On the internet, it’s the weird and unusual that gets clicks. Nobody cares about a Chevy Malibu getting a tint job or a labrador playing fetch. Nobody’s tuning in unless it’s a cocaine-addled German Shepherd power-sliding a pink Bugatti while simultaneously firing an MP5 at enemy aircraft overhead. It’s this lust for the extreme that has propelled a Chinese car wash channel to TikTok fame, for the way they deal with utterly filthy cars, inside and out. Heed my warning, though—you should never wash your car this way.
The channel in question, if you’re unfamiliar, is @bianca2849 on TikTok. It’s not just a catchy name, either; it’s a channel all about washing and detailing cars and car interiors. There are plenty of detailers working with dirty cars out there, but the content here takes the cake. In the most popular videos, you get to see cars that are absolutely caked in thick mud, and not just on the outside, either. We’re talking interiors and engine bays full of muck, too. One’s first thought might leap to the idea that these cars have fallen victim to flood waters, or maybe a local river. However, it’s worth considering that these cars might have also been dressed for the part. Supporting this hypothesis is that some shots show perfectly clean areas under seats or panels that were filthy; in a flood water situation, you’d expect a more complete permeation of sticky, nasty goop.
My own conspiracy theories aside, it’s the techniques that are problematic. The most popular video, now at 139 million views, shows an attitude to cleaning we’d best describe as “reckless abandon.” The dirty Chevrolet has thick mud covering the interior, so what do our heroes choose to do? They fire up the pressure washer and go to town with that badboy.
@bianca2849 Dirtiest car Washing Vid #fyp #carwash #satisfying #asmr #bianca2849
They’re spraying the water around this car like a toddler let loose with a firehose. The seats? Spray ’em down! The steering column, the dash? Go ahead! All the while the footwells are filling up with pools of brown, muddy water, which has to be bailed out with a small metal bowl. Once the entire interior is sopping wet, then the disassembly of the interior begins so they can actually, you know… clean the parts properly.
Doing this is a surefire way to give a car all kinds of problems down the road. For a start, you’re soaking the carpet and any underlying insulation, and getting water into all kinds of nooks and crannies in the vehicle body. Many of those areas won’t have water drains, because automakers don’t expect you to fill the B-pillars with water. Even in a really warm climate, this is something you should really avoid doing.
Beyond that, there’s the obvious electrical issues. Sure, if the car’s already flooded, it probably can’t get much worse, but again, you’re not helping your cause by making more muddy water and spraying it all around. Given the cleaning job requires a full disassembly anyway, you’re far better off pulling out all your modules and components first. Then, if you really want, you can powerwash the interior like a crazy person without unduly damaging any parts that were unscathed.
Either way, if you’re leaving your wiring looms and connectors in place, they’re sure to pick up some corrosion from being soaked like crazy. Nevermind the prospect of filling up your dash cluster, radio, or other parts with water, necessitating replacement. Fear not though; they’ve got a can of WD40 on hand. Not to worry then! The job’s a good ‘un.
It makes precisely zero sense, which makes it utterly hilarious to watch, and that’s why it’s got so many views. It bears noting the videos don’t always go this way. A previous video with a large SUV saw the team take a far more reasonable approach. The interior was disassembled piece by piece, with individual seats and carpets pulled out to be cleaned outside the car. This makes way more sense, as it doesn’t get mud everywhere and it avoids water pooling in the car. Beyond generating TikTok views, it’s entirely unclear why you’d spray the interior down like this other than it is deeply, embarrassingly satisfying to watch. They have to climb in and unbolt everything anyway; they just made their own job a lot messier!
I’ll cop to some unconventional cleaning methods myself. I’ve thrown a bucket of soapy water into the footwell of a Honda Civic before, but I had my reasons. I had a big sticky spill in the footwell, and I had no desire to completely disassemble the car to remove the carpet. Thus, I formulated a plan, in which I was able to soak the carpet and scrub it in situ. Furthermore, I’d already identified there was a rubber plug I could pull out to help drain the footwell from beneath. Finally, I did all this on an Australian summer’s day when it was 104 F and I knew the whole thing would dry quickly.
In the end, my Civic was fine. I hadn’t sprayed water with abandon, I’d made sure not to douse any connectors, and I made sure to clean up afterward. Even then, I wasn’t heaps in love with the method, knowing I’d probably left a layer of dirty goop festering under the carpet after my watery antics. In any case, I got the job done.
The video does offer one thing that I don’t have a problem with, and that’s the sweet payoff at the end. We get to see the car reassembled with all the interior plastics and carpets looking pristine. You can always question how realistic it is, and wonder how many of the parts were cleaned versus swapped out, but it still all comes together in the end. The car even drives away under its own power, which suggests that it didn’t suffer too badly from the spray down, at least in the short term.
Generally, a car that has been in a flood and gotten this filthy would often be considered an insurance write-off in the United States. It would make no sense to have someone spend hours and hours pulling apart a flooded car, especially as the result is usually a car that ends up with all kinds of niggling problems down the road.
Of course, in different countries, the economics work out differently. In China, labor is far cheaper and cars can be more expensive in relative terms. With these parameters, it can make more sense to try and repair a damaged car, because it’s not as expensive to do so.
Even still, doing it like this is just asking for problems. There’s no real time-saving in power washing the interior if you’re just going to pull it apart anyway. Basically, there’s a simple lesson to learn here. Feel free to spray down the interior of a car if you’re doing it for clout, or if it’s your best mate’s car, for a laugh. Otherwise, just pull apart the car and clean it properly and you’ll have way less headaches down the line. Good luck out there.
Image credits: @bianca2849, TikTok screenshot
As an avid fan of car detailing videos on YouTube: Booooooooooo.
But this is likely rage bait, so I’m not going to get angry and let it win.
Wow, I just can’t help but comment that if you do this, you are a true dumbass
Click Bait Stunt.
“Ignore TikTok…” You could have stopped right there.
Yes, I avoid wasting my life w/ that…would rather spend my time here where it’s NOT wasted!
Again, I say for the thousandth time, “Jus’ ’cause you can, don’t mean you should!”.
Speak for yourself. My socials are at least 75% regular doggos by volume, and I could watch a lab playing fetch all day.
Instagram gives me a good mix of dogs, cats, and lizards. Some birds and a few snakes. Occasionally farm animals.
Some car stuff, mostly since I followed this site’s account. A little tech news.
Instagram is the best social media.
Yeah, seriously, like half the channels I follow on YouTube are car-related, and the other half are mostly dog-related. Doesn’t quite replicate the oxytocin boost you get from playing with a dog in real life, but you get at least some effect.
Actually……
I’ve power washed more than one interior without removing anything more than seats. You just gotta be careful. I didn’t power wash the dash at all, and I set up a big fan in the car afterwards to help it dry for at least 24 hours.
Cars generally do have pretty good drains in the floors.
Just an amazing example of username/comment synergy.
As you mentioned, in this part of the world labor costs are so cheap it doesn’t matter if you do it wrong. Not to mention the casual relationship with concepts like “safety” or “procedure.” You can just take it all apart again and fix it later. I suspect this was shot for the clicks, or maybe for a quick flip on an unsuspecting buyer.
Forget the cleaning, a manual transmission and a nice correctly sized 1.4 liter engine.
No wonder they wanted to save the car. Its actually efficient and not ruined by our loser lazy culture.
I think we can all agree the method is wrong and most likely done for views, But you have to admit it was satisfyingly to watch
Totally worth it just to see someone use WD-40 for what it was made for: displacing water.
This is blatant engagement/rage bait, kinda like all the stupid food videos that are featured on that platform.
Speaking from personal experience, the only vehicles that really need an interior pressure wash are the ones David Tracy has eaten chow mein in.
“Ignore tiktok” seems like just good general life advice.
YMMV.
*edit* Got beaten to this comment, didn’t see it when I made it originally.
I dunno. Looks like a good way to prep a written-off flood car to be stripped for parts and sold to unsuspecting schmoes on ebay.
On a “completely unrelated note,” don’t buy used car electronics from ebay.
Having been to China, and worked with Chinese people, this solution does not surprise me at all. I bet it was just fine after too.
Yip, good enough, is the phase you hear when tape is used to replace welds….
You didn’t mention the tremendous element of danger that comes with soaking the air bags.
You won’t know if they’ll ever work after that. And they may go off unexpectedly at some time in the future because they’re definitely not designed to be power washed.
Takata sound familiar to anyone? “…environmental moisture, high temperatures, and age as associated with the defect that can improperly inflate the airbags and even send shrapnel into the occupant.”
And even if that’s not your fear, you can’t clean and dry inside them. If they ever deploy, you’re going to get a huge face full of toxic mold and mildew spores to go with your unreliable, shrapnel-laden explosive charge.
Just another reason to dislike airbags: sensitive to nonsense
I think you’re assuming that the air bags are present.
Aye, there’s the rub. There are some YT channels that purport to show mostly time-lapsed restorations of old, grungy, rusty motorcycles.
Unfortunately the ‘before’ pics usually show what appears to be iron oxide on the aluminum parts of the engine, and complex sheet metal parts magically look brand new at the end. 😐
Insane tactics aside, why on Earth would you put this much time and effort into a Chevy Aveo? This whole thing is baffling
For the content. It generates views, clearly. And to be fair, if one is planning to use this cleaning method for the sake of generating views, a Chevy Aveo is probably the least problematic car to do it with. Nothing of value would be lost.
Yeah fair point
Yup, and no one would ever fake something on the internet, especially not in China, no matter how many clicks it would pull? Besides how would you pull it off? I mean, wouldn’t it be impossible to get an identical but clean car to use in the “after” shots?
Oh, wait…..
I mean.. if it’s already been flooded what real difference is a little extra clean water going to make?
Putting that aside I’ve seen people do a lot of things to cars that were worse ideas than this, even if this isn’t great.
High pressure is going to force both clean and dirty water into some places that might have otherwise been okay. That said, this video probably isn’t convincing people to regularly clean cars this way and this article is almost certainly not going to reach someone who would have looked at this and figured it’s the right way to clean a car.
Pressure washing things is such a popular “satisfying” trend that this was pretty much guaranteed to get views. There are pressure washing video games now.
It was a somewhat sarcastic justification, I think anybody on this website would know the downsides to the whole idea.. or I’d hope so.
Coincidentally, since you mentioned the pressure washing games, “Power Wash Simulator” is free on PlayStation this month so I downloaded it. It’s incredibly satisfying, mindless activity. The first task is even washing your work van!
Shoot, I think I need to check that out, then. I haven’t been willing to pay for it, but I have wanted to try it.
(And I’m sorry for not reading the sarcasm. I should have known on this site.)
I was in the same boat, intrigued but not willing to pay for it to try it. It’s one of the free monthly games on there right now, definitely recommend it.
No apologies required, a lot of people don’t get my ‘dry’ humor in person, much less on the internet!
Oh, wow. I had also wanted to play the Lego racing game. Great free games this month. Glad I didn’t cancel my PS Plus subscription!
I have owned and worked on way too many Jeeps and VWs with electrical problems, some caused by water, that this just makes me shaky and queasy.
As a former Honda Element owner, I can tell you that once “you can hose it out” becomes an internet thing, it never goes away. The Element interior was never one that you could hose out, yet people still believe it today.
It is weird how people seem to never think that through, like they really want to believe there’s a vehicle that’s somehow hermetically sealed inside.
Cars are basically like everyday wristwatches from the ’70s. They can withstand a splash or so, but taking them swimming is a good way to destroy them.
Remember, 49% of people are below average.
…and the rest aren’t that great either.
And once again the filming person (on Tiktok) is too dumb to hold the phone NOT upright.
That’s not dumb, that’s the tiktok format. While I also dislike it, I can’t argue with it when that is how the platform presents video.
You wanna cover the inside of a car in mud then pressure wash it all out, go ahead. I’m not your supervisor. I can’t let the exterior wash slide, though. Every good detailer knows you need 3, maybe 4 $30 buckets from a big detailing brand (don’t forget the dollies for the buckets, either), 2 microfibers per panel and a $300 blowdryer.
Now I know why my cars are never really clean. I’ve been using the pickle buckets I found behind a fast food place as my wash buckets and lifting them like some sort of chump.
At least they don’t smell like pickles anymore.
My first thought when reading your paragraph about the end result is that the “after” shots were done before the vehicle was deliberately pigpen’d. Even if the car drove under its own power, it’s possible there was something wrong with it that it was already a write-off or close to it. Of course with that many hits they probably made so much from the video that the car was paid for.
And yes, “ignore TikTok” is sage wisdom more people should heed.
You don’t necessarily make money even after your video hits on TikTok – especially if you’re not in the US. I did one that totally inexplicably hit 10 million and I haven’t made a single cent off of it.
“Ignore TikTok”
This is good advice all around. It sucks.