Car & Boat Washing in Geneva

How do you wash a car with no water supply?

This is always the first question and it is a fair one. A mobile wash has no hose connection and no drainage pit: it works from an onboard water tank with a method designed to use very little.

The sequence is as follows. The bodywork first receives a pre-foam that lifts soil without contact, which is the single most important step for avoiding micro-scratches. Washing is then done with microfibre using the two-bucket method — one for the solution, one for rinsing the mitt — so that grit removed from the paint never goes back onto it. Rinsing is controlled and limited in volume, and drying is done with microfibre rather than left to air.

There is a technical reason to prefer this over a pressure washer, quite apart from the water constraint: high pressure drives water past seals, into locks and through cable entries. On a modern car full of electronics, and equally on an older one whose seals have hardened, that is an avoidable risk.

Where we can work, and where it is not allowed

We work wherever the vehicle is parked: outside an apartment building, in a courtyard, on a private space, at a company car park, in an underground garage. That is the whole point of a mobile service — you do not move the car and you do not lose the half-day that a trip to a wash station costs.

There is a real limit and we respect it. Swiss water protection rules do not allow wash water carrying detergent and hydrocarbon residue to reach surface water or soak into the ground. On a public road, on a gravel car park, or on a space draining towards a rainwater gully, a conventional high-volume wash is not permissible.

That is exactly why our method uses little water and works without run-off: the small volume involved is held by the textiles and never leaves the working area. Where even that is not workable — a marked slope towards a gully, an explicit prohibition in the building rules or from the car park owner — we say so and offer either an interior-only clean or a different location. We do not pretend not to know the rule.

What is Premium Detailing, and do you need it?

The CHF 159 package for a city car is not simply a longer wash: it is different work, and it is not justified in every case.

It includes an iron-fallout remover, which dissolves brake particles embedded in the clear coat that washing does not lift; deep wheel treatment; wheel arch cleaning; exterior plastic finishing; and inside, detailed work on leather or upholstery, air vents, seat rails and the recesses that the standard package only skims.

It makes sense in three situations: before selling a vehicle, where the difference in appearance translates directly into price; at the end of a lease, where interior condition is assessed; and on a car you intend to keep for years and whose clear coat you want to preserve. For routine upkeep every six weeks the CHF 89 interior-and-exterior package is the better value, and we say so rather than steering everyone upmarket.

What Premium Detailing is not: paint correction. Removing deep scratches, pronounced swirl marks or oxidised clear coat means abrasive polishing, with different equipment and a different amount of time. We do not sell that under the name detailing.

Do automatic roller washes really damage paint?

The effect is visible on almost every car that goes through a roller tunnel regularly: a web of fine circular scratches that shows up in low-angle light, known as swirl marks or spider-webbing.

The mechanism is simple. The rollers or cloth strips wash dozens of cars a day and retain some of the sand and grit from the previous ones. That grit is then rubbed across your clear coat under pressure. Each pass removes a minute amount of clear coat and leaves a scratch too fine to see on its own, but their accumulation dulls the colour within a few years.

A properly executed hand wash avoids this for two reasons: the pre-foam lifts soil before any contact, and the two-bucket method ensures the mitt does not put back what it has just removed. It is slower, that is the real cost of the difference, and it is why a car hand-washed for ten years keeps a depth of colour that a tunnel-washed car has lost.

We stay measured on this point: a modern tunnel with well-maintained textile strips is markedly gentler than a 1990s brush roller. If your vehicle is a site van, swirl marks are a secondary concern and the tunnel is a rational choice.

Interior: what actually makes a difference

The interior is what you judge as you sit down, and it is also where rushed work shows most. Four things separate a quick vacuum from a real interior clean.

Seat rails first: that is where crumbs, sand and coins end up, and it is the first place a buyer or a lease assessor looks. Then the vents and dashboard: dust settles into the slots and a cloth wiped over the surface only moves it around. Then the floor mats, which come out and are treated separately — left in place they hide floor carpet that is usually far dirtier than they are. Finally the boot, and particularly the spare wheel well, where damp and dust sit undisturbed.

On seats the method follows the material. Fabric is treated by hot water extraction, like carpet: solution is injected and drawn back out with the soil, and drying must be controlled or an odour settles into the foam. Leather is cleaned with a pH-appropriate product and then conditioned; household detergent strips leather and accelerates cracking. Alcantara tolerates neither vigorous brushing nor excess moisture, on pain of permanent matting.

Odours, finally, are not solved with an air freshener. Tobacco smell is embedded in seat foam, in the headliner and in the ventilation circuit; spilt milk or pet smell comes from organic matter in the carpet or under a seat. The source has to be treated, and sometimes the real culprit turns out to be a saturated cabin filter — a part that is replaced for a modest amount.

End of lease: what is actually assessed?

A large share of newer cars in Geneva are on lease, and return is the moment when the vehicle's condition turns into an invoice. It is worth knowing what gets looked at.

The assessment separates normal wear from damage, much as a property check-out inspection does. Counted as normal wear: fine surface scratches distributed over the bodywork, slightly dulled gloss, even wear on seats and steering wheel proportionate to mileage. Charged as damage: a tear or burn in a seat, a stubborn stain, persistent tobacco or pet odour, kerbed wheels, an uncleaned interior.

Here is the practical point: a good part of what gets charged at return is about cleanliness, not mechanics. A properly cleaned interior, decontaminated wheels, an emptied and vacuumed boot, no odour — that removes several lines from the inspection report that would otherwise have been withheld. This is the case where Premium Detailing pays for itself, and we say so when a client tells us a lease return is coming.

What we do not claim: making damage disappear. A scratch that catches a fingernail has gone through the clear coat; a wheel kerbed on a pavement is a bodywork repair. We clean, we do not erase — and we tell you which of your marks belong in which category.

How often, and should you wash in winter?

For a car in daily use, an exterior wash every four to six weeks and a full interior clean two or three times a year match how it actually gets dirty. A car parked outdoors, under trees or near a busy road needs a shorter interval.

Winter is when washing stops being cosmetic. De-icing salt spread on Geneva and Vaud roads accelerates corrosion, and it lodges precisely where you cannot see it: under the sills, in the wheel arches, under the floor. A useful winter wash therefore starts with rinsing the underbody, not polishing the bonnet.

Two precautions matter in cold weather. Do not wash below freezing: water freezes in the door seals and tears them when the door is opened, and it jams locks. And dry the seals and sills after washing, which prevents a door being frozen shut the next morning. We will happily move an appointment by a day rather than wash a car in frost — one of the few situations where postponing is the right answer.

Boat cleaning on Lake Geneva

This service also covers boats, and that is not a token addition: on Lake Geneva, looking after a hull follows the same logic as looking after bodywork, with its own constraints. The amount is quoted after we have seen the boat, because length, hull type and location — alongside, on a trailer, in the harbour or on a dry berth — change the working time completely.

What technically separates a boat from a car is the waterline. The submerged section develops a biofilm and then mineral deposits, and on Lake Geneva a characteristic brown band forms on the gelcoat at waterline level. Ordinary washing will not shift it: it needs a mild acid treatment suited to gelcoat, applied carefully and rinsed thoroughly. A product that is too aggressive, or left on too long, dulls the gelcoat permanently.

The deck and superstructure need the opposite: gentleness. Teak is brushed along the grain, with water and a neutral product — a pressure washer erodes the soft wood between the grain lines and a chlorinated product turns it grey. The clear plastics in windows and canopies scratch extremely easily and tolerate no abrasive pad. Stainless steel and chrome are treated separately to lift early corrosion spots.

We work on boats alongside in the harbours of the Geneva shore and on trailers, and we always ask where the boat is before quoting: working from a pontoon, with the constraint of dropping nothing into the water and discharging no wash water into the lake, is nothing like the same boat lifted onto a dry berth. As with vehicles, we do not use high pressure on porthole seals or cable entries.

Doing it yourself or having someone come?

Washing your own car remains a perfectly valid option, and for some people an enjoyable one. If you have a private space where drainage is not an issue, a bucket, a decent microfibre and half an hour, the exterior result can be excellent.

Three things justify having someone come. Location first: in Geneva many residents have nowhere to wash a car legally — underground parking with no water point, on-street space, building rules that forbid it. Time second: a full interior with seat rails, vents, boot and fabric seats by extraction is two to three hours of physical work. Equipment third, for fabric extraction, iron-fallout decontamination and leather treatment — products and machines you do not buy for once-a-year use.

Our position is the same as on our other pages. If you have the place, the time and the inclination, do it yourself, and wash top-down with two buckets. Call us if you have nowhere to do it, if the interior needs real work, if a lease return or a sale is at stake, or if you would simply rather have your Saturday back.

What each package contains

Premium Detailing is not paint correction: removing deep scratches or oxidised clear coat requires abrasive polishing, which is not included.