I bought a car this summer and I decided I want to keep it looking fresh. So I decided to buy a monthly pass to a car wash here in town. I decided to evaluate both Rainstorm and Mach 1 car washes. Mach 1 is located at 902 Bloomington Rd., Champaign near the corner of Bloomington Rd. and Prospect Ave.
Rainstorm is located at 1209 N. Prospect Ave., Champaign near the corner of Bradley Ave. and Prospect Ave. For those who don’t live by the mall or use I-74 much this is probably a bit closer and therefore a bit easier to access than Mach 1. However, pulling into Rainstorm can be a tight squeeze especially if they are busy.
You pull your car through what feel like a drive up at a fast food restaurant. There are two “tellers” there to take orders from customers. Rainstorm offers fast passes which means you sign up, pay $40 a month, and you get a sticker to put in your windshield. You pay for the pass at the tellers and then when you pull up to get washed the attendant will come out with a sticker for your windshield. Thereafter, when you pull up to the teller it will recognizes the sticker and lets you through.
Below, the fast pass.
I can’t comment on how well the virtual tellers work. Since I have the fast pass, it reads my sticker and opens the gate. Once past the gate you are funneled into one lane. This may sound like it will cause a bottle neck however as you’ll see, the wash is pretty speedy.
As you get closer to your turn (I waited maybe two minutes) you see an attendant waiving you forward, left, right and eventually telling you to stop. He’s lining your left wheel up with a track that propels your car through the wash. This is something I found to be delightful about the car wash. I didn’t have to watch a clock, drive forward, stop, and be on alert to get the most out of my wash. It took care of the driving for me.
The attendant not only waves you in. He also sprays your car with a soaking solution and then grabs a scrubber and gives your windshield a once over. From there though, it is the car wash that does the work.
The wash is not a touch free. In fact, it is a lot of touching. As you see below there are numerous rollers of rags that wash your vehicle. I feel like someone with a really great paint job would be nervous about these rags and brushes flapping away on their car. On the other hand this would be beneficial for someone who has a lot of mud and grime on their car. I personally don’t go mudding but nor do I have an expensive paint job. That being said I would rather preserve my paint than get the mud and grime off that isn’t even there.
For some reason the car wash has flashing red, blue, and green lights that rotate during your wash. They also have brightly colored foam. Maybe this is to entertain children? I can’t say for sure. Anyways, you can see here that plenty of foam was applied to my car. But that’s expected, right?
The hot wax portion of this wash outperformed Mach 1. I am really not sure if this made much of a difference in how clean my car actually looked, but I do know that in the moment during the hot waxes in both car washes, I felt more satisfied with Rainstorm.
What I did not expect was how much I enjoyed not having to drive through the wash. My car was in neutral and my hands were off the steering (as I was instructed). I was able to lay back and close my eyes for three minutes as the wash propelled me through its cycles.
The end of any wash is a good drying. So as you come out of the wash, still being propelled, you are dried, and then you drive off whenever this sign says so. As much as I liked not driving for most of the wash, I wish I could have had control over how much drying my car got. It may not be true but I feel like I didn’t get as dry as I would have liked to coming out of the wash. The entire wash time was about three minutes, pretty snappy.
There are some bonus features of this car wash. First, you get free vacuuming. But that depends on how many people are using the vacuums. Regardless, it is free and it works. There is also a vending machine that sells car products that come in handy. To finish it off there is a trash can for you to dump all your junk.
Canceling the car wash subscription was pretty easy. I had to go into the little office just as I had to to buy it and ask the man to cancel my subscription. There was no hassle as to why I wanted to cancel. He took my credit card, swiped it, handed me a receipt and said thank you. They even gave me the option to pro-rate the month or to finish out the month.
Overall Rainstorm is a great little wash. The fast pass works well, you get to relax during the wash, and there are some great supportive services (vacuum and products) to go along with your wash which was satisfactory. There are of course downfalls too. Those being it is only open during the day time, it is not touch free and you can’t control how long you get dried for.
Let’s take a look at Mach 1, its similarities, and differences.
Located at 902 Bloomington Rd this car wash is just down the street from Rainstorm. It will be a bit less accessible for town people but more accessible for I-74 users and those who live by the mall. The parking lot is very spacious and you do not feel nearly as cramped as when you pull into rainstorm.
Buying the fast pass as Mach 1 is similar. You pull up to an electronic teller, tell it you want the premium monthly wash and pay your first month’s payment. Then you take the receipt and proceed with your car wash. Mach 1 doesn’t have an attendant like Rainstorm and so after your wash, to get your sticker, you have to go inside the gas station, fill out a form with your name, address and credit card information and also show them your receipt. This is significantly more hassle than rainstorm.
Below, the fast pass sticker.
Mach 1 has two bays (not show here) right next to one another. The first bay is a touch free car wash while the second is similar to rainstorm and has big rollers with cloth. I chose the touch free because I believe it preserves your paint job better and is not necessary unless you have plenty of dirt on your vehicle.
Also different than Rainstorm, when you’re at Mach 1 you are slave to the stop and go light system. This makes it so that you have to pay attention. No 3 minutes of relaxation at this car wash, no sir, you have to stay on your toes especially if you want to at least feel like you got the most out of your wash.
As the car in front of you moves out the stop lights tell you to move forward. Below, the wheel blaster, is the best part of this wash and really sets it apart from Rainstorm. Mach 1 consistently outperformed Rainstorm at making my tires look shiny and black.
Again I find myself in what felt like a clown’s bubble bath. But no disco lights in this wash.
Below is the hot wax portion of Mach 1. It didn’t seem like it did much. Rainstorm’s wax was bubbly and it oozed out onto your car. Mach 1’s almost felt like water, like it wasn’t anything special. But like I said, it did not make much of a difference in the final product.
Although I was missing the relaxation of Rainstorm’s steering free service, I was happy when it came to dry my car. It felt better to control how much time each part of my car got in the dryer. Granted it was timed and did shut off eventually, still I enjoyed having that sudo control. I found that if I got out of the wax and into the dryer with 60 seconds my car came out satisfactorily dry. And I did see better results with the drying at Mach 1.
The entire wash took about six minutes to complete.
Canceling the service at Mach 1 is not as easy as with Rainstorm. They will not prorate your charges. Once you stop, the ride is over and you don’t get any money back.
There are no extra perks like there are at Rainstorm. No free vacuuming, no vending machines. If you want to vacuum you’re going to have to pay another $1 and you can be sure that it is on a time limit.
Mach 1 is a great car wash. It is open 24/7, has two options of washing (touch free or heavy duty), does a satisfactory job at cleaning the car, and your wheels are gong to come out looking real slick and stay that way even when the water dries. There are disadvantages too. Those being that you have to stay alert during the wash, it takes longer, cancellation is more of a pain, and you don’t get freebies like vacuum services.
I am canceling my subscription to Rainstorm. The main reason I am doing so is because with Mach 1 I can go anytime, day or night. Where as with Rainstorm it has to be during open business hours. The other big reason is how good my tires look after the Mach 1 wash. There is quite a noticeable difference. However this difference was difficult to capture with my camera. Notice, though, the sleekness of the black and this was taken hours after the Mach 1 wash. Another minor benefit is the touch free or heavy duty option at Mach 1 where as at Rainstorm your only option is heavy duty.
Below is a quick reference chart to some of the similarities and benefits of the two washes.
