Although the engine compartment on my wife's 560SL is relatively clean, I was thinking about going to one of those self-service car washes to clean it up a bit more.

Is this a bad idea on a MB? I don't want to end up with a car that won't start, or cause any problems down the road with soap/water getting into the many, many electrical connections under the hood.

If this is a no-no, do anyone have recommendation for cleaning the engine and surrounding compartment?

Bob Cavazos

Bob,
Are you just de-dusting or is there years of caked on oil, fluids, bug guts, sludge. You can use a pressure sprayer, just use care not to hit anything point-blank. Also use your eyes, avoid spraying the heck out of areas that have electrical connections or other vulnerable spots. It often helps to blast the bug guts off the radiator. Don't spray point blank or you can bend the fins on the radiator and impair its cooling. Most car-wash sprayers are not that strong, a pressure washer is though. Simple Green seems to be pretty good at getting crud off underhood. I guess bottom line is that if the underhood is mostly clean then you can do quite well with just a garden hose + nozzle and a bottle of Simple Green.

Hope this helps...Lee

Lee,

Thanks for the input. It's basically clean underhood with some oily dirt on the front of some components like the metal part of the distributor. Sounds like Simple Green and the garden hose will do it for this car. Thanks again.

Bob