Sweetwater Splash Car Wash Company

I did not take the car in for a wash (dolphin), but my husband did. My review is solely based on billing.
MAKE SURE YOU CHECK YOUR RECEIPTS and charged accordingly! The bill was $ 15.97, but our credit card was charged $ 16.00. Granted it’s only a 3 cents overcharge, but if others were so charged, it adds up.

I wish I looked up the reviews before I wasted $ 35. Yep, I wanted a full-​service wash and was willing to pay. What I got was a dirt film smeared on my car. My car came out worse than when it entered. This place is a dump inside, terrible wash, terrible service, rude and lying manager.
PLEASE DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

Unilocal removed my last review because it fell outside of their «content guidelines», so allow me to rephrase.
This place is a dump. It didn’t used to be until the new owner took over. They open when they feel like — sometimes it’s during their posted hours, sometimes it’s not; the person who mans the counter whenever I’ve been in is rude and claims to not understand when you ask him a question and «shoo“s you away when he feels bothered by you, they raised all the prices for both the drive-​thru and the DIY bays, and there’s just zero quality left. Don’t even bother. You are better going to a local business with a hose spigot and asking if you can wash your car in their parking lot with your own supplies. Seriously. You’ll probably get better service with a friendlier response.
My theory? This place has become a «front» for some other illegal business/​activity in the area. They are literally discouraging business with their behavior.

The Hispanic staff was very helpful but some Korean guy was horrible and rude. I used to like coming here but this guy made it a bad experience

This place has gone down hill. The people they hire for after-​wash are incompetent or just plain don’t care. Warning to the wise: don’t let them «clean» the interior. My seats were soaked!

Okay, so years ago I would always visit this car wash. Nice employees that pay attention to every detail. So worth the money. Today my mom and I went as i was in the area and remembered the once awesome service. The crew seemed tired and agitated. I went indoors while they washed my car. The Asian guy at the counter had the worst attitude, just collected my money and walked away to pull cars out of the machine. He asked me of i knew that my mirror co er was missing. …excuse me, my car is brand spanking new. nothing was missing when I got here. The whole front of my side mirror was gone. He went back into the car wash machine to get it and popped it back on. He is a terrible manager. Ownership is terrible. Employees terrible, car still dirty on the outside. Half assed on the inside, will never go back.

Had to go back twice and my car is still not clean. They need to work with excellence.

I have been coming here for the last six years, and I’d have to say this place has gone down the sht hole. Here are a list of a few items that are in poor condition.
No soap in ANY of the six, yes I said SIX self car wash bays.
Poor water pressure. Two out of six are good.
Potholes everywhere. Um drive slow or you will replacing your suspension soon.
Vaccums are clogged.
You can’t see the time left you have on the car wash.
The buzzers do not work, so if you have soap all over your car and you did not rinse in time you are screwed. Insert another $ 2.50 to rinse repeat, no pun intended…
Mud and dirt everywhere.
When you press a certain button whether it’s rinse, wash, wax, it just doesn’t COMPUTE.
If you go to complain to Mgmt that there wasn’t any soap, they will not believe you and come out to test it. That is fine, but he will turn on the soap via the large bristle brush and say «there is soap there SIr.» Um that might be, but it is not coming out of the hose.
Someone needs to buy out the Asian business owner, and revamp this entire business. Even if that meant that the price doubles from what it is currently, then so be it.
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(Do it yourself wash bays review)
Many of the bays are inoperative in some way; e.g., foam soap brush not working, engine degreaser not working, etc., so you have to pick which services you want to use and then sorta hope. $ 2.50 per cycle. Not well kept up.

Inexpensive and good service. Sometimes they miss spots in the inside, but it’s always a LOT better than when I first pull up. My schedule lets me get here when it’s fairly quiet, so I never have to wait.

While passing by this place I decided to stop by this place again and finally saw three station was up and running. While waiting I saw one customer was trying to get most water out of the hose (no water pressure). Another station I saw once customer was talking to cash wash employee about no soap in his station.
After loading $ 2.50, I set my timer to 4 min and started to wash my car. while I was still soaping, it stopped at 1:10 min. I walked to attended (Chinese guy) and asked him about why it stopped, he smiled and replied my first cycle was over and I need to reload another $ 2:50 again. I was hopeless and reload another $ 2.50 and started to rinse the car. That one I timed, was last 3:12 minutes, by that time, I was sort of got rid off all the soap and GOT THE HELL OUTA THERE.
OWNER FIX THE DAMN PLACE.
Sams car Wash in Mananas is the best so far.

Drive Through car wash, they do a decent enough job, but they could have longer hours in the summer. They seem to close a bit early, they should stay open until about 7−8p at least. They do a good job cleaning the car though and its pretty cheap compared to others in the area.

Automated car wash is old, dirty and dated. Amazed this carwash has gone down hill to the extent it has. Use to be quite good and clean… now it is the pits. I stopped going here…

This place has the potential to be great but unfortunately is not. There are few do-​it-​yourself car washes in NoVa so when I moved here from the Midwest this was one of my only options. I have been several times and I am really not impressed.
The equipment is old, the coin machines are always broken, and once when I went into the convenience store CONNECTED to the car wash, I was told I would need to buy something to get change for a dollar.
This area needs more do-​it-​yourself washes to stimulate some competition.

Coin-​op car washes are nearly as rare as a panda bear around Northern Virginia. Luckily I was able to find this one located in Sterling.
This wash has 6 wash stalls, so even on a busy day the line moves pretty fast. The equipment isn’t the newest (ie: accepts credit card payments) but it is cheap. $ 2.50 for roughly 4 minutes and $ 0.25 for each additional 30 seconds.
Be prepared however, if trying to wash salt off after a snow storm, the line will be very long. Expect to wait 15 – 30 minutes.

I just moved to the area and was looking for a DIY car wash. After checking this place out, I will not got back. First of all, it is very expensive. Also, the timer starts right after you put in $ 2.50. It doesn’t wait for you to finish adding quarters, so in the end, you waste time while inserting the next 10 to 20 quarters. There also wasn’t a spot free wash, which I thought was pretty standard. The signs say there is, but the controls doesn’t have that option. Instead it just has a normal rinse where the spot free rinse should be.
So, the bad reviews are pretty accurate. Unless you want to wash car mats or a layers of mud off your car, I wouldn’t come here. I thought it was a waste of money and time.

This review is for the automated car wash only.
Reader’s Digest version = DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!
As I watched my car go though the wash, I noticed one of the brushes was out of service (see my picture). When the car came out NONE of the dirt from the rear end (trunk/​bumper area) was removed. I also noticed that the people drying off the car were trying to remove the rest of the road dirt that the brushes hadn’t removed from the sides of the car with the same towels they were using to dry the rest of the «clean» car with; oddly enough, most of the left over dirt was from the side of the car where the brushes were actually spinning. I went in and had the man running the register come out to see the car. He enlightened me that «No car wash removes dirt from the rear end of cars and that it was perfectly normal to have the people drying the cars remove all of the leftover dirt with their towels.» I said that was absolute BS, since I have been a customer of Embassy Autowash in Fairfax and McLean for years and never had an issue with any of my cars. I told him to run it through again (he used the basic wash, which I did not order). The car still came out dirty. I had experienced enough. I added some money to the tip box (it wasn’t their fault) and will never return. You have been warned.

Read Bret’s and Anthony’s reviews. They hit the nail…
it’s not that this DIY car wash place doesn’t offer the services as well as the competition– it’s that they really have none. You can spend minimum $ 150 on a detail, or ~$ 6 here, and get basically the same sans the waxing. There isn’t any other place to wash your car other than your driveway. Assuming you have a driveway.
Keep your car clean, folks. Please. It speaks volumes about the clutter in your head.

Sweetwater is one of the few do-​it-​yourself car washes in Virginia, and may be the only one in Northern Virginia. Luckily they do a good job of maintaining the wash stalls and vacuuming stations, and in the last 2 years of use, I can think of only one time when a piece of their equipment was broken.
$ 2.50 does seem rather expensive for a 4-​minute wash cycle, but their machines do allow you to add more quarters to complete the wash, and mine rarely goes over $ 4.00 total. I think each additional quarter adds 30 seconds, so it’s far less expensive to add to the first cycle, than to start a new one if you need more time.
Their full-​service car wash also provides good service, and their prices are within range of others in the area. They towel dry your car at the end of the cycle, which some do not.
Whether you plan to wash your car yourself or run it through an automated wash, I recommend Sweetwater Splash.

First be aware it costs $ 2.50 per 4 minute cycle. A full wash will be $ 7.50 depending on how fast you are and how detailed you want to be.
Second, the section of the business that I am reviewing is the DIY car wash building. (There is a automatic wash at the same location.) DIY means you get out of the car, insert coins into the wall unit, and use the pressurized water wand to wash your own car. This is intimate up close wet and slippery stuff. Be Ready! Bring a sponge, maybe extra soap, a bucket, and towels to dry. The etiquette, sometimes posted rule, is to only bucket wash if there is no one waiting.
At $ 2.50/cycle this is super expensive compared to other metropolitan cities like Houston, Detroit, San Fransisco/​Oakland, and Chicago. Since MetroDC seems to only have a few of these, they can overcharge those of us that prefer to DIY. They also have the interior cleaning stations and a detailing tent.
I give Sweetwater Splash 4 stars for existing and for how well they keep the grounds and cleaning bays.