Fairfax Coin Car Wash

Seriously!!! I always wash my own car, I feel a bit uncomfortable having other people clean up my mess. Anyways, I’ve been to a fair amount of DIY car washes. when I moved to Mill Valley, I was disappointed because I couldn’t find any (of course, washing their own car is above most people in this area).
So, I was delighted when I discovered this little spot. UNTIL I actually tried it– $ 10 later and my car was DIRTIER looking than it was before. The scrub brush was old and the ‘soap’ it dispensed was questionable. When I sprayed my car with wash soap, I believe only water came out. The wax was a joke. After FULLY and THOUROUGHLY scrubbing and rinsing my car (I kept adding more coins because the car just didn’t’ seem to be getting clean) I did the wax– then rinsed off the excess. Once my car had dried, it had brown streaks all over (my car is black), and huge waxy spots. The windows had a film on them.
I have no idea what type of soap and wax this car wash uses, but it is completely ineffective. I believe the water here also must be hard and does a poor job of rinsing off the soap/​wax and leaves a residue on your car.
After seeing how terrible my car looked, I drove into San Rafael and took it for a spin through the Shell drive-​thru car wash. Those things are sub-​par but my car was gleaming and looked brand new in comparison to what it looked like after being ‘washed’ at Fairfax Coin Car Wash.
There are great DIY car washes out there– this one is GHETTO.

Fairfax Coin Car Wash is a little gem just like the old drive-​in theaters. We are fortunate to have one in Marin.
I grew up washing my cars in similar do-​it-​yourself car wash bays up and down the Bruce Springsteen’s NJ coast. But Marin, this little cute sometimes pretentious corner of America hugging the Pacific, is full of Full Service car washes to serve folks who either have too much money or are too lazy. And these rich+lazy folks don’t mind the ridiculous prices at Full Service stations. Fortunately, Fairfax Car Wash helps in bucking the trend and is also helping save a buck (as well as the environment) at the same time.
At the Full Service facilities, the rich and/​or lazy folks meekly hand over their car keys to the uniformed car wash folks and then let them (often an army of these robotic individuals) suck out old food scraps/​crap or dust from every nook and cranny of their car and then letting them load their cars with carcinogen-​laden chemicals spilling half of them into the ground or squirting most into the air we breathe.
Whereas at Fairfax Coin Car Wash, for the price of a decent sandwich you can wash and vacuum your car and with the money you will save, you can buy a big scoop of ice-​cream for your kids.
This Car Wash’s machine takes quarters. For $ 2.50, the wash gives you 3 minutes to do the dance. I’m slow (or I like to take it slow), therefore I went for two rounds. In the first round, I took my time blasting high-​powered water jet onto the car and then soaked my car with soap jet. As my first 3 minutes came to close, I switched to the soap brush hanging from the opposite wall — take your time, let the kids have fun too. Then, $ 2.50 later for the next 3 minutes, it was again high-​powered water jet followed by topping with wax. Now, if you have a friend who can tango while you waltz, then all you may need is one round of 3 minutes ($ 2.50) to get the job done. The vacuum machine requires $ 1.25. I went on a Saturday — there were a few cars but no wait. They now have machines that take credit cards.
So for this place, I give 5 stars for the experience of doing something with your own hands, saving me a bunch of bucks, another fun-​outing with kids, and saving the environment. Like Carnegie Mellon libraries, car wash places like these should be declared as national monuments and protected from development.

What’s to say? Its a DIY carwash! It cheap if your quick enough to wash down your whole vehicle in 3 minutes. If you’ve got dried caked on bird crap, or tree sap all over your car, you need more than 3 minutes and I recommend another place… but if you just got a dusty, dirty car, DIY and it can get done in 3 minutes… start with the soap rinse — 1 min. Foaming Brush — 1 min. and Spray Rinse 1 min.

These are the types of car washes I grew up with in New Mexico. None of that California fancy stuff with a gang of immigrants wiping down your ride, this is the old-​school roll up your sleeves and get a little wet yourself brand of automobile cleaning.
They use tokens, not quarters, so you’ll probably come back. Gotcha! But it’s all good, because you can wash your car here for a fraction of what you’ll pay at an automatic place. Takes credit cards, too!

Reviews are right, in that you get what you pay for – namely, a cheap price to do it yourself. Paying $ 25 and a longer wait in San Rafael will get you a better job and a cleaner car. For $ 5 here, I get a pretty clean car that looks the same after a day or two. And it doesn’t take much time, and it’s fun.
Hint: You can bring a roll of quarters, or bring $ 1 bills or a $ 5 bill to exchange for tokens. Then you won’t have a pile of leftover tokens.

One star for being so bad I had to go to a regular car wash afterward — bird turds and all — to get my car clean …
1. I fell for the $ 10 bill trick too — got those stupid tokens, nice way to suck you back into a repeat visit
2. When I switched the dial from rinse to wash, there was NO soap
3. When I vacuumed my car, the suction wasn’t strong enough to pick up crumbs and sand
4. I have $ 5 left in tokens that I’ll never use

I too, fell for the change a ten and get a bunch of quarters to do laundry some day. If you give them a $ 10, you get tokens for that place only. It should say, Fairfax Token Car Wash. No coins, my friend.
Anywho, you can do average job cleaning your car with the high-​powered spray, then high-​pow soap, then high-​pow spray again in 5 minutes which is what you’ll get for $ 5 in tokens.
You can get a better job at brushless places like those in San Rafael, but you’ll pay $ 25-​$ 35 for those and then feel guilty for not tipping the dozens of workers they hire to get your car done in 20 minutes.
So let’s review. $ 5 to wash the car, dry it, and clean the inside yourself. OR pay $ 35 and sit on your ass thinking what a lazy shit I am by watching other people clean my car.
Get a grip. Get it now.

The sign says $ 2.50, it cost me about $ 13…
okay so I am not always the brightest crayon in the box but I will say it was a little misleading. When you are washing your car and the timer starts beeping and it is covered in soap, sometimes you panic. I panicked. I had no more quarters, all I had was a $ 10 so I said what the hell, I can use the rest for laundry money.
Let me tell you something, Fairfax Coin Car Wash tokens don’t wash clothes…
Yep, that is right, I put my $ 10 in the changer and got gold tokens. Enough for a couple more washes.
The place was decent enough, and I figure I burned some extra calories and I still paid less than I would to have someone else wash it!