[John M]

This might to some of you seem pretty basic but having taken delivery of my "20" reg Proceed in July 2020 I have now rather embarrassingly fallen foul at negotiating my local car wash...twice. I never had this problem with my "16" Sportage although it was a manual transmission and handbrake, the Proceed a DCT.

I line it up...the tractor line engages with the front wheel, auto in neutral, switch off engine, jab down the emergency brake button but brake still engaged. In the end the attendant said leave the engine running with the car in neutral. Seems to be the only way it would go through the wash.

So WTF am I doing wrong?

 

[Indalo]

So WTF am I doing wrong?

I'm not sure but, off the top of my head, with gear selector in neutral and ignition on, if you press the brake pedal then push the EPB button down, the red tell-tale light should extinguish. If you have Autohold, that must be off.

Several years ago, I had occasion to use one of those motorised conveyor-belt car-wash facilities but I wasn't at all impressed and have never used one since. My local Tesco's 'Waves' team of Romanians does an excellent job of the bodywork and I do the interior myself.

Come back if what I described fails to work - someone else may have the correct methodology if my description fails to work.

 

[gdh300]

According to the instructions for towing, in order:

1. Ignition set to ACC
2. Gearbox into Neutral
3. Release the handbrake parking brake.

Cars are getting like the 737 Max; hidden safety software the drivers are necessarily aware of...

I'm sure I read that the VW Golf will not let you open the drivers door without the parking brake being on. Or perhaps it applies the parking brake itself; I assume it doesn't lock you in! I wonder how many people have been caught-out by that?

 

[Jack Daniels]

I saw a nasty case of car wash damage recently on a big black 2020 BMW, the spinning mops were all frozen and the car now appears polished by steel wool.
Never mind, only £15,000 to get it looking like new again.
I don't even drive old cars thru the automatic machines any more, the car rarely comes out fully clean, and parts tend to loosen on the car, plus scratches appear