. The system is simple and makes car washing a bit more fun than conventional methods. However, we found that the replacement cost of the filters and soap can eat into your pocket book over time. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, this system does work and the results are spectacular.

- Kevin Nakano