Using car wash mode on your EV

Why the mode exists

Modern cars, and EVs in particular, do a lot on their own. They detect rain and turn on the wipers, lock when the key walks away, apply the parking brake when you unbuckle, and beep when something gets close to the bumper. In a car wash, all of that is unhelpful. Car wash mode is a single setting that puts the car into a state where it sits still and leaves its automatic features alone.

Not every car has it, and the name varies. You might see car wash mode, wash mode, or a neutral hold setting. Gas and hybrid cars increasingly have something similar.

What it usually turns off

The exact list depends on the car. Common changes include the following, but your owner's manual is the only reliable list for your vehicle.

• Automatic wipers
• Auto-lock when the key moves away, and walk-away locking
• Parking sensor chimes and some camera alerts
• Automatic shift to park or automatic parking brake
• On some cars, it closes the windows, locks the charge port or folds the mirrors

Neutral matters less in an in-bay wash

A lot of the discussion online is about keeping the car in neutral. That's for conveyor tunnel washes, where a track pulls the car along and it has to roll freely. In an in-bay automatic wash, like Fast Lane's touchless bay, the car stays stopped and the equipment moves around it. You drive in when the signal tells you to, stop where the posted instructions say, and wait.

So in an in-bay wash, the parts of car wash mode that matter most are the wipers, auto-lock and the sensors. Follow the instructions posted at the bay about whether to be in park.

Finding it on your car

Start with the owner's manual. Look up car wash in the index, or search the digital version if your car has one on the screen or in the manufacturer's app. The section usually explains how to turn the mode on and what it changes. On many EVs it's in the touchscreen settings, sometimes under a service, vehicle or controls menu. Some cars use a sequence with the shifter or a button instead.

Try it once at home, in the driveway, so you know where it is and what the car does. The bay is not the place to be scrolling through menus.

If your car doesn't have it

You can usually get the same result by hand. Turn the wiper stalk to off, not auto. Keep the key in the car so it doesn't lock. Fold the mirrors if the manual says to. Silence the parking sensors if there's a button for it. Most cars go back to normal when you turn them off and on again, so check that the wipers are back on auto before it next rains.